WASHINGTON — Missouri Senator Roy Blunt told CBS's Face the Nation that he is not joining the call to remove President Donald Trump from office.
Blunt described the president's actions leading up to Wednesday's storming of the Capitol as reckless but said he should not resign. He also said he is not supporting impeachment for the same reason he didn't support the objection to certifying electoral college votes.
"I wasn't interested then or now in spending a lot of time on things that can't happen, just like the impeachment of the president to remove him from office clearly is not going to happen between now and the last day he is in office," Blunt said in an interview with Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan.
When asked if the president committed an impeachable offense, Blunt sidestepped the question and repeated his belief that there was no chance he would be removed from office.
When Brennan asked if the president was a danger to the country, Blunt said the president had some involvement in Wednesday's storming of the Capitol and that he behaved recklessly leading up to Wednesday.
When asked directly if Republican lawmakers would hold the president accountable, Blunt said the country should be the ones to do that. He also said he thinks Trump won't repeat the behavior that led to Wednesday's riot.
"I think the country is the right way to hold the president accountable," Blunt said. "The president should be very careful over the next 10 days that his behavior is what you would expect from the leader of the greatest country in the world. My personal view is that the president touched the hot stove on Wednesday and is unlikely to touch it again."
Blunt said he is working with other senators to review the law enforcement response to Wednesday's events, and rejected any notion of complicity between law enforcement and the rioters that stormed the Capitol. He is the chairman of one of the outgoing committees investigating Wednesday's response.
