Trump Tweet Shows Democrats’ Impeachment Calls: Campaign Update

(Bloomberg) -- Only minutes after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced an impeachment inquiry of Donald Trump, the president’s re-election campaign put out a video attacking it.

The one and a half minute ad, posted on Trump’s Twitter feed, features a baker’s dozen of Democrats talking about impeachment before Trump is shown at a May rally in Panama City Beach, Florida, arguing that Democrats think it’s the ”only way they’re going to beat me.”

“If we don’t impeach this president, he will get re-elected,” Democratic Representative Al Green says in the video, which ends with rally-goers chanting “four more years” over the Trump-Pence logo.

The video prominently features Senator Elizabeth Warren, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff and Pelosi, along with Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer, who funded the Need to Impeach campaign. But it also highlights eight members of Congress who are minorities, including Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib and Maxine Waters, who are frequent Trump targets.

Trump posted the video after several tweets sent during “executive time” at Trump Tower after his speech at the United Nations General Assembly, calling the inquiry “presidential harassment” and ”Witch Hunt garbage.”

Sanders Won’t Say If Biden’s Son Is Off Limits (4:02 p.m.)

Bernie Sanders said it was too early to say whether he would refrain from criticizing Joe Biden’s son for his business dealings with a Ukrainian energy company.

“I know I’m a little bit old-fashioned, I like to see the evidence before I talk about things. I read the papers. I read what I read, but I don’t know enough to say at this point to make any definitive statement,” he said at a news conference in Davenport, Iowa, when asked whether Hunter Biden should be off limits as a talking point for Democratic candidates on the campaign trail.

Sanders’ attitude toward Biden could be a departure from his decision during the 2016 campaign not to go after Hillary Clinton for the email scandal over which she was repeatedly assailed by Donald Trump.

Trump pressured the Ukrainian president to investigate Hunter Biden’s business activities when he was a director of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company. That phone conversation has led to a congressional investigation and calls from many Democrats to begin impeachment proceedings. Trump has repeatedly said, without evidence, that Hunter Biden was involved in corruption and that Joe Biden, then vice president, intervened to further his son’s business interests.

Sanders also reiterated his support for impeachment proceedings against Trump, joining fellow 2020 candidates and Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris. Biden said Tuesday he would back impeaching Trump if the White House refuses to comply with congressional demands for information about the president’s interactions with Ukraine’s president. -- Emma Kinery

Warren Climbs Into Lead in New Hampshire (1:31 p.m.)

Days after she moved into the lead in Iowa, Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren inched ahead of former Vice President Joe Biden in a New Hampshire poll.

Warren has the support of 27% of New Hampshire voters likely to participate in the February primary, up 19 percentage points from the same survey in May, according to a poll by Monmouth University. Biden came in a close second at 25%, down 11 points from May. The result is within the poll’s 4.6 percentage-point margin of error. Bernie Sanders, who won the state against Hillary Clinton in 2016, slipped 6 points to 12%. It was the first time Warren surpassed both Sanders and Biden in the Granite State.

The Massachusetts senator’s lead in New Hampshire comes after she topped the Iowa poll on Saturday, with 22% compared with Biden’s 20%. Though the result is within the poll’s 4 percentage point margin of error, it was the first time Warren has led Biden in the Iowa Poll series.

In New Hampshire, Pete Buttigieg’s support increased by 1 point to 10%. The remainder of the field polled in the single digits. Hawaii Representative Tulsi Gabbard had 2% support, making the cutoff to be the 12th Democratic candidate to qualify for the October debate.

The Monmouth University poll was conducted by telephone from Sept. 17-21 with 401 likely New Hampshire primary voters out of 664 registered voters. -- Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou

Warren Targets Collins’ Maine Senate Seat (12:47 p.m.)

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren is increasing her campaign organizing in Maine, throwing her weight behind an effort to unseat Senator Susan Collins, a moderate Republican.

Warren’s campaign said it was focusing its resources on keeping the House and taking back the Senate, including in “Maine, which has a competitive Senate race, and Georgia, where there will be two Senate seats up for election.”

Democrat Sara Gideon, the speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, is running against Collins for a seat that could be critical to the Democrats’ push to win a Senate majority. A Gravis poll in June showed Collins well ahead with 44%, while Gideon had 30%.

Collins has drawn fire from Democrats for her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and from Republicans for voting against Donald Trump’s efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Along with Maine and Georgia, the Warren campaign is targeting Texas and Florida. -- Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou

Warren Bolsters Campaign Plans After Poll Surge (11:30 a.m.)

Fresh off a first-place standing in the latest Iowa Poll, Elizabeth Warren is stepping up her campaign organization.

In an email to supporters Tuesday, her campaign announced it’s hiring state directors and organizers in states that have nominating contests in March, including Illinois and California, as well as Michigan, a crucial swing state in 2020.

Warren is also launching an eight-figure digital and TV advertising campaign in the first four nominating states of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina.

“Right now, our biggest expense as a campaign is our staff, but as the campaign heats up, it will be on media to reach potential voters,” Warren’s campaign manager Roger Lau said in the email.

Warren polled at 22% in an Iowa Poll released Saturday, compared with 20% for Joe Biden, who was within the survey’s margin of error of 4 percentage points. -- Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou

Buttigieg Says Impeaching Trump Not His Focus: (10:49 a.m.)

Pete Buttigieg praised the seven swing-district Democrats who called for impeaching President Donald Trump, describing their opinion column in the Washington Post as “important” in part because they represent parts of the country that could tip the House majority in 2020.

But he said impeachment is not his focus when talking to voters, and expressed doubt that it would move people to support Democrats.

“My message is: Yeah, he needs to be impeached, now let’s get you some health care,” Buttigieg told reporters aboard his Iowa bus tour Tuesday morning.

The presidential candidate from Indiana said voters have made up their minds about Trump and suggested that impeachment proceedings will reinforce their views. He said the party must be able to do two things at once.

“If you don’t already think, having seen this president confess to corruption and wrongdoing and probably criminality, that he shouldn’t be in office, then obviously you’re making up your mind on something else. So let’s find the something else,” he said, adding that “the main conversation” with voters should be about policy and paychecks.

Buttigieg’s remarks came the morning after a town hall in Dubuque in eastern Iowa, where he took 10 audience questions, none of which were about impeachment. -- Sahil Kapur

Gabbard Condemns New DNC Debate Qualifications (9:18 a.m.)

Tulsi Gabbard slammed as “arbitrary” the Democratic National Committee’s new polling qualifications for the fifth debate between candidates vying to be the party’s presidential nominee.
The congresswoman from Hawaii, who did not meet the criteria to take the stage in this month’s debate and was one qualifying poll away from making the next session on Oct. 15-16, told Fox News Tuesday that the rules are spurring “a lack of transparency and a lack of trust in the process.”

The DNC announced Monday that to make the cut for November’s debate candidates must show they’ve received donations from at least 165,000 unique contributors, up from 130,000. Those must include at least 600 donors per state in at least 20 states.

And contenders also must meet one of two polling thresholds: either 3% or more in any four national or single-state polls or at least 5% in two polls from the first four primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. In the September and October debates, candidates needed to have 2% support in four approved polls. -- Caitlin Webber

COMING UP

The United Food and Commercial Workers union will host forums in Iowa and Michigan with Democratic presidential candidates on Sept. 29 and Oct. 13. Michael Bennet, Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have confirmed that they will attend.

--With assistance from Caitlin Webber, Sahil Kapur, Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou and Emma Kinery.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ryan Teague Beckwith in New York at rbeckwith3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max Berley

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