WASHINGTON (Reuters) – US Senator Pat Toomey said Sunday that President Donald Trump, a fellow Republican, must resign after his supporters stormed the Capitol in deadly calamity last week.
Toomey, who until recently was a Trump supporter, became the second Senate Republican to call for the president to step down.
“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 didn’t think there was time for an impeachment, with only 10 days left before Democrat Joe Biden is sworn in as Trump’s successor. He told CNN’s State of the Union that he thought firing was “the best way to get this person in the rearview mirror.”
US Senator Lisa Murkowski said on Friday that Trump should resign immediately and suggested she consider leaving the party if the Republicans cannot divorce him.
Fellow Republican Senator Ben Sasse, a frequent Trump critic, told CBS News he would “certainly” consider impeachment because the president “ignored his oath of office.”
Toomey, a Conservative who plans to retire at the end of his tenure in 2022, said he believed that after the election, Trump had descended to a level of “insanity” unthinkable.
“I think there is no doubt at all … that the president’s behavior after the election was completely different from before. He descended to a level of insanity and engaged in activities that are absolutely unthinkable and inexcusable, ”Toomey told CNN.
Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Linda So; Edited by Daniel Wallis and Bill Berkrot