Bernie Sanders Deflects from Al Franken’s Resignation, Calls for President Trump to Resign

Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) called for President Donald Trump to resign on Thursday immediately after Sen. Al Franken announced his resignation amid eight sexual assault accusations.

“We have a president who acknowledged on tape that he assaulted women. I would hope that he pays attention to what’s going on and think about resigning,” Bernie Sanders tweeted right after Sen. Al Franken announced that he will resign in the coming weeks:

Sen. Al Franken resigned following multiple accusations of sexual assault and repeated calls from more than 30 of his Democratic colleagues to step down.

“Today, I am announcing that in the coming weeks I am resigning as a member of the U.S. Senate,” Franken said on the Senate Floor on Thursday.

Franken commented on the recent national conversation about sexual assault, where numerous Hollywood celebrities, media executives, and government officials have been accused of sexual assault.

Sen. Franken said, “A couple months ago, I felt that we had entered an important moment in the history of this country. We finally listened to women.”

The Minnesota Democrat, however, denied many of the accusations eight women brought against him. Franken explained:

Then the conversation [about sexual misconduct] turned to me. Over the last few weeks, a number of women have come forward to talk about how they felt my actions had affected them. I was shocked. I was upset. But in responding to their claims, I also wanted to be respectful of that broader conversation because all women deserve to heard and their experiences taken seriously. I think that was the right thing to do. I also think it gave some people the false impression that I was admitting to doing things that I, in fact, haven’t done. Some of the allegations against me are simply not true. Others I remember very differently.

Franken turned his attention away from his own sexual assault allegations to President Donald Trump and Alabama’s senatorial candidate Judge Roy Moore, who have both denied accusations against them of sexual assault and misconduct.

Franken charged, “There is some irony that I am leaving, while a man who has bragged on tape about his history of sexual assault sits in the Oval Office and a man who repeatedly preyed on young girls campaigns for the Senate with the full support of his Party.”