Lamar Alexander Wants Republicans to Stand Up to Trump

Lamar Alexander

In a new memoir, the former senator, governor and cabinet member says President Trump committed an impeachable offense on Jan. 6 and calls on Congress to assert its power.

by Carl Hulse, New York Times, May 17, 2026 - Lamar Alexander played a crucial role in short-circuiting the first impeachment trial of President Trump when, as an influential Republican senator from Tennessee, he opposed calling witnesses and said the president’s attempts to pressure Ukraine didn’t meet the test for removal from office.

His role in the second impeachment might have been quite different had he remained in office just a few more weeks.

In his new memoir, “The Education of a Senator,” Mr. Alexander, 85, who is also a former governor, cabinet secretary and presidential candidate, writes with disgust about how the president exhorted the crowd that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and penetrated the Senate chamber in an effort to block certification of the election.

He asserts that the president undermined the Constitution and assaulted the hallowed concept of the peaceful transfer of power.

“If those actions do not constitute a ‘high crime or misdemeanor,’ I do not know what does,” Mr. Alexander wrote in the book, which is subtitled “From J.F.K. to Trump.”

...  he does render a verdict on the conduct of his former colleagues as Mr. Trump has steamrolled over a compliant Senate in his second term. He finds them guilty of failing to assert themselves as the Constitution intended.

“To me, the most disappointing difference between the first and second Trump terms was not what Trump did, but what the Senate majority did not do,” Mr. Alexander wrote. “Republican senators rarely checked abuse of presidential authority.” (read it all)

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