Donald Trump is “goading” House Democrats toward impeaching him for political reasons heading toward his re-election campaign, according to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has thus far worked assiduously to steer her Democratic majority away from Trump impeachment.

“Trump is goading us to impeach him. That’s what he’s doing,” said Pelosi. “Every single day he’s just like taunting, taunting, taunting, because he knows that it would be very divisive in the country but he doesn’t really care. He just wants to solidify his base.”

Trump has told anyone associated with his administration not to cooperate with any subpoenas from the House.

Further, Attorney General William “Bill” Barr failed to appear for testimony as previously arranged before the House Judiciary Committee. Barr is facing being held in contempt of Congress after he failed to meet a deadline to turn over to the committee an unredacted copy of the Mueller Report and underlying evidence. Trump Wednesday cited executive privilege over the entire Mueller Report.

Pelosi said Democrats “cannot accept a second term for Donald Trump.”

“We have to make sure — this will sound political but we have to make sure that the Constitution wins the next presidential election,” Pelosi said. “We can’t be worrying about well, how long is this going to take? Well, that will take as long as it does. And we will press the case so that in the court of public opinion people will know what is — is right. But we cannot accept a second term for Donald Trump if we are going to be faithful to our democracy and to the Constitution of the United States.”

On Saturday, Pelosi’s colleague, Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), said Democrats must impeach Trump to ensure he’s not re-elected. 

“I’m concerned that if we don’t impeach this president, he will get re-elected,” Rep. Green told MSNBC. “If we don’t impeach him, he will say he has been vindicated. … If we allow political expediency to Trump moral imperative, we will have created a shameful situation that this Congress that will never live down, history won’t be kind to us. We must impeach him.”

To date, however, Pelosi has appeared loathe to move forward with the impeachment of Trump because of the political reality that the Republican-dominated Senate is not at all likely to vote to remove Trump from office.