Another Republican who stood up to Donald Trump is on his way out of Congress with news that Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse is leaving Capitol Hill to become a U.S. president Florida.
Of the 10 House Republicans and seven senators who voted to convict Trump in a second impeachment trial for inciting the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, only two congressmen and four senators are set to return after the midterm elections in November.
Among the high-profile losses is Liz Cheney, a congresswoman from Wyoming and vice chair of the House Jan. 6 committee, who lost to a Trump-backed challenger in August.
Like Cheney, Sasse, 50, has been seen as a possible contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, a presumptive race still dominated by Trump. Sasse won’t have to face voters again until 2026.
But on Thursday, Rahul Patel, a member of the University of Florida Board of Trustees, said the Tampa Bay Times the college needed “a visionary, an innovator and a big thinker who would set us apart from others – a transformational leader. The committee unanimously found Ben Sass to be a transformational leader.”
Sasse convicted “Washington partisanship” and called the University of Florida “the most interesting university in America right now.”
Sass, who was president of Midland University in Nebraska before entering politics, will be the only candidate to interview for the University of Florida job in November.
If Sasse retires as a senator, Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, a Republican, or a likely GOP successor if Sasse steps down in January, will appoint his replacement. The Senate is split 50-50 and is controlled by Democrats through the vote of Vice President Kamala Harris.
Sasse first came out as a critic of Trump and his influence on US politics when the billionaire ran for the White House in 2016.
Sass called it “strongman of majesty”and said that he will not vote for him or for his opponent Hillary Clinton.
Sasse’s wife, Melissa, said her husband had “a need to compete. He’s also an idiot.”
From 2017 to 2021, however, Sasse voted with Trump more than 85% of the time. He also voted to acquit Trump in the first impeachment trial for blackmailing Ukraine with political dirt.
Nevertheless, in November 2020 – he claimed: “I’ve never been on the Trump train.”
In February 2021, Sass said he voted to censure Trump for the attack on the Capitol because he “promised to speak out when a president — even one of my own party — oversteps his authority.”
Those words earned Sasse his share of abuse from Trump, including the nickname “Liddle Ben Sasse.”
In 2018, Sasse wrote a book, Theirsin which he complained about political polarization.
He wrote: “We are in a period of unprecedented upheaval. Community is breaking down, anxiety is rising, and we’re being distracted by artificial political hatred.”
“This cannot be tolerated. And if it succeeds, America will not do it.”
On Thursday, Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin spoke with proposal about what Sasse might do next from his university office in Florida.
“Why not join Liz Cheney in campaigning against the Republican Party’s election liars/deniers. It might even impress his new employers. Otherwise, his career in the Senate was an empty hamburger.”
