American Senator Lisa Murkowski said on Friday that Donald Trump should step down from the presidency immediately and that if the Republican Party cannot part with Trump, she is not sure she has a future with the party.
“I want him to resign. I want him out. He’s done enough damage already, ”Murkowski, R-Alaska, said during an interview from his small Capitol office, steps from the Senate chambers that were raided by pro-Trump protesters on Wednesday.
“I think he should be going. He said he will not appear. He will not be attending the inauguration. He hasn’t been focusing on what’s going on with COVID. He is either playing golf or inside the Oval Office, smoking and throwing all the people who have been loyal and faithful to him under the bus, starting with the vice president. He doesn’t want to stay there. He just wants to stay there for the title. He just wants to stay there for his ego. He needs to leave. He needs to do the good thing, but I don’t think he’s capable of doing the good thing, ”she said.
Trump guilty of riot, Murkowski says
Murkowski said that while “there may have been many, many, many, many good Americans who came to Washington, DC, because they strongly felt support for this president,” Trump urged them to invade the Capitol after a speech near the Washington Monument .
Even before election day, the president refused to say whether he would accept the election results, said Murkowski, and then tried to annul the results.
“I will attribute this to the president, who said, even after his vice president said to him that morning: ‘I have no constitutional authority to do what you asked me to do. I can not do it. I have to protect and defend the Constitution. ‘Even after the vice president told President Trump this, he still told his supporters to fight. How should they accept this? It’s an order from the president. And that is what they did. They went up and fought and people were injured, injured and died, ”said Murkowski.
Could Murkowski become an independent?
Asked whether she intends to remain Republican, Murkowski said it depends on the party itself.
“Well, you know, a lot of people really thought that I did it in 2010, they think I became independent. I had no reason to leave my party in 2010. I was a Republican who ran a written campaign and I was successful. But I will tell you, if the Republican Party has become nothing more than Trump’s party, I sincerely question whether this is the party for me, ”she said.
Opinions on the new look of the US Senate
The US Senate is now divided into 50-50 between Republicans and Democratic-aligned senators, and the tiebreak vote will be held by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
“I think that was another area where I think you can look directly at President Trump. … That was very, very unfortunate, ”she said.
Murkowski said he is speaking frequently to US Senator Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, who is the most conservative Democrat in the Senate and will be an important vote in many Senate actions.
“We talked a lot. In fact, my call at 3 am is with Joe and a bipartisan group of colleagues who are really concerned with where we are and how we are going, ”she said.
“I think I’m including myself as part of a group of members who want to work to try to reconcile things in the Senate and try to close some deals. And this will be an administration (Biden) in which I will disagree with how they are taking us on a number of issues and policies, but I would like to think that we will never question their allegiance to the oath of office, ”said Murkowski.