Sasse has just won a negative vote from Trump and is as relaxed as he can be about his political situation. He faces no internal pressure in the Senate for his vote to condemn Trump for inciting insurrection. An earlier censorship in 2016 did not shake his opinions. If there is a model for how to successfully build a conservative GOP out of Trump’s shadow, it might as well be it.
But Sasse cannot be replicated. He is a bit lonely in the Senate, both in style and in substance, someone who cannot understand how cable news, Congressional party speeches and cultural wars came to dominate politics.
This does not mean that Sasse is not bothered by the fact that the Nebraskans spend Saturday aiming at Sasse’s vote to condemn Trump. In fact, he is perplexed that Republicans in his state even worked on Super Bowl Sunday to censor him.
“Do you want to go to a hotel, dismantle the conference room of a shopping mall and shout about a politician who tried to say to you, ‘I would oppose someone from my own party who violated his oath?'” “This is not healthy”.
Strong opinions came easily to Sasse during a 30-minute interview in his hiding place on the Capitol. From Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida), he says, “This guy is not an adult.” President Joe Biden’s White House is “cowed” to the views of people like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (DN.Y.). Sasse sees the Congress itself as little, but “a bunch of rednecks screaming”.
Sasse, 49, he has a youthful energy, a fast speaking pace and an appeal to the common man. When he opens his mini refrigerator, a large selection of Bud Light cans is revealed. He has a dry sense of humor, expressing the recent struggles of his beloved Cornhuskers: “Half of all presidential impeachments in US history took place before Nebraska won another game in the big 10.”
He is not a particularly active participant in the Senate floor or in Republican party meetings. He devotes much of his time to the Senate Intelligence Committee, which he finds most rewarding among his duties. And like most young and rising players in any party, Sasse avoids the question of whether he is preparing to run for president.
“I’m sure that, like every 17-year-old entrepreneur boy, I’ve said stupid things in the past. But running for president was never my goal, ”he said.
Sacking his colleagues who claim to use the pro-Trump cloak to promote their own ambitions, he said he does not seek out issues that are “attractive to the rabies industrial complex tomorrow. These things do not interest me.
Sasse perplexed some senators when he first came to the Capitol in 2015, but today there is growing respect for him as an uncertain and serious member who takes his job seriously. When Democrats took over the Senate this year, Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) Made a good recommendation to Sasse with Democratic leaders to ensure he did not lose his seat on the panel. Warner says keeping Sasse was “very important” to him.
Progressive Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said the Trump presidency tested his friendship with Sasse. But after the Nebraskan vote of conviction, Schatz said: “history will judge that Ben Sasse is a courageous leader”
Even the most pro-Trump senators want Sasse at the Republican Party table instead of in the desert.
“I disagree with your approach to Trump. But I want to make the party grow, not divide the party, ”said Senator Lindsey Graham (RS.C.). “Ben’s future is bright, if he wants, in the Republican Party.”
Sasse talked to Trump during his presidency more than he let on publicly, lobbying Trump to choose Judge Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court and trying to dissuade his tariff regime. Generally, Sasse supported Trump’s nominees and legislation in the Senate floor, but hated the former president’s antagonistic style.
A first draft of the Nebraska Republican Party’s censorship resolution that was put up for consideration on Saturday said that Sasse “persistently engaged in public acts of ridicule and slander against President Donald J. Trump.” An effort by the Omaha area to condemn Sasse failed this week, signaling a potential lack of enthusiasm to move forward.
Sasse sees the party’s efforts to condemn it as the last act of performative outrage in American politics. He would like to be able to do more to explain to Republicans that promoting and protecting Trump is not what being conservative means: “You cannot redefine conservatism to mean conspiracy theorism.”
“I would like to persuade more people,” said Sasse. “We should try to explain a Madisonian view of conservatism: limited government, the First Amendment, the local community is the main thing.”
With the former president out of office, while still exerting serious influence, Sasse now has that opportunity as one of the most prominent anti-Trump politicians in a party that lacks a clear leader. He said he would help Republicans to retake the Senate, but is looking for “candidates who want to do more than Marjorie Taylor Greene.”
Before long, Sasse will certainly be in the presidential mix of Republicans looking to turn the page on Trump.
“He would be a great candidate,” said Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who will retire next year and mentored Sasse as a senator. “I would just like to warn you that 2024 is an eternity. And you don’t know where he stands in relation to the field, if he runs. “
“He’s the type of guy who goes deep into the bush,” said Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), Who voted to condemn Trump. “He has a very important and constructive voice for the party.”
Still, Sasse is selective about when to use that voice. He avoids Capitol scrums and TV hits. But he has a lot to say.
Over the course of a 30-minute interview, he jumped from talking about his censorship to the failure of the Texas power grid as “another case of cultural war cries engulfing everything.” Asked about President Joe Biden’s stimulus package, he blurted out a long condemnation of Biden’s “disastrous” education spending plan. He acknowledges how agitated the subject makes him, adding that “I didn’t mean to fall in love with it”.
But Sasse can get intense when discussing his problems. His biggest criticism of his work is that the Senate “is not really focused” on the problems the country faces with regard to the future of work, facing China and preparing for what life will be ten years from now.
It certainly doesn’t look like a clean and organized presidential platform, does it?
“I’m sincerely focused on the issues I’m focused on because I think it’s the best way to manage my call to love my neighbor in this job,” said Sasse. “So, 2024 is not really my schedule. 2030 is the timeline. “