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The House had a 'responsibility' to impeach Donald Trump, activist DeRay Mckesson says

Even if the Senate doesn’t convict President Donald Trump, the House had a “responsibility” to impeach him, says activist and podcast host DeRay Mckesson.

In a newly released interview, taped last Tuesday, Mckesson criticized Democratic leaders for putting off impeachment earlier in Trump’s term, but credited Democratic New York City Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for advocating that the House uphold its role in the proceedings.

On Wednesday night, the House voted in a near-uniform party line vote to impeach Trump on two articles: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. A few House Democrats chose not to side with their party, including Hawaii Representative and Democratic Presidential Candidate Tulsi Gabbard, who voted present on both articles.

“People like AOC have it perfect,” says Mckesson, who came to national prominence in 2014 as a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter movement. “We have a responsibility, and we do our part.”

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“When it goes to Senate, they have to do their part,” Mckesson adds. “If they don't remove, then they don't remove, but that doesn't mean that we actually don't uphold our end of the bargain.”

Ocasio-Cortez called for the opening of an impeachment inquiry back in May, citing the Mueller Report’s evidence of obstruction committed by Trump; Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a close ally of Ocasio-Cortez, drew attention in January when she called for Trump’s impeachment hours after she was sworn into office.

A set of activist groups — including Indivisible, MoveOn, Need to Impeach, and Stand Up America — launched a campaign in August to push House Democratic leaders to open an inquiry.

“If anything, it was odd to see the left sort of slow down the impeachment talk for so long,” Mckesson says. “Then we finally get to the Ukraine moment, and people are like, ‘oh, that's really bad.’ You're like, well, he's done a lot of really bad things.”

“It's good that we're moving forward. It is still sort of weird to see Trump be so aggressive and so intense, and people still be reticent about fighting him,” he adds.

House Republicans fiercely defended Trump in hours of debate on Wednesday before the impeachment vote, questioning the motives of Democrats and framing the vote as an effort to preempt the 2020 presidential race next November, when Trump will likely be up for re-election.

Trump is the third president in U.S. history to be impeached, sharing the distinction with mid-19th century President Andrew Johnson and President Bill Clinton, who served two terms in the 1990s. Neither Johnson nor Clinton was convicted in the Senate.

Mckesson made the comments during a conversation that aired in an episode of Yahoo Finance’s “Influencers with Andy Serwer,” a weekly interview series with leaders in business, politics, and entertainment.

Age 34, Mckesson leapt onto the national stage five years ago when he joined protests against the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, becoming a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter movement. The host of a podcast called “Pod Save the People,” Mckesson published a memoir last year called “On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope.”

In 2016, Time Magazine named him one of the 30 most influential people on the internet.

Activist and podcast host DeRay Mckesson appears on Influencers with Andy Serwer.
Activist and podcast host DeRay Mckesson appears on Influencers with Andy Serwer.

Trump hasn’t done anything ‘morally right,’ Mckesson says

The policies of President Donald Trump have benefited some people, but he hasn’t done anything “morally right” over his tenure, says Mckesson.

“Has Trump done something that has probably benefited some people? Sure,” says Mckesson, who came to national prominence in 2014 as a leading voice in the Black Lives Matter movement. But, he added, “I cannot think of something that he has done that has been morally right.”

“If you are rich and white, then I think that he probably has done morally right things for you,” Mckesson adds.

Mckesson credited Trump for his support of the First Step Act, a criminal justice reform bill signed into law last year. The measure — which reduced the minimum sentences for some drug offenders, relaxed some features of imprisonment, and created job-training programs — has resulted in the release or reduced term of about 4,700 inmates, according to a report from NBC News that cites data from the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the U.S. Sentencing Commission.

When it came up for a vote in Congress last December, the bill received bipartisan support, including votes from senators as disparate as Texas Republican Ted Cruz and California Democrat Kamala Harris.

Trump seized the opportunity to support a popular bill, said Mckesson, the co-founder of an organization called Campaign Zero that aims to end police killings.

“Do I think he did it because his values align with it? No. Do I think that it was, like, a value proposition for him? No. I think it was like a re-election tool,” Mckesson says.

Max Zahn is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Find him on twitter @MaxZahn_.

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