Former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Christopher Krebs on Sunday added his name to the growing list of U.S. officials and lawmakers who are calling on President Trump to resign from office, saying the president’s legacy is “a heap of ashes” after the deadly riot at the Capitol on Wednesday.
“There is an opportunity here, I think, to prevent further bloodshed,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “And I don’t know if the president is capable of doing it, but he has to resign. He has to tell his supporters that he lied to them, that this was all his own fraud. He has to come out. We have to set an example for the rest of the free world that attempted coups, which is what this was, will not be tolerated.”
Krebs was fired by Trump in November after he refused to corroborate the president’s baseless claims that widespread fraud had occurred in the 2020 election.
CBS’s Margaret Brennan noted that Trump is showing no interest in resigning and asked Krebs about the impact of the president’s exile from from social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Twitter made the decision to permanently ban Trump from the website on Friday to prevent “the risk of further incitement of violence.” Facebook has extended its suspension of Trump’s accounts until at least the day after President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration.
“I think at this point, particularly after Wednesday, the president’s legacy is a heap of ashes. There’s nothing redeemable at this point given the fact that he incited this attempt to overturn democracy, a fair and free election,” said Krebs regarding the development.
“There is an opportunity, though, for a redemption story. Again, he can resign. He can tell his supporters that it was all a long — a big con and that he is sorry,” added Krebs.
“I don’t know if he’s capable of doing it, but that’s the best way to prevent further violence, to prevent further erosion of confidence in democracy over the next four years. And every single Republican on the Hill that continues to support these election irregularities has to do the same thing. They have to denounce it, and they have to come back to the middle,” he said.