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By Tim Marcin
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Even though President Donald Trump is 70 years old, Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska wouldn't commit to calling his GOP colleague an adult.
Sasse, who has long been vehemently never-Trump, made the comments—or, rather, refused to make any comment on the subject—during the Politico "Off Message" podcast Tuesday in the midst of promoting his book, The Vanishing American Adult, which lays out the principles for adulthood.
Sasse avoided answering the question of whether Trump is an adult, but did say that the president "comes out of a reality TV world."
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"And I have lots of anxiety about whether or not that kind of world is really what we want for our kids," Sasse told Politico.
During the interview, the senator said he didn't know how the GOP defined itself under Trump and, when prompted to describe the commander in chief, said only: "Current president."
Sasse did talk about his feelings that the so-called reality TV world was reshaping the country in a negative way.
"There's a risk in our media-driven, and particularly digital-media-driven culture; TV-based, broadcast-based, and image-based culture of this digital moment," Sasse told Politico. "There is a danger that we create shorter and shorter attention spans, more and more unbridled passions, less and less self-control and self-restraint. I don't think that our Founders would believe that America could long prosper if the people were not readers."
Sasse has long been a critic of the president, both during the campaign and after his stunning Election Day victory. After Trump criticized Representative John Lewis, a civil rights icon, as being all talk, Sasse responded: "John Lewis and his 'talk' have changed the world." Sasse also said it was "dangerous" when Trump reportedly divulged highly classified intelligence to Russian officials in the Oval Office. And Sasse stood up against Trump's travel ban seeking to bar entry to the U.S. by immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries (a revised order later made it six Muslim-majority countries).
He is not the only critics to frame Trump as an impulsive, child-like figure. Billionaire Mark Cuban late last week cited National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn as being "the adult placating the Donald."
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