UPDATE:
Just as Sasse’s broken clock can be right twice a day, Americans can count on Trump’s cuckoo clock going cuckoo 24/7. Here is how Trump unleashed on Senator Sasse after he spoke truth to Trump, according to The Hill.
• “The least effective of our 53 Republican Senators, and a person who truly doesn’t have what it takes to be great, is Little Ben Sasse of Nebraska, a State which I have gladly done so much to help,”
• “…went back to his rather stupid and obnoxious ways…Little Ben is a liability to the Republican Party, and an embarrassment to the Great State of Nebraska. Other than that, he’s just a wonderful guy!”
• “Senator Little Ben Sasse of the Great State of Nebraska seems to be heading down the same inglorious path as former Senators Liddle’ Bob Corker, whose approval rating in Tennessee went from 55% to 4%, & Jeff ‘the Flake’ Flake, whose approval rating in Arizona went from 56% to practically nothing. Both Senators became totally unelectable, couldn’t come even close to winning their primaries, and decided to drop out of politics and gracefully ‘RETIRE,'”
Original Post:
Nebraska’s Republican Senator Ben Sasse, during a telephone town hall on Wednesday with thousands of constituents:
• “The way [Trump] kisses dictators’ butts…I mean, the way he ignores that the Uighurs are in literal concentration camps in Xinjiang right now. He hasn’t lifted a finger on behalf of the Hong Kongers.”
• “The United States now regularly sells out our allies under his leadership, the way he treats women, spends like a drunken sailor.”
• “[Trump] mocks evangelicals behind closed doors…His family has treated the presidency like a business opportunity. He’s flirted with white supremacists.”
• “…the reality is that [Trump] careened from curb to curb. First, he ignored COVID. And then he went into full economic shutdown mode. He was the one who said 10 to 14 days of shutdown would fix this. And that was always wrong. I mean, and so I don’t think the way he’s lead through COVID has been reasonable or responsible, or right.”
• “I’m now looking at the possibility of a Republican bloodbath in the Senate, and that’s why I’ve never been on the Trump train.”
• “The debate is not going to be, ‘Ben Sasse, why were you so mean to Donald Trump? It’s going to be, ‘What the heck were any of us thinking, that selling a TV-obsessed, narcissistic individual to the American people was a good idea?'”
Sasse also warned that Republicans “are staring down the barrel of a blue tsunami” and predicted that a Trump loss on November 3 “looks likely.”
Yes, Sasse has been called a “RINO” before, by Trump and others.
Yes, Sasse has disagreed with and has expressed his distaste for Trump before.
Yes, Sasse has supported Trump’s conservative policies and is lavishly supporting Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court.
However, as the New York Times writes, Sasse’s Wednesday remarks are “far more scathing than any others he has made recently…”
More significantly, it “ appears to be the most brutal assessment of the president from a sitting GOP lawmaker, echoing many of the charges against Trump from the left.”
More ominously, “After years of tolerating the president’s Twitter bullying and disregard for party orthodoxy and basic American norms, [Republicans’] patience appears to be wearing thin.”
Will there be more to jump off the sinking “SS Trump” soon?
We will see.
CODA: Lest there be any misunderstanding, the reporting of Senator Sasse’s views of Trump should not at all be construed as ignoring some of his unacceptable views on various social issues. “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.”
