'I Want Him Out': Murkowski Clamors for Trump's Resignation, Questions Her Future in GOP
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Friday that President Donald Trump should resign, making her the first Republican senator to say he should leave office after a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol.
“I want him to resign. I want him out. He has caused enough damage,” Murkowski told the Anchorage Daily News.
Murkowski told the newspaper that if the GOP doesn’t cut ties with Trump, she might leave the party.
“If the Republican Party has become nothing more than the party of Trump, I sincerely question whether this is the party for me,” she said.
The four-term senator is one of Congress’ most moderate Republicans and has long had a fraught relationship with some members of her party.
Even so, her break with Trump underscores the push by Democrats and some Republicans to remove him from office, even as his term is set to expire in less than two weeks.
There is growing momentum among House Democrats to impeach Trump as early as next week.
Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois has said Vice President Mike Pence and the Cabinet should use the 25th Amendment to force Trump from office.
Republican Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska has said he would consider voting to remove Trump should the House approve impeachment articles.
“He’s either been golfing, or he’s been inside the Oval Office fuming,” Murkowski said of Trump.
She added, “He needs to get out. He needs to do the good thing, but I don’t think he’s capable of doing a good thing.”
In a speech outside the White House on Wednesday, Trump encouraged a crowd of supporters to head to the Capitol, where a riot resulted in five deaths and forced lawmakers to flee the building.
The storming occurred as Congress was meeting for its certification of Electoral College votes in the presidential race, which Trump has claimed was marred by widespread fraud.
Murkowski has clashed repeatedly with Trump, helping kill his 2017 effort to repeal former President Barack Obama’s health care law.
When she lost her Republican primary for Senate in 2010, she was re-elected as a write-in candidate in the general election despite opposition from Sen. Mitch McConnell, the current Senate majority leader who was minority leader at the time.
She has been in the Senate since 2002, replacing her father, Frank Murkowski, who took office in 1981.
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
