Days Before the Midterms, Hillary Clinton Says Democrats Will Investigate Trump's Family and 'Supporters': 'Buckle Up'

Hillary Clinton has told voters what she thinks a Democratic Congress will do with its power, and the list does not stop at President Donald Trump. It runs through his staff and his family, and then it reaches the people who back him.

"He's soon going to have a Democratic Congress trying to rein him in, hold him accountable and investigate him, his administration, his family, his supporters and allies," Clinton said on Wednesday's episode of High Stakes, the limited podcast series she co-hosts with journalist Kara Swisher on the On with Kara Swisher feed. "So buckle up. The election is just the beginning."

The episode posted Oct. 28, six days before the Nov. 3 midterms. One day later, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the man who would hold the speaker's gavel if Democrats flip the House, was asked on ABC News Live whether impeachment is coming. He would not say no.

What she said, in full

The line came at the end of a 72-minute episode that was mostly a race-by-race preview. Swisher asked a closing question: "If Trump loses, then loses the Senate, the House. Everyone kicks him in the teeth, essentially. What happens?"

Clinton predicted Trump would first blame others and then become "even more unhinged and sadly more dangerous," and said he would "most likely launch more attacks on Iran." She said a Democratic Congress "has to pass legislation to try to rein him in," that Democrats "have to bring more lawsuits" and "have to try to shame him."

Then came her prediction. "Trump is going to start coming apart at the seams," she said. "He's a lame duck. He may not know that, but he is a lame duck." After the line about investigating his family and supporters, she added: "He literally has held Republicans hostage for a decade, and that only works for so long. One day the hostages look around and say, there are more of us than there is of him. We need to take him on."

Who are "his supporters"?

Clinton never said. She did not name a single supporter, a single allegation, or the committee that would do the investigating. That is the hole in this story, and it is a big one.

Holding a president's appointees to account is the normal job of an opposition Congress. A president's family is a different target. "His supporters" is wider still. Taken at face value, it covers the more than 77 million Americans who voted for him in 2024, plus the donors, activists and members of Congress who stand with him.

This is the same Hillary Clinton who in 2016 put "half" of Trump's supporters in a "basket of deplorables." Ten years later, the basket has a subpoena attached.

And she is not alone. Earlier this month, Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan told a University of Chicago audience she wanted to go after "the people who enabled him" so that young graduates would think twice before working for Trump. "I want that deterrence message," she said. We covered it here.

Jeffries keeps the door open

Jeffries has given the same non-answer twice now. On Sept. 13, George Stephanopoulos asked him on ABC's This Week whether "hold the crooks accountable" meant impeachment proceedings on day one. "We haven't ruled anything in and we haven't ruled anything out in terms of impeachment," Jeffries said, naming Rep. Jamie Raskin of the Judiciary Committee and Rep. Robert Garcia of the Oversight Committee as the Democrats who would lead the effort.

On Thursday, ABC's Jay O'Brien asked him again, on ABC News Live, whether impeachment would be a distraction. "We haven't ruled anything in, and we haven't ruled anything out," Jeffries said, adding that Democrats want "accountability more broadly defined" and a Congress that acts as "a check and balance on an out-of-control executive branch."

Why it matters

Think of the House majority as a set of keys. Whoever holds it controls the committees, and the committees hold the subpoena power. Clinton holds no office and will not hold one of those keys. But she was her party's 2016 nominee, and she just told the country, out loud, which doors she expects the new keyholders to open.

Democrats are running on prices and "affordability." Jeffries said so again on Thursday. Yet when the cameras are on a friendly podcast, the talk turns to investigating a president's family and his voters. Voters have five days to decide which version they believe.

What comes next is simple. If Republicans hold the House on Nov. 3, none of this happens. If they lose it, Raskin and Garcia get the gavels in January, and Clinton's "buckle up" stops being a podcast line.