WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey said on Sunday that fellow Republican President Donald Trump should resign after his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol last week in a deadly mess.
Toomey, who has been a supporter of Trump until recently, became the second Republican in the Senate to call for the president’s resignation.
“I think the best way for our country is for the president to resign and leave as soon as possible,” he said in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Toomey said he did not believe there was time for a dismissal when there were only ten days left for Democrat Joe Biden to swear to be Trump’s successor. He told CNN’s “State of the Union” that he thought resigning was “the best way to get that person back.”
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Friday that Trump should resign immediately and suggested she consider leaving the party if Republicans cannot secede from him.
Fellow Republican Sen. Ben Sasse, a frequent critic of Trump, told CBS News that he would “definitely consider” the dismissal because the president “ignored his oath of office.”
Toomey, a Conservative who plans to retire at the end of his term in 2022, said he believed Trump had fallen to a level of “madness” after the election that was unthinkable.
“I don’t think there is any doubt … that the president’s behavior after the election was very different than before. He went down to a level of madness and engaged in an absolutely unthinkable and unforgivable activity,” he said. Toomey on CNN.
Reports by Doina Chiacu and Linda So; Edited by Daniel Wallis and Bill Berkrot