Lawsuit + Impeachment = Big Money
KING: Welcome back. Turns out talking about impeaching or suing the President is a way to raise some big money. Let's deal with the "I" word first. House Speaker John Boehner says poppycock. When Democrats say Republicans plan to impeach the President they're wrong.</s>BOEHNER: The whole talk of impeachment is coming from the President's own staff and coming from Democrats on Capitol Hill. Why? Because they're trying to rally their people to give money and to show up in this year's election. We have no plans to impeach the President. We have no future plans. Listen, it's all a scam started by Democrats at the White House.</s>KING: Not all a scam. The Speaker's right, he has never put impeachment on the table but a few Republicans have, including Sarah Palin and that's what Democrats have seized on, Republicans who have said impeach him or we would like to impeach him or we would vote for impeachment. That's what Democrats are seizing on and yes, Democrats are using a lot of hyperbole to raise a ton of money. Also same issue, Republicans are -- the House Republicans suing the President and guess what? They say they're suing on principle but they're also trying to raise some political money off it. Here's a Republican e-mail, "Thanks for supporting the lawsuit. Please send money so we can elect more Republicans." But the most surprising part of this is how much Democrats love it. They love the Republican talk of suing the President. Now, they say Speaker Boehner says this opens the door to impeachment. Again, the Speaker hasn't said that but it's a fund-raising e-mail -- a lot of hyperbole. Boehner refuses to say impeachment is off the table. Again, you just heard the Speaker say impeachment is off the table. Why are Democrats doing this? Well, let me give you almost 10 million reasons. They say since the Republicans said we're going to sue the President they have raised nearly $10 million for House Democratic campaign. So Jonathan Martin, prove to me as we talked a little bit about the policy in the last block that all the parties care about here is raising money and getting to November. There's not really a serious conversation about getting anything done and this lawsuit idea for both parties serves their purpose. They both love it because they gin up the base.</s>MARTIN: Classic Washington symbiosis. I think the prospects for having anything done in the Congress, John, that ship sailed months ago. We have been in campaign mode now since the start of this year. And frankly, the only window for getting anything done will probably be in the lame duck session after Election Day and before the next Congress.</s>ALLEN: The Republican leadership has been surprised by the way this backfired. It's what you get for being too cute. As you guys know, the only reason that they ever talked about suing the President was that they thought that was a way to deflate the impeachment.</s>ALLEN: And instead it gave the White House an opening. And the moment that I knew how much the White House loved this issue the very first day the President talked about a lawsuit -- Boehner talked about a lawsuit. I thought it seemed like a stunt, funny that, and I didn't put it in political playbook and the White House complained. Boehner said I knew right away where this was headed.</s>KING: You see the President out there saying sue me, sue me. Nancy Pelosi, they love to talk about this because they're raising money off it which they hope will help them in November. You do hear the President from time to time talking about Washington and he's trying to turn this to his advantage saying the Republicans just want to sue him where he'd like to get some things done. Listen.</s>OBAMA: We could do so much more if Congress would just come on and help out a little bit. Just come on. Come on and help out a little bit. Stop being mad all the time. Stop -- stop this hating all the time.</s>KING: Smart politics for the President in this election year, a very tough election year for him. But Robert, is there any evidence that the President has quietly tried to work with members of Congress, his Republican critics or that Harry Reid tried to come across to the senate? I know John Boehner hasn't gone to Harry Reid. This is not all a Democratic problem, this is a mutual problem. But is there any evidence the Democrats have actually tried to do what the President said which is get things done?</s>COSTA: When I speak to House Republicans and Senate Democrats they say there's not that much engagement from the White House and I think the White House's political strategy is entirely understandable. But I wonder if the President's going to pay any sort of political price to have such a midterm emphasis on people like Steve Stockman, Sarah Palin. Sure, are they out there on the fringe of the right in the Republican Party talking about impeachment but that really isn't the core Republican message this year. So he's running against the extreme part of the party, not the center of the party and I wonder if voters will pay attention.</s>HENDERSON: Yes. But the thing is, with the lawsuit -- that is the House Republican. They own that, they obviously voted to pass it and voted to sue the President. In the White House's eyes and I think in grassroots people's eyes as well, it's almost the same thing, right. And I think one of the things you've seen Republicans really try to cut this talk off of impeachment. But in a lot of ways it's already out there. You listen to black radio, for instance, they're talking about impeachment. They're talking about lawsuit. We know in 1998 we've seen this before with Clinton and it was black voters particularly in the south that really came to Clinton's rescue, and helped him stave off losing the senate.</s>MARTIN: This is what drives McConnell and Boehner crazy, the story of our time in Washington which is the Republican Party poised to make big gains over a backlash to the President. Those gains are stymied -- at least in part because they had to mollify --</s>ALLEN: Stymied and mollify -- look at you.</s>MARTIN: -- the fringe of their own party -- right.</s>KING: Those are big "New York Times" words.</s>ALLEN: Exactly.</s>KING: But you make a key point there, though. I think in that environment, where people have seen the Republican big goals, they look at them now and think maybe not. It seems the one thing both parties do agree on, that there's not a giant waive out there they think.</s>KING: Democrats think if they can lose only 8 to 12 House seats they'll be in play if they get a presidential win in 2016 to maybe get the majority back. They think that you could have the senate the Republicans need in the gain of six, they think it's possible. Someone's got to get 51 or 52, we just don't know who that someone is -- that's the point. Is that a fair assessment that they both sort of view this now as chess for the last three months?</s>COSTA: I think so. I think one of the frustrations on the Republican side, what is the Republican message? They're not going to bring an alternative to the Affordable Care Act up in the House. They're having all this trouble passing a border bill. Good luck trying to pass an alternative to Obama care. But on jobs, on entitlement reform, on the budget, there's not much consensus. It's not coherent on the GOP side and so they feel optimistic ahead of the midterms but there's not a core message.</s>KING: There's not a wave message.</s>HENDERSON: Right, right. There's not a wave message and it looked like early on maybe it would be Obama care but that seems to have, you know, subsided a bit and it looks like Republicans now look like Democrats in terms of all of these issues and they're just throwing them on the wall to see what sticks.</s>ALLEN: Look, here is an amazing sign of just how bleak the environment is for Democrats. A Democratic strategist who had access to all the polls, focus groups said "We're writing off voters who are angry. Our target voters now are people who are worried, disappointed, concerned." Those are the voters that they want. That's a bad place to be. It's a matter of mitigating a tough year.</s>KING: Right, try to mitigate a tough year but they think it's a little better than they would have a couple months ago. We've got three months to go -- a lot can change. Everybody stay put. Up next, tomorrow's news today -- our reporters share some nuggets and get you out ahead of the big political news to come.