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The nation’s most widely distributed newspaper has hardly been on the anti-Trump campaign.

But the editorial board of USA Today published a scathing article Thursday morning calling for the President to be impeached.

Key argument

USA Today says:

Unless public sentiment shifts sharply in the days and weeks ahead, that is the likely outcome of this process — impeachment by the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives followed by acquittal in the GOP-controlled Senate. So why bother? Because Trump’s egregious transgressions and stonewalling have given the House little choice but to press ahead with the most severe sanction at its disposal.

In his thuggish effort to trade American arms for foreign dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, Trump resembles not so much Clinton as he does Richard Nixon, another corrupt president who tried to cheat his way to reelection.

This isn’t partisan politics as usual. It is precisely the type of misconduct the Framers had in mind when they wrote impeachment into the Constitution.

The USA Today editorial board says that it has had policy differences with the President.

Policy differences are not, however, grounds for impeachment. Constitutional violations are.

And that is what it comes down to.

Why it matters

USA Today has among the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States along with The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

But more importantly, it has a largely centrist and middle-market audience, not the more partisan audiences that the NYT and WSJ attract.

This may change the conversation in a few diners across the country.