Trump spars with GOP senator who accused him of ‘kissing dictators’ butts’

Republican Senator Ben Sasses says Trump’s values ‘are deficient’ for Americans.

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

President Trump fired back at a member of his own party Saturday after Republican Senator Ben Sasse made it clear he was not supporting the president’s reelection.

In a recorded telephone call last week with supporters obtained by the Washington Examiner, Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska launched into a tirade against Trump in which he raked his party’s leader over the coals.

“There are definitely places were we agree, but … I’m not at all apologetic for having fought for my values against his in places where I think his are deficient not just for Republicans but for Americans,” Sasse said.

“The way he kisses dictators’ butts. I mean, the way he ignores that the Uighurs are in literal concentration camps in Xinjiang. Right now, he hasn’t lifted a finger on behalf of the Hong-Kongers,” Sasse said during the roughly 10 minute recording.

“The United States now regularly sells out our allies under his leadership, the way he treats women, spends like a drunken sailor. The way I criticize President Obama for that kind of spending, I’ve criticized President Trump for as well. He mocks evangelicals behind closed doors. His family has treated the presidency like a business opportunity. He’s flirted with white supremacists,” Sasse said.

Following the release of Sasse’s comments, Trump ripped into the junior senator who, like Trump, is up for his reelection, calling the junior senator a “RINO,” which is an acronym for “Republican in name only.”

“The least effective of our 53 Republican Senators, and a person who truly doesn’t have what it takes to be great, is Little Ben Sasse of Nebraska,” Trump tweeted, adding Sasse “was as nice as a RINO can be until he recently won the Republican Nomination to run for a second term.

“Then he [Sasse] went back to his rather stupid and obnoxious ways,” Trump said. “Must feel he can’t lose to a Dem. Little Ben is a liability to the Republican Party, and an embarrassment to the Great State of Nebraska. Other than that, he’s just a wonderful guy!”

Sasse told his supporters he was worried that Trump and his “stupid political obsessions” threatened to drive young people to the Democratic Party “because they’ve just been repulsed by the obsessive nature of our politics,” saying Nebraskans had told him “they don’t really want more rage tweeting as a new form of entertainment.”

Sass added, “I think the overwhelming reason that President Trump won in 2016 was simply because Hillary Clinton was literally the most unpopular candidate in the history of polling.”