Senate Republicans’ top budget writer expressed support for Donald Trump Wednesday, saying that the presidential candidate may be able to shore up the federal government’s finances.
“I’m kind of excited that we might have an actual businessman in the White House,” said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., appearing at a Washington event put on by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.
Trump, a real estate magnate and reality television star, has been through bad times as well as good, Enzi said, giving him experience in troubled situations such as the federal government’s fiscal condition.
“We need to do better than we’ve been doing, and I think he can do it,” Enzi said.
The Wyoming senator, a former accountant, said he does not endorse before the end of primaries and declined to outright endorse Trump, who is now running unopposed in the Republican primary.
Some lawmakers have been reluctant to rally behind Trump, who deviates from Republican orthodoxy on a number of policy issues and whose rhetoric has elicited criticism from some prominent Republicans. Most notably, House Speaker Paul Ryan has declined to endorse Trump. Republican Sen. Ben Sasse, of Nebraska, has called for a third-party candidate to run against Trump and Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.
