A GOP senator who has consistently sounded the siren on the national debt said it was “shocking” that any Republican CEO would back Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump.
Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., made the statement at an event Thursday morning, just after the Clinton campaign announced it had the backing of more than 50 major business leaders.
“We’ve created 20,000 new regulations under this administration. It’s shocking a Republican CEO would support Hillary Clinton. Trump is trying to grow the economy. He’s in touch with the people back home,” Perdue told Bloomberg.
Perdue, a former CEO himself, endorsed Trump in a June 1 op-ed. “It is time for an outsider in the White House,” Perdue wrote. “It is time to let Trump be Trump, and to help him win this election.”
The freshman senator, known for his rhetoric on reforming the nation’s budget system and reducing national debt, introduced a bill in February that called for enacting a zero-based budget, placing Social Security back “on budget,” and mandating periodic reports on federal programs with spending power.
Perdue told the Washington Examiner in January that the U.S. is “way past the tipping point” on the $19.2 trillion debt. He added that the debt is the current “greatest threat to our national security and even our way of life.”
Pushing his case for Trump, Perdue said he agreed with House Speaker Paul Ryan that choosing between Clinton and Trump was a binary one, even if the two choices “weren’t exactly what we hoped for.”
“Where are we going to get productivity and economic growth?” Perdue asked the Bloomberg audience. “I don’t see it with Hillary Clinton. And on the other side, we have a business guy that’s not beholden to the political wonk culture.”
