Former Secretary of State Colin Powell Friday called on President Donald to "just do what [Richard] Nixon did and step down" after Wednesday's riots on Capitol Hill.
"What he is responsible for is one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen in all my years as a government employee here in the United States of America and in Washington, D.C.," Powell told NBC's "Today." "He should be totally ashamed of himself and he should take that shame and turn it into a resignation as quickly as possible.''
However, Powell said he thinks the next days will just unfold and Trump will be out of office on Jan. 20 when President-elect Joe Biden is sworn in, and calls for the 25th Amendment or impeachment won't pan out because they are too time-consuming.
"Somebody ought to go up there and say it's over," said Powell. "The plane is waiting for you, you're out. That way he would not only step down, but he would also, in addition, sort of cut the guts out from underneath this group of people who he has working for him."
Vice President Mike Pence is capable of taking over for the next few days, Powell added, and if Trump steps down, "we'll see all of these idiots who came out and did what they did two days ago beginning to step down because they no longer have a leader."
As for now, Powell, who was once the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, indicated that concerns about Trump's continued access to the nuclear codes while he's still in office are overblown.
"I can tell you for sure if something like this ever happened and someone suddenly said, 'We want to use the nuclear weapon,' they would never get near it," said the retired four-star general.
He also called for a focus on the immediate issue and not the comparisons being drawn between the response to last summer's Black Lives Matters protests and Wednesday’s melee.
"I feel for Black Lives Matter, and I'm not sure that was handled as well as it might have been," said Powell, "but we know darn well this was not handled as it could have been, might have been, and should have been."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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