High school commencement speakers are supposed to inspire, but Senator Ben Sasse apparently missed that memo. Instead, the Nebraska Republican decided to give a sarcastic, down-in-the-dumps speech. At one point Sasse inferred some of the speech for his alma mater, Fremont High School was supposed to be funny, but it all fell flat. Among the low-lights were xenophobic comments about China:

“We’re going to have to have a serious reckoning with the thugs in China who let this mess spiral out of control by lying about it.”

“If you’re a parent, you’re a teacher, thanks a lot China we’re all teachers now.”

And he suggested more than once that these high schoolers are overweight and lazy, “Back in the day when we were a lot fitter than you people are.”

Without explanation, he also seemed bothered by the name Jeremy, “Everybody named Jeremy is the worst.”

And for some reason he decided to disparage psychologists and psychology majors:

“95% of all gainfully employed psychologists, I’m serious, there are dozens of them that are gainfully employed, their job is really just to help people forget high school. And the other 5%, they just research hamsters who got lost in mazes. If you’re headed to college, do not major in psychology. That part’s not a joke.”

The Fremont Public Schools almost immediately disavowed the comments, releasing a statement that read in part: “We have received feedback on parts of the ceremony and would like to share some information for clarity in regard to the speeches by our guests. The words spoken belong to the individual that said them, not the school district… We encourage individuals with concerns to reach out to the individual directly. They are the only ones who can accurately interpret what was intended.”

And here’s reaction from one school board member.

But it doesn’t look like Sasse will be apologizing.  The Hill says they received this statement from a spokesman for Sasse’s office:

“Like he said in the video greeting, Ben’s proud of each of the graduates — and he believes their generation is tough enough to help lead us through the bumpy economic times ahead… Ben’s said this for months, because it’s true: The Chinese Communist Party’s coronavirus coverup wasted time that could have contained the spread — those lies cost innocent lives in China and around the world. Pretending graduates are too fragile to hear the truth is silly.”