Don’t expect Rep. Steve King to join the growing contingent of Republicans who are abandoning Donald Trump.
“If we’re going to move a conservative Republican platform agenda, the best way to do that is with a President Trump,” the Iowa Republican told CNN’s Chris Cuomo Tuesday on “New Day.” “So, I’m sticking with him, and I think that’s the best place for conservatives to be.”
The Republican Party was thrust into chaos last week following the publication of a recording in which Trump can be heard bragging about kissing and groping women. Dozens of Republicans rescinded their endorsement of Trump, whose poll numbers already appeared to be dipping even before the bombshell dropped.
House Speaker Paul Ryan, the highest-ranking Republican on Capitol Hill, said Monday that he will no longer defend Trump — although Ryan has not walked back his endorsement.
Trump apologized for the remarks on the tape, which was recorded in 2005, but he has also dismissed them as “locker-room talk.”
King, one of the most conservative members of Congress, said Tuesday that a presidential election is unlike the decisions he faces as a lawmaker.
“On the floor of Congress, I have the opportunity to vote yes or no on any bill that comes to the floor. … But I don’t get a yes or no for president, I only get a yes,” King told Cuomo.
“This is not a hard decision,” he added. “It’s a binary decision.”
King said that most of his GOP colleagues who have withdrawn their support for Trump are “much closer to the left side of the Republican Party than those that are the solid conservatives in the party.”
Asked about the vulgar comments Trump can be heard saying on the unearthed recording, which was first reported on Friday by the Washington Post, King said he would never say them, but “I wouldn’t say none of us have back in college years.”
