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Top GOP lawmaker withdraws Trump endorsement

by Ben Kamisar - 10/07/16 11:14 PM ET
by Ben Kamisar - 10/07/16 11:14 PM ET
Greg Nash

Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican lawmaker and chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has dropped his endorsement of Donald Trump in reaction to the publication of lewd comments about women.

The congressman made the statement during a live interview with Fox 13 in Salt Lake City.

“I’m out. I can no longer in good conscience endorse this person for president. It is some of the most abhorrent and offensive comments that you can possibly imagine,” he said. 

“He’s put the party and this country in an awful place … I get the sense this probably isn’t the end of them. There might be more.”

Chaffetz is the first GOP congressman to pull his endorsement of Trump after The Washington Post published audio of Trump talking about how women let him “do anything” because he’s famous. 

“You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.

“Grab them by the p—-,” Trump adds. “You can do anything.”

In a later interview on CNN, Chaffetz said he wished that GOP vice presidential nominee Mike Pence was at the top of the ticket, but he stopped short of calling on Trump to drop out of the race.

“I do wish that Mike Pence was at the top of the ticket. I really do,” Chaffetz told CNN’s Don Lemon. “He is a person of good moral fiber.”
 
Chaffetz said an endorsement of Trump would have been impossible to explain to his 15-year-old daughter.
 
“To use a baseball metaphor I got to call balls and strikes the way I see them. My wife Julie and I, we have a 15-year-old daughter. You think I can look her in the eye and tell her that I endorsed Donald Trump for president when he acts like this.”
 
He ripped Trump for the GOP nominee’s initial apology for “locker room talk.”
 
“I played college football. I’ve been in a lot of locker rooms,” said Chaffetz, a placekicker in college. “This was not just locker room talk.”
 
“And his apology, that was no apology. That was an apology for getting caught,” Chaffetz also said. 
 
High-profile Republicans have condemned Trump in the aftermath of the Friday afternoon release, with House Speaker Paul Ryan adding that Trump will no longer campaign with him on Saturday.
 
Chaffetz declined to say whether he thought Ryan should drop his own endorsement of Trump. 
Tags Donald Trump Jason Chaffetz Mike Pence Paul Ryan

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