A conservative columnist for The New York Times accused Republican leaders of choosing to “die in the dark” rather than stand up to President Trump after a pair of GOP senators lambasted Trump on Tuesday. 

In a Wednesday column, “Jeff Flake’s Defiant Surrender,” writer Ross Douthat wrote that GOP Sens.  Bob Corker Robert (Bob) Phillips CorkerHas Congress captured Russia policy?  Tennessee primary battle turns nasty for Republicans Cheney clashes with Trump MORE (Tenn.) and Jeff Flake Jeffrey (Jeff) Lane FlakeJeff Flake: Republicans 'should hold the same position' on SCOTUS vacancy as 2016 Republican former Michigan governor says he's voting for Biden Maybe they just don't like cowboys: The president is successful, some just don't like his style MORE (Ariz.), who have become harsh critics of the president after announcing their retirements, should call for Trump’s impeachment rather than just criticize him from afar. 

“If Corker really means what he keeps saying about the danger posed by Trump’s effective incapacity, he should call openly for impeachment or for 25th Amendment proceedings — and other anti-Trump Republicans should join him,” Douthat wrote. “ If Flake really means what he said in his impassioned speech, and he doesn’t want to waste time and energy on a foredoomed Senate primary campaign, then he should choose a different hopeless-seeming cause and primary Trump in 2020.” 

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Corker has openly exchanged insults with the president, saying this week Trump will be remembered for his "debasement" of the United States. 

And Flake delivered an explosive anti-Trump speech on the Senate floor Tuesday, saying he has dragged the Republican Party away from its traditional conservative values. 

Douthat accused them of “clearing the field” for Trump to be renominated in 2020, rather than standing up and actively fighting for the ideals they claim to believe in. 

“Men like Flake and Corker, who right now have the not-quite-admirable courage of men abandoning the fray, still have time enough and light enough in which to stand and fight," Douthat wrote.