Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican from Pennsylvania known for his loyalty to President Trump, called for the president to resign from office.
“Well, I think the best way [for Trump to leave office] for our country, Chuck, is for the president to resign and go away as soon as possible,” Toomey told Chuck Todd during Sunday’s Meet the Press.
Toomey, who accused the president of “outrageous behavior in the post-election period,” stood by his vote for Trump’s reelection during the 2020 campaign.
“Knowing what I knew then, I think the 75 million Americans making this evaluation between this radicalization of the Democratic Party and an administration that had very significant successes, I understand, and it was a rational decision,” Toomey said. “Nobody could have anticipated what has happened, I don’t think, subsequent to the election.”
Toomey’s remarks come just one day after he signaled a willingness to consider articles of impeachment against Trump. During a Saturday interview with Journal Editorial Report, he called the president’s actions “impeachable offenses.”
The Pennsylvania Republican is joined by at least two other members of the GOP calling for Trump’s premature departure from office. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska and frequent foil during Trump’s four years in office, has expressed a desire for the president to resign, and Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican, publicly asked Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment.
Removing Trump from office remains unlikely given the current composition of the federal government. His forced expulsion could be achieved one of two ways: with Pence’s deployment of the 25th Amendment, a provision that allows the vice president and a majority of the Cabinet to boot the president from office, or with impeachment in the House of Representatives and a two-thirds vote in the Senate for conviction. While a second impeachment is probable given that 180 House Democrats have signed on to the effort, a conviction is unlikely given Republicans’ control of the upper chamber.
