What McCarthy and House Republicans hope to accomplish with Biden impeachment inquiry

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• Amna Nawaz:

  Months of Republican allegations and investigations into President Joe Biden have led to this. The GOP-controlled House of Representatives has launched an impeachment inquiry into the president. It's just the fifth time in American history an incumbent has faced a formal inquiry.

  Laura Barrón-López begins our coverage.

• Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA):

  House Republicans have uncovered serious and credible allegations into President Biden's conduct.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Within hours of returning from recess, Speaker Kevin McCarthy bypasses a floor vote and directs Republicans to turn their months-long investigations into President Biden and his son Hunter's business dealings into a formal impeachment inquiry.

• Rep. Kevin McCarthy:

  These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption. And they warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives. That's why today I am directing our House committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Republicans have lobbed unsubstantiated allegations against President Biden since taking over the House in January, but have so far turned up no evidence of wrongdoing.

  Now three committees, Oversight led by Chairman James Comer, Judiciary led by Jim Jordan and Ways and Means led by Jason Smith, will continue their dive into money members of Joe Biden's family made overseas, allegations of selling access and whether the president arranged — quote — "special treatment" for his son in ongoing criminal investigations.

• Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY):

  Extreme MAGA Republicans have launched an illegitimate impeachment inquiry that is a kangaroo court, fishing expedition and conspiracy theater rolled into one.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Congressional Democrats and the White House dismissed the new investigation as politically motivated.

  White House spokesman Ian Sams said: "House Republicans have been investigating the president for nine months, and they have turned up no evidence of wrongdoing. His own Republican members have said so. This is extreme politics at its worst."

  McCarthy called the designation a — quote — "logical next step" that will give GOP committees stronger investigative powers to access bank records and other documents.

  But his announcement also comes as Congress faces an end-of-September deadline to prevent a government shutdown.

• Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL):

  The rushed and somewhat rattled performance you just saw from the speaker isn't real.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  And far right Republicans have threatened a shutdown and McCarthy's gavel if their list of demands, including an impeachment inquiry, go unmet.

• Rep. Matt Gaetz:

  I rise today to serve notice. Mr. Speaker, you are out of compliance with the agreement that allowed you to assume this role. The path forward for the House of Representatives is to either bring you into immediate, total compliance or remove you, pursuant to a motion to vacate the chair.

• Amna Nawaz:

  And our White House correspondent, Laura Barrón-López, joins me now for more, along with Heather Caygle. She's a managing editor at Punchbowl News, which covers Congress. She joins us from Capitol Hill.

  Welcome to you both.

  Heather, I want to start with you.

  Just share your reporting with us, if you can. What is behind that announcement from Speaker McCarthy today?

• Heather Caygle, Managing Editor, Punchbowl News:

  Well, Amna, Speaker McCarthy was facing significant pressure from the right to move forward on this impeachment inquiry.

  And I think, from what we have been told privately today, he had hoped that moving ahead with this week would give him a little breathing room in the government funding negotiations, that these hard-line conservatives would be more likely to support a short-term deal at the end of the month, which McCarthy thinks is needed to give him a stronger negotiating hand with Senate Democrats and the White House.

  Now, all of that being said, conservatives have since come out and said an impeachment inquiry is not enough. And they have an entire investigation list of demands that they want, everything from defunding the FBI, to cutting billions of more dollars from federal agencies.

  As we're speaking right now, McCarthy is actually meeting with a group of Republican moderates. Several of these moderates are in districts that President Biden won in the last election, and he's privately trying to convince them of the necessity of this inquiry, which several of them had pushed back against over the August recess.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Laura, you have been talking to your White House sources.

  What are they saying in reaction to this impeachment inquiry.

• Laura Barrón-López:

  The White House is again saying that there is no evidence, that this is — quote — "extreme politics."

  And to Heather's point about the list of demands that these far right conservatives are issuing in exchange for funding the government, the White House is very eager to latch on to that and say that this is extreme Republicans trying to potentially cause a government shutdown in exchange for an impeachment inquiry, in exchange for these — a host of all these other demands.

  And so they had already started highlighting that, Amna, heading into this September session, and they're going to be focused on it again. Also, the Biden campaign told me that they're going to be zeroing in on the Trump connection and essentially saying that this attempt to pursue an impeachment inquiry just further demonstrates that House Republicans are trying to help former President Trump and are trying to follow his bidding.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Heather, we heard Representative Matt Gaetz there threatening basically to force a vote to remove McCarthy.

  We know the concessions Speaker McCarthy made to secure the gavel with many of those far right members of his conference. Is his speakership in peril?

• Heather Caygle:

  I would say, if you asked Matt Gaetz, he would say yes.

  He said today that McCarthy wasn't living up to the contours of that deal. Now, we know several of the agreements that he made with conservatives back in January after those 15 votes, but the full deal was never released. And depending on who you ask, if you ask McCarthy's office or if you ask some of these conservative hard-liners like Gaetz, they will say that they agreed to different things.

  But because no one has seen actual paper, we don't know what this handshake agreement that they made was. Now Congressman Gaetz says McCarthy is not living up to this, even after the speaker agreed and moved ahead with this impeachment inquiry.

  I think the question now is, would McCarthy have the votes if this were launched to survive a challenge to his speakership? Before this, we would have seen Democrats possibly help him out. Now they're privately saying there's no way we're doing that when you're trying to impeach the Democratic president.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Laura, you shared with us what the White House sources are saying, but what about other Democrats? Are they at all concerned that this could hurt the political future of the Biden reelection campaign?

• Laura Barrón-López:

  Democrats I have talked to Amna across the House, Senate, campaign said that they're not concerned at this point, due to the lack of evidence.

  I spoke to one Republican pollster today who actually was conducting a focus group as they were texting me of Trump-to-Biden voters. And they said that only one voter in that group knew about the impeachment inquiry announcement, despite the fact that it happened hours prior in the day, that no one cared about Hunter Biden, they cared about the economy.

  And pollsters like that have told me that swing voters generally see this as a personal matter, a personal family problem, and that they don't hold it against President Biden.

  Now, another important piece of final context, Amna, on the motivation for House Republicans is that Republican members were saying as early as September of 2022 that they were going to launch an impeachment inquiry even before they won the House.

  And I spoke to former House Republican Charlie Dent, a moderate that was ostracized by his party and essentially pushed out. And he said that the motivation for Republicans here is to muddy the waters and to try to draw a false equivalency, all as people are delivering under-oath testimony in the alleged criminal — alleged criminality against Trump in those trials, and that Republicans are trying essentially to hurt Biden politically.

• Amna Nawaz:

  Another historic day here in Washington. I have a feeling we're going to be covering this quite a bit in the weeks and months ahead.

  Thanks for joining me here in the studio, our White House correspondent, Laura Barrón-López, and, from Capitol Hill, Heather Caygle of Punchbowl News. Thank you to you both.

• Heather Caygle:

  Thank you.