Republicans seeing Trump's ratings going down the drain seek to abandon ship

The Bible stunt at St. John's seems to have backfired. Who could have guessed?

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) said Tuesday he disagreed with the decision to forcefully clear protesters from around Lafayette Square for a "photo op" and accused President Trump of using the Bible as a "political prop."

"There is a fundamental—a Constitutional—right to protest, and I'm against clearing out a peaceful protest for a photo op that treats the Word of God as a political prop," Sasse, who won his Senate primary last month, said in a statement.

[...]

"Every public servant in America should be lowering the temperature and that means saying two basic truths over and over: (1) police injustice—like the evil murder of George Floyd—is repugnant and merits peaceful protest aimed at change; (2) riots are abhorrent acts of violence that hurt the innocent. Say both things loudly and repeatedly, as Americans work to end the violence and injustice," he added.

[...]

While a handful of Republican senators, including Sens. Tim Scott (S.C.), Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), have broken with the White House, several others have sidestepped by saying they haven't seen footage of the incident or defended it because it followed nights of protests and riots around Washington, D.C.

  The Hill

Haven't seen it is the GOP's favorite excuse.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Technicality:  The acting US Park police chief (we don't even have anyone named to head THAT office) said it was pepper balls and smoke caniters.  So Trump can claim tear gas reports as fake news.