'They're going to live with it!': GOP impeachment holdout warns Republicans about blowback

Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) won't be back in D.C. when the next president is sworn in, but he's fully convinced the House vote to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas will backfire.

"You can try to put lipstick on this pig, it is still a pig, and this is a terrible impeachment," Buck, who isn't running for reelection and voted against the measure on Tuesday told CNN's Erin Burnett on "Out Front." "It sets a terrible precedent the first impeachment of Donald Trump was a bad impeachment."

He said the reputation of congress, which is already fighting to maintain trust in the country, is on the line.

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"We've got to stop this in this body or we are going to lose our credibility — further lose our credibility with you, the American public."

In a vote that would be considered a photo finish in horse racing, the Republican majority in the House moved to punish the Biden administration's cabinet secretary for what they say is a raging crisis on the Southern Border.

The successful vote impeaching Mayorkas was 214-213 and essentially a mulligan after failing to pass last week, tarnishing Speaker Mike Johnson's nascent tenure.

The move marks the first Cabinet secretary to face such charges in nearly 150 years.

Buck explained that he voted with his conscience and didn't bother trying to "convince anybody" because in his mind, those lawmakers "had made up their mind."

But the historic rebuke was something Buck believes will reverberate for a long time.

"They had voted before or they made their own record," he said. "And they're going to live with it.

"A lot of my colleagues are coming back in the next congress and if there's a Republican president next congress, you better expect an impeachment of a cabinet official and they're going to be very hard-pressed to try to distinguish how they voted against the Trump impeachment for the Mayorkas impeachment and then voted against another Republican impeachment. That's a bad situation."

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