Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville said he is torn over whether House Democrats should pursue impeachment of President Donald Trump if they take control of the chamber, acknowledging he has no good answer for what to do if investigations uncover evidence of wrongdoing.

Speaking on his streaming show with veteran journalist Al Hunt, Carville took questions from audience members and wrestled aloud with the dilemma. Carville, who rose to national prominence as a lead strategist on Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, remains a prominent voice in Democratic politics.

The conversation opened with jabs at Republican senators. The pair mocked Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) as "stupid" and suggested that Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) is too educated to be stupid. "I don't believe you're as dumb as Eric Schmitt, Sen. Kennedy. I really don't. But I gotta tell you, you're making a convincing case," Carville said. The hosts then turned to what might happen under a new Democratic Congress.

A viewer from Chicago noted that if Democrats take control of the House, many in the party want to push impeachment, and asked whether that was the best course. Carville said he was not certain. That question runs through the mechanics of Congress itself: impeachment begins in the House, where a simple majority is enough to impeach, and the majority party controls committee chairmanships and the subpoena power that drives investigations.

"I think both of us kind of agree, but the problem is when you — we all said we should investigate. We should look into this, but we shouldn't impeach. What do you do if you're sworn to uphold the Constitution? Okay, I know that. And what you're going to find is proof of multiple felonies, multiple high crimes, multiple misdemeanors. Maybe you can't count. What do you do when you have that evidence in front of you? I don't know," Carville said.

"I don't know how many different grounds of high crimes and misdemeanors — and do you just look the other way? Or do you act on it? I don't have a good answer for that," he added.

"But I know one thing: they're going to investigate, and they're going to find a lot of s — —," he said.

The tension Carville described has recent precedent: the House impeached Trump twice during his first presidency, in 2019 and 2021, and the Senate acquitted him both times, falling short of the two-thirds vote required to convict and remove a president. Whether a future House majority would move from investigating to impeaching — and how party leaders would weigh that against other priorities — remains one of the unresolved questions ahead of the midterm elections.

The discussion then turned to the Maine Senate race between Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Troy Jackson, and to questions about Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Carville said he could not even understand Collins's explanation that she did not believe Kavanaugh "lied" to her when he described Roe v. Wade as "settled law" during his confirmation.

Hunt pressed the point: "If he didn't lie to you, then you basically lied to the people of Maine, saying that's why you voted against him. So, Susan, just decide who's the liar, you or Brett Kavanaugh?"

Carville went on to argue that the one constant of the 21st century is that it has been "a s—— century" so far.

"In the year 2000, the United States was the most ascended nation vis-à-vis the rest of the world in the history of the modern world," he said. "And of course it would be laughable to assert that today. And the one person that was on watch this entire century is Susan Collins. There is no person who represents the failures of the United States in the 21st century better than Susan Collins. And now she wants another chance. Oh my God!"

The closed by musing about how "fun" it will be to watch Republicans "abandon" Trump, even as the MAGA movement continues to dominate the GOP.

The remarks were published by Alternet.