Ben Sasse, the loudest, most persistent, highest-ranking detractor of Donald Trump left in the GOP, insists, “There’s nothing I’ve done with Mr. Trump that has anything to do with political posturing.”

A growing number of Republicans would beg to differ.


The Nebraska senator — who in the past few days alone essentially called Trump a racist and said he’s open to embracing the Libertarian Party — is making enemies among Republicans back home and drawing disapproval among his Senate colleagues for his months-long anti-Trump crusade.

The effort has vaulted Sasse out of backbencher obscurity and turned him into a folk hero of the GOP’s dwindling “never Trump” constituency. But his naysayers say the first-term lawmaker, who never held elected office before he won his Senate seat two years ago, should start focusing more on his job.

“It’s disappointing, and I think frankly, it’s conduct that Nebraskans do not find becoming of a United States senator who’s got a year-and-a-half of experience,” said David Kramer, a former Nebraska GOP chairman who supported one of Sasse’s opponents in a 2014 primary but then backed Sasse in the general election. “It’s forced and somewhat contrived for somebody who doesn’t have much to show … to all of a sudden be the darling of certain corners of the political spectrum for simply being the guy who says, ‘Don’t vote for Donald Trump.’”

The blowback started in earnest in May at a state Republican convention, with the passage of a resolution seen as a clear rebuke of Sasse. It stated that the state party would not support any Republican officeholder who opposes the GOP presidential nominee or advocates a third-party candidate.

Sasse seems unruffled by the criticism. The 44-year-old former college president, who defeated the GOP establishment’s pick for his seat on the strength of an outsider message, says it’s his obligation to speak his mind, whether about Trump or other big ideas he has, like overhauling the two-party system.

“I’m different than most people here in that politics is not the center of my life,” Sasse said in a recent interview in his Senate office. “I am sure there are going to be times that I am going to [take] actions in the Congress that Nebraskans will disagree with. That’s fine … If the voters differ with that and if I, down the road, sought reelection, that’s their choice to make their decision.

“But it isn’t my job to put my finger in the wind and figure out short-term public opinion,” he added.

Sasse was little known before he began firing off late-night tweets and penning letters on Facebook detailing his deep antipathy for Trump. He waited until after all 12 other fellow Senate freshmen had given their maiden speeches — a seminal moment for any first-year member of the chamber — to deliver his own.

It was a direct critique of the institution he had just joined. The Senate, Sasse said, was avoiding the “serious debates we must have about the future of this great nation.”

Since then, Sasse has become at ease with being an outlier. He was the lone “no” vote on a popular anti-opioids bill that’s been touted by everyone from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to vulnerable GOP senators up for reelection this year. He shows open frustration with routine tasks for a legislator, like renaming post offices. And he traveled to neighboring Iowa in advance of the state’s caucuses not to campaign for a candidate, but against Trump.

But Sasse’s anti-Trump mission is infuriating many Nebraska Republicans, who view it not only as self-serving but a boon to Hillary Clinton. Others privately wonder whether there is substance behind Sasse’s lofty language and question whether his meteoric rise has perhaps left him in over his head.

Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) joined the Senate two years before Sasse and is known as a low-profile workhorse in the chamber. When asked about Sasse, she repeated four times that “we just disagree” about Trump.

“We’ve briefly [talked about it]. We just don’t agree on it,” she said. “We look at this in a different way and I believe a third party, Ross Perot, gave us a Clinton, and I’m not going to have a third party now give us another one.”

One top state GOP official said that many Nebraska Republicans “don’t understand what he’s doing, and I don’t know that he does.”

Sasse’s stance on Trump is an increasingly lonely one in the party. After holding out for a month, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) got on board. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) won’t officially back Trump, but he has taken phone calls from the presumptive nominee and spoken warmly of Trump’s personality, if not his policy proposals.

When asked whether Trump could evolve enough for the senator to support him, Sasse dismisses the question, saying he has “zero desire for headlines on this kind of stuff” and noting that “we’ve turned down, like, 45 Sunday shows in a row.”

He does, however, eventually answer.

“I can never support Mr. Trump in the same way I can never support Mrs. Clinton because I don’t believe either of them would take the oath of office seriously about executive restraint,” Sasse said.

Sasse is the rare senator who writes his own Twitter feed, which opines on the NBA playoffs and reality TV as often as politics.

During the interview, Sasse was the most animated when he recounted his 14-year-old daughter Corrie’s one-month stint working on a farm, where she helped deliver more than 200 baby calves. It prompted Sasse to tweet to his 47,000 followers about fresh cow placenta.

Sasse has cited his three children as a big reason he resisted pleas to mount a third-party run. He incorporates them into his Senate work: Corrie helps write legislative correspondence, and 12-year-old daughter Alex gives tours to constituents.

During his short tenure, Sasse has confounded many of his colleagues in the clubby chamber. He drew bipartisan praise — particularly from younger Democrats — for his vision of restoring the Senate to a deliberative body. But he’s followed up only a handful of times to stoke debate with colleagues: His most prominent Senate speech in May was reading a New York Times profile of Ben Rhodes into the congressional record. Sasse says he hasn’t abandoned his goal of rekindling substantive debate in the Senate, but “the Trump thing swallowed a lot of it.”

He is also increasingly a no-show at Republican Party lunches, even as he keeps up his social media presence. The prevailing view among Senate Republicans is that Sasse is preparing to run for president, and sooner rather than later.

Sasse “certainly is a very talented guy, so I would include him as one of the group” of senators eyeing national office, said Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas).

Sasse, for his part, wouldn’t go there in an interview.

Mark Fahleson, a longtime friend and adviser who persuaded Sasse to run for the Senate, said he’s never discussed a White House bid with Sasse but isn’t surprised he’s being mentioned for it.

“He’s a serious, principled conservative who can articulate a positive message,” said Fahleson, who is also a former state party chairman. “So many of the folks I’ve worked with, both in Nebraska and nationally, they don’t have his skill set.”

Sasse broke through a crowded primary in 2014 after five years as president of Midland University in Nebraska, gigs at high-profile consulting firms and a carousel of jobs in Washington. He was chief of staff for Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.) and served in positions at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Justice Department under President George W. Bush. A college wrestler at Harvard who later earned a doctorate in history from Yale, Sasse downplays his Bush administration experience, omitting it from his biography on his website.

Sasse has also annoyed some Republicans by declining to answer questions about his anti-Trump stance, not just at the convention but at other party events such as Lincoln-Reagan dinners.

“I misjudged the guy completely,” said Jack Schreiner, an early Sasse supporter who owns a rubber manufacturing company in Hastings, Neb. “He’s on a power trip, and that’s what this whole thing has been about.”

Hal Daub, a former GOP congressman from the state, described Sasse as a talented politician with real gravitas. Yet his actions on Trump “leave some in Nebraska wondering if he just isn’t in too big of a hurry,” Daub said.

Sasse dismisses it all as small-bore political chatter.

“I think that we should be tackling really big things,” added Sasse, listing anti-terrorism strategies in a cybersecurity age and the mounting national debt as examples. “I don’t think we are.”

But some fellow Republicans grumble that Sasse, with his focus on Trump and the “big things,” is forgetting the routine but important tasks of being a senator. Things as mundane as naming post offices.

Sasse has been less than enthusiastic about a bill to rename an Omaha postal facility after Petty Officer First Class Caleb Nelson, a Navy SEAL who was killed in Afghanistan. Rep. Brad Ashford (D-Neb.), in an interview, said Sasse was holding up the renaming by objecting to the bill. Ashford’s office and a GOP aide on the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, after inquiries from Politico, said staff miscommunication mistakenly led to the perception that Sasse was blocking the bill.

Sasse says he isn’t holding up anything, but acknowledges that post offices hold a special place for him in his revulsion at Washington.

“I’m on record probably 100 times in local newspapers in Nebraska saying that I’m not going to Washington to spend time on post offices,” Sasse said. “That doesn’t mean I want to spend time standing in the way of them either. I want to spend time on real stuff.”

