Incumbent Sen. Sasse knows Trump’s criticism is shaping his legacy

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FILE – U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., listens during a confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 23, 2022. The outgoing senator left office on Sunday, January 8. , 2023, to become the new president of the University of Florida and said he knows he may be remembered more for his criticism of former President Donald Trump than for the policies he supports. . (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File) Alex Brandon AP OMAHA, Neb.

Outgoing U.S. Senator from Nebraska Ben Sasse knows he may be remembered more for his criticism of former President Donald Trump than for the policies he supported during his eight years in office.

Sasse spoke about his political legacy with the Omaha World-Herald as he prepared to leave the Senate on Sunday to become president of the University of Florida.

Sasse was a prominent Trump critic who joined a handful of other Republicans in voting to convict the former president during his impeachment trial following the 2021 Capitol riot. criticized by his own political party in Nebraska, even though Sasse voted with Trump 85% of the time and helped have all three of his nominees confirmed for the United States Supreme Court.

Sasse acknowledged that his complicated relationship with Trump will shape his legacy.

I’m just sad for him as a human being because obviously there’s a lot of complicated things going on in that soul, Sasse told the newspaper. Just on a human level, I’m sad for him to be so needy and desperate. But at the political level, I always liked that he kept his word to the judges. … And so we had to work very closely with the judges.

Sasse said he was particularly proud of his work with the Senate Intelligence Committee, which included the creation of a commission on cybersecurity. He said 120 of the group’s 190 recommendations had been adopted.

The job at the University of Florida will allow Sasse, who studied American history at Harvard, Yale and Oxford, to return to academia at a much larger institution. Before being elected to the Senate, Sasse ran the small private university of Midland in his hometown of Fremont, Nebraska.

Sasse said he couldn’t resist the chance to lead one of the nation’s largest public universities, even after rejecting offers from other universities in recent years.

South Florida is like a giant blank canvas, Sasse said. And so I was very excited about a lot of new things that were going to be built.

Newly elected Gov. Jim Pillen will nominate Sasse’s replacement, and the leading candidate for the job is former Gov. Pete Ricketts whom Pillen replaced this month after term limits prevented the Republican from running again.

This story was originally published on January 8, 2023 at 3:19 p.m.

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