US midterms: Donald Trump warns supporters he could be impeached if they don’t vote

US President warns supporters that America could be turned into a ‘third-world country’ if they don’t vote in midterms.

President Donald Trump speaks during a fundraiser for Republican gubernatorial hopeful Kristi Noem in Sioux Falls. Photo: AP

President Trump has warned supporters that it will be “your fault” for not turning out to vote if he is impeached by Congress after November’s midterm elections.

He claimed that impeachment would set a precedent for attacks on presidents that would turn America “into a third-world country”, as he defended his record on the economy. Figures yesterday showed that 201,000 jobs were created last month — beating expectations — along with the largest jump in monthly pay in nearly a decade.

“Let’s say a Democrat gets elected and let’s say we have a Republican House. We will impeach that Democrat, right?” Mr Trump told a rally in Billings, Montana. “You’re going to have a country that’s going to turn into a third-world country because if the opposite party becomes president before you even found out whether or not he or she is going to do a great job, they’ll say, ‘We want to impeach him …’

“If it does happen it’s your fault because you didn’t go out to vote.”

His warning came as Washington remained obsessed with the identity of the “senior official” who wrote an anonymous article in The New York Times claiming that a cabal was working to subvert Mr Trump’s “worst inclinations”. There were reports that the White House had a list of a dozen suspects and was discussing whether to ask them to sign affidavits, while Rand Paul, a Republican senator from Kentucky, recommended lie-detector tests.

More details emerged from a book by the journalist Bob Woodward called Fear that described how Gary Cohn, the former chief economic adviser, removed documents from Mr Trump’s desk to save international trade deals. This included a letter withdrawing from an agreement with South Korea that is reproduced unsigned in the book, suggesting that Woodward relied on Mr Cohn as a source. “Members of his staff had joined to purposefully block some of what they believed were the president’s most dangerous impulses,” Woodward wrote, resonating with the anonymous article published on Thursday. “It was a nervous breakdown of the executive power of the most powerful country in the world.”

The book also contains a photo of one of Mr Trump’s speeches with the words “Trade is bad” scrawled on it, the Washington Post said. It says that he wanted to call his tax-reducing measures, the “Cut, Cut, Cut Bill”.

“The president clung to an outdated view of America — locomotives, factories with huge smokestacks, workers busy on assembly lines,” Woodward wrote. Asked by Mr Cohn why he clung to those beliefs, he replied: “I just do. I’ve had those views for 30 years.”

Mr Trump tweeted: “The Woodward book is a scam. I don’t talk the way I am quoted. If I did I would not have been elected President. These quotes were made up. The author uses every trick in the book to demean and belittle. I wish the people could see the real facts — and our country is doing GREAT!”

The Woodward book is a scam. I don’t talk the way I am quoted. If I did I would not have been elected President. These quotes were made up. The author uses every trick in the book to demean and belittle. I wish the people could see the real facts - and our country is doing GREAT!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 7, 2018

Mr Trump also said that Jeff Sessions, the attorney-general, should investigate the author of the anonymous article. “We’re going to take a look … where he is right now,” Mr Trump said to reporters aboard Air Force One.

He threatened to expand his trade war against China if it retaliated to tariffs on dollars 200 billion of trade that he is poised to impose. “I hate to say that, but behind that, there’s another dollars 267 billion ready to go,” he said.

Barack Obama, the former president, rejoined the political fray yesterday (Friday) with his first attack on Mr Trump by name since his successor won the presidency, claiming in a speech that Republicans had embraced “the politics of fear and paranoia”.

“It did not start with Donald Trump, he is a symptom, not the cause … he is just capitalising on resentments that politicians have been fanning for years,”

Mr Obama, 57, said in a speech at the University of Illinois as he hit the campaign trail to encourage Democrat supporters to vote. “This moment in our country is too perilous for Democratic voters to sit out,” he said. Democrats need to pick up 23 seats to win a majority in the House of Representatives and two seats in the Senate.

THE TIMES