This is the Totally Normal Quote of the Day, spotlighting a remark from the news that underscores just how remarkably ordinary everything has become.
“When was it said it was gonna fix the problem?” —Republican Rep. Ralph Norman, responding to an MSNBC reporter’s inquiry about how impeaching DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas would address the issues at the U.S. southern border.
If you don’t succeed at first, try, try again. That’s precisely what House Republicans did—barely—when they succeeded in impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday night, marking their second attempt this month.
By a vote of 214–213, House Republicans made history by impeaching the first sitting cabinet official in 148 years. (The most recent impeachment was of Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876.) House Majority Leader Steve Scalise returned to Capitol Hill to vote for impeachment after receiving treatment for blood cancer.
Republicans Seem to Have Unleashed the “Pandora’s Box of Impeachment” (Credits: The Times Of Israel)
Meanwhile, two Democrats—Reps. Lois Frankel and Judy Chu—were absent, and it’s presumed that if either had been present, Mayorkas would not have been impeached.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” stated Speaker Mike Johnson during a press conference Wednesday morning. “We felt compelled to take this action.”
But did they truly feel compelled? Just a week prior, House Republicans were less certain about the necessity of impeachment, falling short by one vote in their first attempt to impeach Mayorkas.
Shortly before that vote, Rep. Mike Gallagher, who voted against impeachment, criticized the party’s motives for pursuing it in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, pointing out the absence of any actual criminal offenses cited, only underenforcement of current immigration policies.
“If we make underenforcement of the law, even egregious underenforcement, impeachable, almost every cabinet secretary would be subject to impeachment,” Gallagher wrote, who also recently announced he won’t seek reelection.
“Establishing a new, lower impeachment standard, one without any clear limiting principle, wouldn’t secure the border or hold Mr. Biden accountable,” Gallagher continued. “It would only open the door to perpetual impeachment.”
In the same week as the first Mayorkas impeachment vote, Republicans derailed their own immigration bill, legislation aimed at bolstering border security and providing more assistance to Ukraine. Why? Mainly because presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump stated, he needed chaos at the southern border to persist for the sake of his campaign.
Mayorkas’ impeachment now heads to the Senate, where it’s likely the charges against him will be dismissed, allowing the Homeland Security secretary to resume his regular duties. So, what was all this for? Well, Norman might have just spoken the unsaid.
