Presidential candidate Julian Castro (D) warned House Democrats this week that they should prioritize the impeachment of President Donald Trump if they do not want to give Trump a “clean bill of political health” for the 2020 presidential election.

In an interview on Sirius XM’s Progress channel, Castro said he has claimed since the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report that “the substance is there” for impeachment because the report showed that Trump “either obstructed justice or attempted to obstruct justice.”

He added that though Mueller provided the testimony” Democrats would need to move forward with impeachment, old-guard Democrats who remember former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment saga are “scared” that failing to impeach Trump will only increase his approval ratings.

The former San Antonio mayor said the situations are different and added: “If we’re talking politics, the politics of today is very different.”

“If we don’t move forward with impeachment against Donald Trump, what Trump is going to say in the fall of 2020 is, ‘You see, these folks that are always trying to investigate me, they

talked a big game about impeachment. You know why they didn’t move forward with it? Because they didn’t have any evidence. I didn’t do anything wrong,’” Castro said. “So basically, you’re going to give him a clean bill of political health.”

Castro, who also served as former President Barack Obama’s Housing and Urban Development (HUD) secretary, said if Democrats do impeach Trump in the House, the Senate, under “Moscow Mitch” McConnell, will “either ignore it or vote it down.”

He said Democrats will then be able to say that Trump deserved impeachment but his political allies and cronies like “Moscow Mitch” did not hold the president accountable.

Castro said the question Democrats should be asking regarding Trump’s impeachment is: “Are you going to let him off the hook or is Mitch McConnell going to let him off the hook?”