Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Pat Toomey said he does not think former President Donald Trump should be his party’s presidential nominee in 2024.
“The future of our party is to be a party of ideas, and not to be a party about any one individual, and I think we will learn a lot from the next set of primaries,” Toomey told CNBC at a forum in Italy on Friday.
“After what happened post-2020 election, I think the president’s behavior was completely unacceptable, so I don’t think he should be the nominee to lead the party in 2024.”
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The 59-year-old senator risks little politically by publicly taking Trump to task. He announced in October 2020 that he will not seek reelection in 2022, citing personal reasons and indicating that three terms in the Senate were enough.
Toomey was one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump on an “incitement of insurrection” impeachment change following the Jan. 6 Capitol riot earlier this year, saying at the time that Trump “betrayed the confidence millions of us placed in him.” After the riot and before the impeachment, he called on Trump to resign.
The Pennsylvania Republican Party in March rebuked Toomey over his impeachment vote but stopped short of censuring him.
Trump, Toomey argued on Friday, did not share conservative views on trade and immigration.
“I’m a conservative Republican by any objective measure, by looking at the voting record, by looking at my views compared to that of a traditional conservative Republican,” Toomey said.
“It is President Trump who departed from Republican orthodoxy and conservative orthodoxy in a variety of ways. I stuck to the conservative views that I’ve had for a long time. He had a different point of view on matters such as trade and sometimes immigration and other things.”
Toomey’s comments come as rumors swirl about Trump plotting a 2024 run.
Former Trump senior adviser Jason Miller told Cheddar News on Thursday that the likelihood of Trump running for president again is “somewhere between 99% and 100%.”
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“I think he’s definitely running in 2024,” Miller said. “He has not said the magical words to me, but if you talk to him for a few minutes, it’s pretty clear he’s running.”
Rep. Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, also said Thursday at an event in Iowa that he believes Trump will run again.
