U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) holds press conference “to announce details of bipartisan agreement to set digital asset reporting requirements on infrastructure bill” at U.S. Capitol in Washington, August 9, 2021.
Gabrielle Crockett | Reuters
Senator Pat Toomey has urged his party not to nominate former President Donald Trump as a presidential candidate in 2024, and has considered his conduct after the 2020 election “totally unacceptable.”
The Pennsylvania Republican voted to convict Trump in the indictment trial for his role in attacking the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by his supporters, fueled by the former president’s misinformation that the “elections” were stolen due to widespread voter fraud.
Speaking to CNBC at the Ambrosetti forum in Italy on Friday, Toomey, who is not seeking re-election in 2022, suggested his party consider other presidential candidates in 2024.
“I think the future of our party is to be a party of ideas and not to be a party about any individual, and I think we will learn a lot from the next set of primaries,” he said.
“I think after what happened in the post-2020 elections, I think the president’s behavior was completely unacceptable, so I don’t think he should be the candidate to lead the party in 2024.”
Despite his steadfast conservative history during a two-decade career in Congress, Toomey has disassociated himself from the unwavering allegiance to the former president who now serves as a test of fire in the GOP. The Pennsylvania Republican Party voted in March against Toomey’s formal censorship of his vote to condemn Trump, rather than make a “strong rebuke.”
“I’m a Conservative Republican by any objective measure, looking at the vote record, looking at my opinions compared to those of a traditional Conservative Republican,” Toomey told Steve Sedgwick of CNBC.
“President Trump moved away from Republican orthodoxy and conservative orthodoxy in a number of ways. I stuck with the conservative views I’ve had for a long time, I had a different view on issues like trade, and, sometimes immigration and other things. “
Trump’s loyalty and a dispute over the investigation into the deadly Capitol storm have become the focal points of a battle for the Republican Party’s soul in recent months.
Right-wing group House Freedom Caucus has launched a lobbying campaign to urge House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to expel Rep. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger from the Republican conference for agreeing to be part of the 6 of January investigating the Capitol riot.
The former president still has significant power over the Republican Party, with candidates loyal to him seeking to oust current and dominant Republicans from regional primary votes across the country, while Trump continues to push lies about the election robbery. 2020.
Toomey also criticized Trump’s deal with the Taliban to completely withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan, an action that added to the imposition of current President Joe Biden’s administration on a symbolic date for to the evacuation of American forces.
“My view is that we had reached a point and we could have maintained a very modest presence on the ground, an extremely low casualty rate, and we had not had a death in Afghanistan for more than a year, a modest cost. monetaryly, “he said.
“For that price, we would have supported the Afghans who were actually the spearhead, the ones who were fighting, and we could have prevented the reappearance of terrorists from a Taliban-controlled state.”