New York Rep. Pete King said Friday that he'll be endorsing Donald Trump as the GOP nominee, but he won't be campaigning for him as he has "too many real differences" with his fellow New Yorker's policies, including the "way he casually talks about nuclear weapons" and how he "misrepresents" the Trans-Pacific Partnership on trade.
"I believe in a two party system," King told
MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program. "The main thing is the Supreme Court. We should try to unite if at all possible."
While Trump's views don't always match up with those of many Republicans, King pointed out that "Hillary Clinton is also not my party," and "unless it's really beyond the pale, you should support the nominee of your party."
King also said he's seeing many positive signs from Trump too, including his call to build up the military and the way he's reaching out to blue-collar and "Reagan" Democrats, explaining that he believes that can "strengthen the base if we don't lose too many people in the meantime."
The New York lawmaker made some strong statements against Trump throughout the primaries, but said Friday he'd always said he'd support the eventual party nominee.
King acknowledged there is real concern among fellow Republican lawmakers about what will happen in their campaigns with Trump as the nominee, and there are "Tea Party people" who oppose Trump "because they just consider him to be a liberal Democrat."
"I think pollsters are going to make money in June and July this year as Republicans are getting polls done to see where they stand in their district," said King.
At the same time, he thinks Republicans may have sold Trump "short." Meanwhile, he thinks that when Trump and Clinton end up debating, "she could end up looking like Jeb Bush.Very knowledgeable and smart, but not ready for this hurricane that's going to come at her."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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