With Republican candidate Donald Trump‘s presidential campaign rapidly turning into a train crash, another senior GOP figure has run screaming from the wreckage. This time it’s Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who has made an unequivocal call for Trump to step aside.
In Facebook live video, Utah Sen. Mike Lee calls on Trump to step aside. https://t.co/Syz4SSKZwh pic.twitter.com/3vuIXG1mgJ
— Jim Dalrymple II (@Dalrymple) October 8, 2016
In a three-minute video posted on Facebook, which was widely shared and retweeted on Friday night, a visibly angry Lee said:
“It has occurred to me on countless occasions today that if anyone spoke to my wife, or my daughter, or my mother, or any of my five sisters, the way Mr. Trump has spoken to women, I wouldn’t hire that person … I wouldn’t want to be associated with that person, and I certainly don’t think I would feel comfortable hiring that person to be the leader of the free world.”
Earlier on Friday, as reported in Liberal America and elsewhere, Trump apologized for derogatory comments he was heard making about women, and his voracious sexual conquests. However, he diluted the apology by calling the issue a “distraction” from his campaign.
Lee responded directly to this, saying:
“With all due respect sir, you sir, are the distraction. Your conduct, sir, is the distraction … from the very principles that will help us win in November.”
He went on to add:
“I respectfully ask you, with all due respect, to step aside. Step down. Allow someone else to carry the banner.”
Mike Lee has never been a Trump fan, and is one of the few Republican senators who refused to endorse his candidacy from the outset. When Trump listed him last month as a possible Supreme Court nominee, he promptly rejected the gesture, saying he would prefer to remain in the Senate.
Lee now becomes the fourth elected Republican to call on Trump to quit. He was swiftly followed last night by two more senior members of the Utah GOP: Gov. Gary Herbert and Rep. Jason Chaffetz. Both of them had previously endorsed the candidacy.
Watch Mike Lee’s extraordinary speech in full here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0LG5R6sIcM
Featured image: screenshot via YouTube video
