Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry believes many of Donald Trump’s backers are having “second thoughts” about the businessman possibly becoming the Republican nominee and eventual commander in chief.
“He either, he doesn’t care about these issues or, I don’t think he is lazy,” Perry, a former 2016 GOP presidential hopeful himself told host Martha MacCallum on the Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” Friday morning.
“I think he is a hard-working fellow, but maybe he doesn’t think he has to go study and know these issues,” Perry added.
Perry now supports Texas Sen. Ted Cruz — who he called “the real adult in the room” and “the intellectual giant” — in his bid to take down Trump as the front-runner.
Trump’s failure to grasp the issues and offer solutions to them has resulted in a lot of people who supported Trump months ago now “really rethinking this,” Perry claimed.
“Women in particular, they’re seeing some things come out of his mouth that are really horrendous when it comes to women and, you know, whether it is foreign policy or whether it is social issues, real concerns, I think a lot of those people are having second thoughts about Donald Trump now.”
With female voters, Trump’s issue is “real, and it’s deep,” Perry said.
“I don’t know how he gets himself out of that hole,” Perry added. “Even if he stops digging, it is so deep I think most voters out there are like, you know, ‘Is this person really thoughtful enough, is he mature enough? Does he really care enough to learn the issues?’ Real questions are starting to come up about Donald Trump and his preparedness to be president of the United States.”
Cruz is now going after Trump after months of declining to do so, which Perry said isn’t an attack on Trump’s supporters — but rather Cruz “bringing to the attention of the people who are angry that he [Trump] talked to … seeing now that he’s not prepared.”
“I said early on I thought this was headed to a contested convention,” Perry concluded. “I still think that. And it’s a two-person race … I think Ted Cruz by a large margin is going to have the support of the convention. I think he will be our nominee and I think not only will he do well, I think he will thrash Hillary Clinton.”
