Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg expressed support for the impeachment of President Donald Trump and said he would not pardon Trump if confronted with that choice in the White House.
The TexasTribune writes that the MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle wasted no time getting straight to the impeachment question in her one-on-one interview Friday afternoon with Buttigieg at The Texas Tribune Festival.
“Impeach or not to impeach?” she asked him for her first question. After raucous applause erupted and then quickly died down inside the Paramount Theatre in Austin, Buttigieg said simply, “Yes.”
“We’ve reached a point where the rule of law and our constitutional system requires holding this president accountable for what he’s done,” said Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana. “This is not just about this moment or about this president. This is about the integrity of the system.”
Later — in her last question — Ruhle asked Buttigieg if, as president, he would pardon Trump in the event that his predecessor had been convicted of crimes. Buttigieg said he would not.
“It’s not about him. It’s about the presidency,” Buttigieg said. “We have learned the hard way what happens when we’re deprived of a presidency, not just a president who agrees with me on policy but a president that your kids can look up to. And we need to demonstrate that that will never be allowed to happen again by showing that there are consequences.”
