President Joe Biden doesn’t think the Senate will convict Donald Trump, but says the impeachment process still must happen.
Speaking Monday to CNN, Biden said the impeachment trial “has to happen,” and that it would be “a worse effect if it didn’t happen.”
House Democrats on Monday night delivered the article of impeachment to the Senate, accusing Trump of inciting the deadly siege of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Trump is the first president to be impeached twice, though the fact that he’s no longer president is likely to become Senate Republicans’ main point of contention. The trial is scheduled to start Feb. 8.
At least 17 Republican senators would have to join Democrats for Trump to be found guilty. Biden told CNN that the outcome may have been different if Trump had six months left in his term, but now that he’s out of office, he feels there’s little chance of a conviction.
“The Senate has changed since I was there, but it hasn’t changed that much,” he told CNN.