Tlaib renews Trump impeachment call, praises Amash on ‘Meet the Press’

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit) appeared on “Meet the Press” this weekend, reiterating her call for President Donald Trump’s impeachment and reaching across the aisle to praise U.S. Rep. Justin Amash (R-Cascade Twp.) for his own.

“I think we need to stop separating the fact that we’re trying to change people’s lives for the better, but we have an administration that continues to violate the United States Constitution,” Tlaib said during her Sunday appearance on the program, calling Trump’s continuing to operate his businesses while in office an “upgraded version of pay-to-play.”

Meanwhile, Tlaib’s fellow Democrats in Congress have ramped up calls for special counsel Robert Mueller to testify in court, admitting that it may take a subpoena for him to do so. Last week, a federal judge ruled against Trump in a lawsuit that would have blocked House Democrats’ request for a subpoena in a separate case dealing with the president’s finances.

As the Advance previously reported, Michigan is at the center of the impeachment battle, as it’s the only state with members of Congress from both parties on board.

During her “Meet the Press” appearance, Tlaib sidestepped questions about why some of other Democrats aren’t as keen to ramp up the impeachment inquiry, saying their calls to focus on “kitchen table” issues like health care reform can’t be divorced from holding the president accountable for what Amash has called “impeachable conduct.”

Last week, Tlaib’s fellow freshman U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly) told the Advance that she was “really worried that as we’re doing one half of our job of checks and balances on the administration; I don’t want to lose focus on the other half of our job, which is to legislate things that help people’s lives.”

Praising Amash, meanwhile, Tlaib said that she knows from serving with him in the Michigan Legislature that the West Michigan congressman is “all about putting country first.”

She called the Republican “one of the more courageous people that really does believe in the institution and believes in the rule of law,” adding that she “respect[s] that very much, and I continue to uplift his courage and for him to, again, put country before politics.”