WASHINGTON — Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska on Friday became the first Republican senator to call on President Trump to resign in the wake of the deadly US Capitol siege.
“I want him to resign. I want him out. He has caused enough damage,” Murkowski said in an interview with the Anchorage Daily News.
“I think he should leave. He said he’s not going to show up. He’s not going to appear at the at the inauguration,” she said, before delivering a scathing rebuke of his legacy and recent mistreatment of Vice President Mike Pence.
“He hasn’t been focused on what is going on with COVID. He’s either been golfing or he’s been inside the Oval Office fuming and throwing every single person who has been loyal and faithful to him under the bus, starting with the vice president,” Murkowski went on.
“He doesn’t want to stay there. He only wants to stay there for the title. He only wants to stay there for his ego. He needs to get out. He needs to do the good thing, but I don’t think he’s capable of doing a good thing,” she said.
Murkowski is the most recent Republican to break with Trump in the wake of the violent siege on the US Capitol on Wednesday which left five people dead.
Two cabinet members have resigned while a number of staff members have also headed for the exits in protest of the president’s handling of the Capitol Hill violence.
Democratic leaders have called on Pence and Trump’s cabinet to removed Trump be invoking the 25th Amendment, arguing he is no longer fit for office.
House Democrats on Friday released articles of impeachment accusing the president of “inciting an insurrection” for delivering a fiery speech on Wednesday in which he claimed the election was stolen for him and encouraged his supporters to march to Congress to make their feelings known.
“It’s an order from the president,” Murkowski said. “And so that’s what they did. They came up and they fought and people were harmed, and injured and died.”
It is the second time that Congress has moved to impeach Trump. He was impeached by acquitted at trial by the Senate last year after he was accused of improperly pressuring the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden.
No president has ever been impeached twice.
Murkowski was one of the last Republicans hold-outs when Trump was impeached last year, calling his behavior “shameful and wrong” but ultimately voting to acquit him.