Trump's odds of staying in office: The Day 6 Impeach-O-Meter for May 10
Will this week's standoff between the White House and Congress move the needle?
When Donald Trump generates headlines, Day 6 fires up the Impeach-O-Meter, inviting political experts to estimate the odds his presidency will end in impeachment. These are, of course, subjective and hypothetical scores and the impeachment process is complex and dependent on many factors.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has for months preached restraint on talk about impeaching Donald Trump, but this week, she made her frustration with the president clear.
"Every single day, the president is making a case — he's becoming self-impeachable," she said on May 8.
Those remarks came two days after Attorney General William Barr refused to comply with a House committee subpoena demanding he turn over the unredacted version of the Mueller report, along with underlying evidence.
On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee voted to hold Barr in contempt of Congress.
The White House has made it clear they have no intention of complying with any congressional investigations related to the Russia probe, leaving the Democrats with few options.
Both Pelosi and the committee's chairman, Jerry Nadler, have said the country is in the midst of a "constitutional crisis" as a result of White House officials' ongoing refusal to cooperate with Congress.
In the midst of that ongoing standoff, Day 6 is once again firing up the Impeach-O-Meter.
Every few weeks, we ask a political expert to weigh in on the odds of Trump being impeached, from one — meaning totally safe in the White House — to 100, meaning impeachment is imminent.
When we last checked in, Marcy Wheeler, an independent national security journalist, placed the Impeach-O-Meter at 40 per cent — a 34 per cent increase from the prior reading.
This week, Tina Nguyen, a staff writer with Vanity Fair's The Hive, offered her take on how recent events have affected the president's chances of impeachment.
Here's part of what she told Day 6:
Ever since the Mueller report came out and the investigation outlined potential obstruction of justice, the Democrats have been calling to have Congress investigate this further.
The problem is the Trump administration refuses to play ball. They're preventing officials from appearing before Congress. They had Bill Barr, the attorney general, just not show up one day.
They've had Steve Mnuchin openly tell Congress, 'No, I'm not going to go to the Treasury and get Donald Trump's tax returns.' And right now they're going on a tear against the Democrats in the media.
But the fact that he keeps openly defying Congress is enough for a large segment of the Democratic Party to start saying, 'Wait a second. This guy is obstructing justice even more in front of us. Why haven't we started impeachment?'
The problem that Nancy Pelosi faces is she also needs to maintain the Democratic majority that they fought so hard to win in 2018. So Pelosi has a tough calculation ahead of her.
Does she listen to the progressive wing of the party that wants impeachment proceedings, or does she hold her fire, wait until something truly egregious happens and hope that it's not going to impact the Democrats' chance in 2020?
So, where does Tina Nguyen place the odds of a Donald Trump impeachment this week?
"I would think [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] would want it to be a nine, but I'm going to put this at a six."
That marks a 34 per cent decrease over our last reading.
We'll continue to track the numbers in the weeks to come, and you can follow along here.
To hear Tina Nguyen give her Impeach-O-Meter prediction, download our podcast or click the 'Listen' button at the top of this page