US Sen. Sasse Criticized for Jokes in Graduation Speech

FREMONT, Neb. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Ben Sasse’s attempt at humor during a speech at a Nebraska high school's online commencement, which included jokes about students’ fitness and psychologists and also blamed China for the coronavirus outbreak, has drawn strong criticism.

The Republican senator on Saturday encouraged students not to major in psychology and suggested they would remember this year as “that time when China started a big global pandemic that created the worst public health crisis in over a century and brought the economy to its knees and we had to stay home and everybody was hoarding toilet paper.”

Fremont school board member Michael Petersen called on Sasse to apologize.