This is an adapted excerpt from the Aug. 16 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”
Remember Ben Sasse?
The Republican senator from Nebraska was first elected back in 2014. He made a show of not voting for Donald Trump in 2016 and fashioned himself as something of a Trump critic within the party.
Despite that, during his time in the Senate, he voted for the then-president’s agenda anyway — passing his tax cuts and voting to declare a “national emergency” so Trump could divert money from the military to build his border wall. Sasse voted against hearing from witnesses in Trump’s first impeachment and was among the 52 Republican senators who acquitted the ex-president.
When he faced a primary challenge in 2020, Sasse even scored an endorsement from Trump, the man he once compared to the white supremacist David Duke. The senator went on to win re-election.
Sasse even scored an endorsement from Trump, the man he once compared to the white supremacist David Duke.
But, less than two years into his second term, he resigned to take a job as president of the University of Florida. Then, in July, just 18 months after taking that job, Sasse announced his resignation. He cited his wife’s ongoing medical struggles, including a recent epilepsy diagnosis.
On Monday, the university’s student newspaper, The Independent Florida Alligator, published a report about Sasse’s short tenure as UF president.
According to documents obtained by the Alligator, which have not been seen or independently verified by NBC News, Sasse hired a number of his old Senate staffers and allies to highly paid positions at the university. Some even worked “remotely” from Washington, D.C.
The paper also reported that spending by the office of the president more than tripled during Sasse’s first year at the University of Florida. According to the Alligator, the school’s previous president, Kent Fuchs, spent $5.6 million during his final year with the university. In Sasse’s first year as president, he spent $17.3 million.
Travel spending also reportedly skyrocketed under Sasse. Fuch’s yearly average travel spending was just $28,000. Sasse’s office spent more than 20x that amount, totaling $633,000 in his first fiscal year with the school.
Fuch’s yearly average travel spending was just $28,000. Sasse’s office spent more than 20x that amount, totaling $633,000 in his first fiscal year with the school.
NBC News reached out to the University of Florida but has not heard back. The university told the Alligator that “Sasse’s budget expansion went through the ‘appropriate approval process.’”
On Friday, in a statement posted to X, Sasse responded to the report, saying it was “not true” and that there was no “inappropriate spending” during his time as president:
“Now, it is true that there was substantial funding for a number of important new initiatives. I am very happy to defend each and every one of these initiatives…because from day one, the whole reason I agreed to leave a great job representing the salt-of-the-earth people of my home state of Nebraska is precisely because higher education needs massive reform.”
The chief financial officer for the state of Florida has now called on the University of Florida to conduct an investigation into what he referred to as Sasse’s “exorbitant spending.”
The DeSantis administration also says it’s been talking with the university’s leadership about it.
“We take the stewardship of state funds very seriously and have already been in discussions with leadership at the university and with the (state university system’s) Board of Governors to look into the matter,” DeSantis spokesperson Bryan Griffin said in a statement.
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