AP Images
Election 2020 Tom Steyer
Tom Steyer, referred to as “an inconvenient billionaire,” has thrown his weight behind the movement to impeach President Trump.
Tom Steyer has been referred to as “An Inconvenient Billionaire.” The Stanford Business School graduate started an investment firm in the 1980s, made a fortune, and then started spending it to try and save the planet. What makes him “inconvenient” is that he does not donate money just to established candidates or ongoing campaigns.
Instead, he has poured tens of millions of dollars into organizing people to go further and fight harder to address climate change, stop pipelines, close corporate loopholes, defend immigrant rights, and expand participation by young people in American politics. He gives a lot of money to Democratic candidates, but he also pushes Democrats to go big on issues where party leaders are often cautious. Case in point: impeachment.
There’s a huge cost to leaving him in office—to the safety of the country and the American people and also to the sanctity of the Constitution.
In the fall of 2017, Steyer spent $10 million on a television advertising campaign in which he declared: “He’s brought us to the brink of nuclear war. Obstructed justice at the FBI. And in direct violation of the Constitution, he’s taken money from foreign governments and threatened to shut down news organizations that report the truth. If that isn’t a case for impeaching and removing a dangerous President, then what has our government become?”
He continued: “I’m Tom Steyer and I’m a citizen, and like you I know it’s up to us to do something. It’s why I’m funding this effort to raise our voices together and demand that elected officials take a stand on impeachment. A Republican Congress once impeached a President for far less. Yet today, people in Congress and his own administration know that this President is a clear and present danger, who’s mentally unstable and armed with nuclear weapons. And they do nothing. Join us. Tell your member of Congress that they have a moral responsibility to stop doing what’s political and start doing what’s right. Our country depends on it.”
More than 7.5 million Americans have joinedSteyer, signing “Need to Impeach” petitions. Now, as Democrats in the House are beginning to organize hearings that examine Trump Administration wrongdoing, as Trump associates testify about high crimes and misdemeanors in Congressional hearings and in court, the “I” word is finally being discussed. But Democratic Party leaders are still cautious, and Republicans are still resistant. So Steyer and his allies are stepping up their campaigning, arguing that impeachment is an absolute necessity.
Steyer and I had a long conversation recently about impeachment and a range of other issues.
Q: Why is it essential to impeach Donald Trump now as opposed to waiting for whatever people are waiting for, including reports from investigations, or even the 2020 election? Why is it urgent?
Tom Steyer: Let’s talk about urgency in terms of a President who is increasingly destructive. We have said for a long time, “He’s a deteriorating President,” and that every new crisis that he foments is worse than the last. Everyone keeps expecting that this is as bad as it can get, but it isn’t. The next one will be worse for a whole bunch of reasons.
And so yeah, he shut down the government for this ridiculous claim on the wall, and now he’s declared a fake emergency based on this ridiculous claim on the wall. And we’re seeing, and we’ll continue to see, more and more destructive behavior from this President. So that’s one thing: There’s a huge cost to leaving him in office—to the safety of the country and the American people and also to the sanctity of the Constitution.
The second point is this: We have rules. We have rules about what you’re allowed to do and what you’re not allowed to do. And if you have rules and you choose not to enforce them because you believe that it’s expensive, risky, or dangerous to enforce them, then actually you don’t have rules.
Everybody around the world knows exactly what’s going on. They know that [Trump’s] more than met the criteria to be impeached. They know that the House could impeach him and that it would be a question of how the vote would go in the Senate. But if we choose not to enforce our own rules and our own standards, then the new behavior is the standard.
If we choose not to enforce our own rules and our own standards, then the new behavior is the standard.
Q: Give us an example.
Steyer: [Consider] this declaration of a fake emergency. From now on, if you’re allowed to do this, then the President of the United States can do it anytime he wants to, anytime he disagrees with Congress. So now Presidents are going to declare a state of emergency on “name your poison” and reallocate the money. “It’s a state of emergency, then I get to do that.” That’s our new rule.
And on and on and on it goes. You can obstruct justice in plain sight. That’s OK. You’re basically saying, “The rules are in abeyance.” But when you put the rules in abeyance . . . you don’t have rules. You say you have rules, but you don’t, and everybody knows it. And that’s a different United States than the one we think we have and different from the one I hope we have.
Q: You say that we have a deteriorating President. I do not disagree. But isn’t there also the possibility of a deteriorating presidency? The next President may be a better person, maybe a dramatically better person. But, without impeachment, don’t we establish that the next President can go to the places where Trump has gone and never be held to account, even to the point of shredding the Constitution?
Steyer: That’s the point. That’s not just a possibility. I think that’s an overwhelming likelihood. If you establish that all of this is OK, I mean all of it, then I don’t see how you come back the next time and tell the next President it’s not OK.
Q: So how do we prevent that from happening?
Steyer: From our standpoint, what we’re trying to do is galvanize and empower the voice of the American people. We’re at a little over 7.5 million signatures [on petitions supporting Trump’s impeachment]. What we’ve said is: This is a movement to tell the truth and protect the American people and the Constitution.
[Our critics] don’t say we’re not telling the truth and they don’t say that the American people and the Constitution aren’t at risk. [But] they keep telling us that by doing that we’re taking a risk and we may upset some people. And we’ve definitely done both those things. I’m highly aware. We understand that this doesn’t fit into a lot of people’s horse race. But that’s not the framework we’re looking at. When I said I was going to do this, I said, “We’re going to do the right thing.” And that’s what we’re trying to do.
Q: There are a lot of people who want to put impeachment aside and say, “Oh, well, we’re going to have an election, and it’s getting closer and closer. Let’s focus on that.” But, to my mind, there’s a tremendous danger in not completing the processes of the Constitution, to see it through to where we establish what you can and cannot do.
Steyer: I find it so ironic. I really do. [Trump] literally called The New York Times “the enemy of the people.” That’s an amazing fact. Look, does The New York Times write stuff that makes my hair stand on end? Yes! Do I agree with The New York Times a lot of the time? Heck no! But the idea that a free press is the enemy of the people? That’s a pretty fascist statement. Straight up fascist.
The idea that a free press is the enemy of the people? That’s a pretty fascist statement.
Q: How should we judge the presidential candidates in regard to Trump and the impeachment question? Should we expect Democratic presidential candidates to be more focused on it? Should we expect them to go beyond talking about Trump as a bad President or a horrible President or a totalitarian and get specific about solutions in real time?
Steyer: I have always thought that if the biggest crisis [we have] is Mr. Trump, you’ve got to talk about what you’re going to do about it. You can’t just wring your hands and complain and whip people up and say: “Isn’t it terrible!” What are you going to do? There’s something we can do.
If you look at the big issues—health care, free college, free preschool, Green New Deal—those are all really important, and I’ve thought a lot about them. None of those things are passing in the next two years, right? No chance. There’s nothing that says they’re going to pass in the next four years, because there’s going to be a presidential election, and the Senate is currently 53-47. And there’s nothing that says for sure that they’re going to be passable in 2021 or 2022, right?
There is something [presidential candidates] can talk about that can actually happen, which is impeaching the President and getting rid of him. That can happen. We can have hearings in front of the American people so that the American people learn the truth. That can happen.
Q: So if the average citizen reads this or hears you talking and says, “Wow, that guy makes a lot of sense. I agree with him”—how should that citizen talk to the Democratic presidential candidates who come out campaigning? What should they ask a candidate in Iowa or New Hampshire or South Carolina?
Steyer: Why are you ducking the issue? Why are you scared to come clean on the issue? That’s the question.
Q: You could have run for President yourself, raising these issues. Why did you choose not to run?
Steyer: Look. I thought that I could have the most positive differential impact trying to rally the country and the American people around the idea of coming together around our values and getting rid of someone who is destroying our values. And that was something that I was in a position to do, because we’d worked on it, at that point, for fifteen months and because we had, at that point, six million people who’d signed our petition, and because I’d gone and done thirty-five town halls around the country. And I still feel that way. I mean, if you notice, there aren’t a lot of people competing with me on this.
Q: Yes. So let’s talk about what could come from impeachment hearings. It’s not just seeing Michael Cohen speak. It’s not just seeing Michael Flynn or others speak. It’s also, frankly, about having members of Congress and experts on the Constitution talking about what the country should be. An impeachment process done right, done responsibly, is a huge discussion about the fundamentals of the republic.
Steyer: It’s about who we are. [Remember] Watergate: That was a chance to reconfirm that we have values that we live up to. There were Republicans and Democrats doing the right thing in a very high-minded and effective way. And it was a great example of what America does at its best.
There was a reaffirmation by that process, and [by] the American people, that we have real values that have to do with truth and decency and obeying the rules and protecting the system against abuse. That’s exactly what that was about. Everybody got it. And, you know, people across the country came together to say, “Not OK”—against a President [Richard Nixon] who, by the way, won every state but one two years before.
Q: The pushback will come from folks who say that the times are different and that we can’t get the sort of consensus that started to develop with regard to Nixon. But you think it is still possible to rally Americans with an appeal to our better angels?
Steyer: I just believe that if we don’t stand up for our values in the case of this lawless President, then those values are dramatically diminished. Does that annoy people inside the Beltway? Apparently, it does. But does that mean that therefore we shouldn’t do what we think is right? No. I think we’re trying really hard to do the right thing on exactly the lines which I outlined.
Q: Can you get at least some Republicans to join in?
Steyer: We’re going to try and do it. We’re going to try and go after, I think, Republicans from swing districts. Ask them: “Where are you on accountability?” Make them aware that everyone is paying attention to their votes in terms of a state of emergency and everything else.
Q: My sense is that there is a tipping point. If you can start getting people focused on these issues, thinking about these issues in a serious way, a lot of what we’re told is impossible starts to look a lot more possible.
Steyer: I think of this a little bit like [addressing climate change]. We have a real problem. But solving it will not only get us out of a problem, it will also show something really good. If the American people can come together about getting rid of this lawless President, then we can come together about climate, and we can come together about a lot of things that we actually agree on. We don’t have to let the politicians divide us.
If we can come together as a people to insist on doing the right thing on [impeachment], we’re a different country. We’re a country that comes together to do the right thing again. And we can keep doing that.
That’s the climate point. Solving climate, rebuilding America, living up to our ideals, will make us richer and healthier. It’s not just that we get rid of a problem. It’s also that we create something better. And that’s true in impeachment, too. We’re a different country if we come together and do the right thing, and now we’re proud of who we are again, and now we understand that Democrats and Republicans are patriotic and care about the system, and we care about each other, and so we say: “Let’s do it again.”