Billionaire Tom Steyer’s Need to Impeach PAC is launching a week-long TV ad campaign in districts currently held by Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Mark Meadows of North Carolina. | Charlie Neibergall/AP Photo Politics Tom Steyer targets key House Republicans on impeachment The liberal billionaire is running ads in bright-red districts held by two of Trump's most ardent attack dogs in Congress.

Liberal billionaire Tom Steyer is setting his sights on two of President Donald Trump’s fiercest defenders in Congress: Republican Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Mark Meadows of North Carolina.

Steyer’s Need to Impeach PAC is launching a week-long TV ad campaign in districts currently held by the two GOP members of the House oversight committee — one week after Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, presented evidence to the committee of alleged criminal conduct committed by the president.


The ads are the first from Need to Impeach aimed at specific Republican members on the issue and will cost the group a modest $75,000 in the two districts. Steyer has thus far focused his impeachment pressure campaign primarily on key Democrats, holding town halls in the home districts of the chairmen of the House Ways and Means, Oversight and Judiciary committees, urging them to begin impeachment proceedings.

The new ads are the latest turn in Steyer’s effort to impeach Trump, which began in 2017. Need to Impeach decided to target Jordan and Meadows after their comments at the Cohen hearing.

“It’s not okay to cover up the president’s crimes,” said Kevin Mack, lead strategist for the PAC.

The 30-second spot's message: “When the history of the Trump presidency is written, members of Congress will be sorted into two categories: The ones who let politics scare them out of holding Trump accountable and those who had the courage to stand up and defend our Democracy,” a narrator says, as images of Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Jordan flash across the screen next to Trump’s tweets.

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The image of Jordan is followed by a shot of the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), as the narrator mentions those who had the “courage to stand up.”

“Republicans in Congress should support impeachment hearings to uncover the truth,” the ad continues. “But first they have a choice to make: Which side of history do they want to be on?”

Steyer echoed that message in a statement. "History will judge whether the GOP is seen as the party that sold its principles to protect a corrupt, criminal president," he said, "or the party that put country first, did the right thing and supported the impeachment process.”

Jordan suggested Sunday that the House Judiciary Committee’s push to obtain documents from persons and entities tied to Trump was prompted by pressure exerted by Steyer’s group on Jerry Nadler, the committee’s chairman. In a tweet on Sunday, Jordan said Nadler was jumping to "[S]teyer's conclusion," using a dollar sign rather than the first letter in the California billionaire's name. Nadler called Jordan's tweet "inane" and "anti-Semitic." (Steyer's father was Jewish.)

Need to Impeach did testing on the ads and the imagery used, Mack said. Though the current ad buy will last one week, Mack said, the group may extend it.

Jordan and Meadows represent deep red districts and appear immune to any challenge from the left. But Mack argues that “no district is safe” in the current environment. Democrats flipped 40 seats across the country in a backlash to Trump in 2018 and that’s a sign, Mack said, that once-safe seats are in play.

Meadows won reelection in 2018 by 20 points, and Jordan won reelection by 30 points — despite ongoing questions about how he handled alleged sexual abuse of college wrestlers when he was an assistant coach at Ohio State University.

Meadows, who leads a faction of the most conservative House Republicans, shrugged off the ads. "Big money in support of positions my district doesn't support has never worked in the past, and it certainly won't work in this case,” he said in an email.

The PAC also placed ad buys in Arizona and Colorado, home to a number of Republican and Democratic members on the Judiciary Committee. The group didn’t provide details on those ad buys.

Steyer will hold a previously postponed town hall in Massachusetts targeting House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal next week before heading to Columbia, South Carolina, which is represented by the third-ranking House Democrat Jim Clyburn.

“There’s a gigantic cost to not listening to your constituents,” Steyer told POLITICO in February when opening the door to targeting Democratic leadership. "There’s a gigantic cost to thumbing your nose at democracy."

Steyer will also hold a town hall in the coming weeks in Miami applying pressure to two more Democrats who sit on Judiciary and have yet to take a position on impeachment: Reps. Ted Deutch and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell.