Ayotte: ‘I wouldn’t want my daughter in the room’ with Bill Clinton or Trump

WNTK host Keith Hanson asked the incumbent senator in a tight re-election race, “[L]et’s fast forward four years and your daughter’s 16 years of age. Would you have wanted your daughter to hear the conversation that Donald Trump had engaged in with a reporter from ‘Access Hollywood’ on that bus?” That’s a reference to the lewd comments Trump made about women that led to him sinking in the polls in the days and weeks that followed.

“I think we all know the answer to that,” Ayotte replied.

“At any point in time would you want your 16-year-old daughter in a room with Bill Clinton?” Hanson asked.

“I wouldn’t want my daughter in the room with any of them,” responded Ayotte. “But, the point of this, that, uh, you know, why would I want my daughter in the room with them? You know, and this isn’t about my daughter. I love my daughter and um, you know, obviously being a mom is a very important to me.”

Hanson defended the question as an attempt to address the candidates’ character.

The incumbent vowed in early October not to vote for Trump after a leaked tape from 2005 revealed Trump had talked about grabbing a woman by her genitals. Ayotte said the U.S. is at a point “where character doesn’t matter,” but that “character does matter when I think about my children.”

Ayotte is running against Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan next Tuesday. She plans to write-in Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, for president.

The comment is similar to a remark Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill made on “Meet the Press” in October 2008. Host Tim Russert asked the Missouri senator why she was willing to allow Bill Clinton’s help with fundraising if she had concerns about his behavior.

“I have a lot of problems with some of his personal issues,” McCaskill responded. “I said at the time, I think he’s been a great leader, but I don’t want my daughter near him.”