Republican senator Ben Sasse says Donald Trump ‘kisses dictators’ butts, sells out our allies, mocks evangelicals,’ and slams how he treats women in leaked phone call
- The Nebraska senator also says in leaked phone call Trump ‘flirted with white supremacists’
- Precise date of the call is unknown
- Says Trump ‘careened from curb to curb’ on the pandemic
- Sasse tossed softball questions to Amy Coney Barrett in her confirmation hearing, asking why the nation has a Bill of Rights
- He mocks evangelicals behind closed doors. His family has treated the presidency like a business opportunity. He’s flirted with white supremacists
Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse rips President Donald Trump for his handling of the coronavirus and says his party’s president ‘kisses dictators’ butts’ in a newly revealed audio recording.
Sasse tears into the president in recorded comments from an apparent conference call with his constituents, the Washington Examiner reported – accusing him of having ‘ignored’ the coronavirus as it spread through the nation. He also accuses Trump of having ‘treated the presidency like a business opportunity.’
Some of his most searing comments come on the coronavirus – where polls show Trump is struggling against rival Joe Biden, with daily infections above 50,000.
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) tore into President Donald Trump in recorded comments where he says Trump ‘careened’ during the coronavirus and ‘kisses dictators’ butts.’
‘But the reality is that he careened from curb to curb. First, he ignored COVID. And then he went into full economic shutdown mode,’ said Sasse, who is up for reelection but is expected to prevail.
‘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.’
Sasse slammed on Trump on foreign policy as well as domestic politics – even saying his party’s leader has ‘flirted’ with white supremacists.
‘The way he kisses dictators’ butts. I mean, the way he ignores the Uighurs, our literal concentration camps in Xinjiang. Right now, he hasn’t lifted a finger on behalf of the Hong-Kongers,’ Sasse said.
‘The United States now regularly sells out our allies under his leadership, the way he treats women, spends like a drunken sailor. The ways I criticize President Obama for that kind of spending; I’ve criticized President Trump for as well. He mocks evangelicals behind closed doors. His family has treated the presidency like a business opportunity. He’s flirted with white supremacists,’ he said.
The report gives no exact time for the call, although the coronavirus comments place it this year.
‘He mocks evangelicals behind closed doors. His family has treated the presidency like a business opportunity. He’s flirted with white supremacists,’ Sasse adds. Trump took fire for failing during the first presidential debate to denounce white supremacists.
Sasse’s office didn’t deny the comments, telling the paper he believes in the importance of keeping the Senate, calling it ‘ten times more important’ than keeping the White House.
The remarks from Sasse put distance between him and Trump, even as he towed a party line in backing up Judge Amy Coney Barrett at Judiciary Committee hearings. He tossed softball questions, including one asking why the nation had a Bill of Rights, even as Democrats fumed at taking up the nomination so close to an election.
He also asked her to name the ‘five freedoms’ expressed in the First Amendment, although she only recalled freedom of press, speech, religion, and assembly. ‘Redress or protest,’ he told her when she asked for help remembering.
On the call, Sasse was responding to a constituent who asked him’ Why do you have to criticize [Trump] so much?’
He also hit Trump for ‘stupid political obsessions’ that could harm the party ‘if young people become permanent Democrats because they’ve just been repulsed by the obsessive nature of our politics, or if women who were willing to still vote with the Republican Party in 2016 decide that they need to turn away from this party permanently in the future.’
His comments emerged after even reliably conservative Republican incumbents like Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) have put distance between themselves and the president in public comments.