‘Pawn Stars’ host: Backing Rubio has hurt me

“Pawn Stars” host Rick Harrison said Friday that he has alienated certain viewers by backing Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) for the presidency in 2016.

“When you endorse a Republican, everyone sort of frowns on you,” the reality television personality said, according to CNN.

{mosads}“I don’t know why, but hey,” Harrison said. “I suddenly became famous, and I was the one willing to throw my career away to endorse a Republican.”

Harrison added that he as more privately backed Republicans in the past.

He argued Friday he could not stay silent about Rubio’s campaign because of the Florida lawmaker’s background and everyman appeal.

“I was deeply impressed,” Harrison said of his first meeting with Rubio in Las Vegas.

“It was the first time I sat down with a politician that long and it wasn’t, ‘the party, the party, the party,’ ” he said. “All he was talking about was people. Quite frankly, I’ve never had a politician talk like that.”

Harrison then contrasted Rubio’s circumstances growing up with those of Donald Trump, the GOP’s presidential front-runner.

“His dad was a bartender at a bowling alley and his mom was a maid at a casino here in town,” he said of Rubio’s past.

“When someone mentions living paycheck to paycheck, he goes, ‘Yeah, I was raised that way,’ ” Harrison said. “I think if you have a leader, you need someone who has experienced what people are experiencing.”

Harrison additionally criticized Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton for lacking any true foreign policy accomplishments.

“I can’t really think of anything she did,” he said of the former secretary of State.