Herman Cain has to stop just denying accusations of sexual harassment and give more of an explanation, long-time Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley told Newsmax.TV in an exclusive interview.
There is still a great deal of support for the embattled presidential candidate in Grassley’s home state of Iowa, he said, but that could change.
And Grassley, who has represented the Hawkeye State in Washington for 36 years as a Republican congressman and senator, said he will reserve judgment about whether he could support Cain should it come down to a presidential election between the pizza mogul and President Barack Obama.
When asked whether, if Cain became the GOP nominee, "could you vote for him despite the allegations?” Grassley responded, “I would wait until I get more information about those allegations.”
But he added he did not think Cain should quit the race. “Not at this point,” he said.
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The caucuses in first-in-the-nation Iowa are less than eight weeks away, and Grassley said things could be changing for Cain.
“Until this week, it didn’t seem to make any impact,” he said about allegations from four former employees that he pestered them. “I don’t want to say that it is not making an impact, but I think that it is going to be very difficult for as long as these charges keep coming, to keep saying that they’re all wrong without further explanation.
“There’s a lot of people who want Herman Cain to succeed because he is a free-market, business-oriented candidate for president, and there are only two of them in the race,” he added. “People think that that’s a good thing.
“The only fair thing for me to say about Herman Cain is that I just think that I better reserve much judgment about it until I get more facts.”
Editor's Note: Also in the exclusive Newsmax interview, Sen. Grassley cites lessons for the United States to learn in the global financial crisis — Go Here Now.
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