Nancy Pelosi pours cold water on the idea of impeaching Trump: 'I don't think we should go down that path'

AP/J. Scott Applewhite

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., talks to reporters a day after officially postponing President Donald Trump's State of the Union address until the government is fully reopened.

• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she is against impeaching President Trump.
• Pelosi said impeaching a president divides the country too much and should be reserved for the most extreme circumstances.
• The House is currently engaging in multiple investigations into Trump's administration and personal finances.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed beginning impeachment of President Donald Trump, suggesting such drastic measures could only work if it were overwhelmingly bipartisan and for very high crimes.

In an interview with The Washington Post Magazine published Monday, Pelosi said impeachment is too difficult for the United States to go through and that Trump is "just not worth it."

Read more:Democrats will be able to make Trump's tax returns public if they take back Congress. Here's how.

"I'm not for impeachment. This is news. I'm going to give you some news right now because I haven't said this to any press person before," Pelosi told Post Magazine reporter Joe Heim. "But since you asked, and I've been thinking about this: Impeachment is so divisive to the country that unless there's something so compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan, I don't think we should go down that path, because it divides the country. And he's just not worth it."

Pelosi added that she believes Trump is unfit to be president in a variety of ways.

"Are we talking ethically? Intellectually? Politically? What are we talking here? All-All of the above. No. No. I don't think he is," she said. "I mean, ethically unfit. Intellectually unfit. Curiosity-wise unfit. No, I don't think he's fit to be president of the United States."

But that does not mean Democrats should go impeaching him, Pelosi said. Instead, the two-time speaker of the House said that Democrats should articulately distinguish themselves and their agenda from Trump.

"And that's up to us to make the contrast to show that this president - while he may be appealing to you on your insecurity and therefore your xenophobia, whether it's globalization or immigrants - is fighting clean air for your children to breathe, clean water for them drink, food safety, every good thing that we should be doing that people can't do for themselves," she said.

Meanwhile, House Democrats have launched a host of investigations into Trump's administration and personal finances.

The House Judiciary Committee listed 81 individuals and organizations close to Trump they will request documents from in the coming weeks, which one staffer described to INSIDER as an "investigative blitz."

At the same time, other committees are probing the president, like the House Ways & Means Committee, which is preparing to request Trump's tax returns from the Treasury Department.

And Pelosi also has to contend with insurgent Democrats looking to boost the impeachment agenda. To make things more complex, billionaire megadonor Tom Steyer is pushing for impeachment and running grassroots campaigns in the districts of Democratic chairmen like Reps. Jerrold Nadler of Judiciary, Richard Neal of Ways & Means, and Elijah Cummings of Oversight.