Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
President Trump looks highly likely to head into Christmas impeached but riding high with record low unemployment, a surging stock market and a bipartisan trade deal to replace NAFTA.
Why it matters: This will fittingly stuff every partisan’s stockings with reasons to tell family he’s the greatest or worst president in American history.
Tuesday's remarkable split screen:
- 9:13 a.m.: Democrats unveiled articles of impeachment.
- 10:09 a.m.: Democrats announced they'll back the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which replaces NAFTA.
Between the lines: It's no coincidence that House Speaker Pelosi's concerns with USMCA have been satisfied at the same time as the articles of impeachment are presented and prepared for votes, Axios' Margaret Talev notes.
- For the 30-odd House Democrats in Trump districts for whom impeachment is a potentially perilous vote, this gives them a way to show that impeachment did not interfere with their ability to get stuff done — and gives them a vote to take home that will be important to a lot of their constituents.
House Republicans are resigned to the fact that they are powerless to the eventual outcome that Trump will become the third U.S. president to be impeached, Rep. Mark Meadows told Axios' Alayna Treene.
- “Elections have consequences. We're in the minority."
- “Strategically, there's nothing that will affect the outcome, ultimately. There are lots of things we can do to highlight things. But, not, not to stop it.”
The bottom line: There's a real chance America re-elects an impeached president next year, and a chance he gets impeached again.