Rep. Jeff Van Drew says people are tired of the time and money spent on this "weak, thin impeachment," as the first-term lawmaker from New Jersey defended his switch to the Republican Party.
Van Drew voted no on both articles of President Donald Trump's impeachment, along with one other Democrat, Collin Peterson of Minnesota. Then he crossed the aisle. He'd been thinking about it "for a while," he said on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures."
"The party is moving further and further to the left, where there are discussions of it being a socialist party," said Van Drew, 66, a dentist and former state lawmaker elected to Congress in 2018 as part of a Democratic wave that took over the majority in the House. "I'm a proud capitalist."
Van Drew said the final straw came when the chairman of the Democratic Party in his home county in southern New Jersey said he had to vote for impeachment or he could lose the support of the party and thus his seat.
"It all boils down to one vote, that I may have my own individual opinion on one vote, and that is not going to be allowed?" Van Drew said. "That's when I knew."
"Aside from declaring war, it is the most serious action that America could ever take, and it harms our country," he said of Trump's impeachment.
Trump welcomed Van Drew warmly to Republican ranks, and at a meeting at the White House on Thursday, Van Drew pledged "undying support" to the president.
