Donald Trump often tells his supporters he will get along with “just about everybody,” if he’s elected president. But a recent interview with some congressional Republicans suggests the billionaire’s toughest crowd might be his own party.
During a roundtable with Yahoo News’ Katie Couric, four rank-and-file Republicans from Tennessee, Michigan, California and Wisconsin agreed that Trump’s success is due in large part to the frustration among their constituents, but each expressed concerns about the billionaire’s messaging, conservative credentials and knowledge gap on foreign and domestic policy.
“I don’t like the rhetoric. I wish he was more polished, and that’s a concern for me,” California Congresswoman Mimi Walters told Couric.
“Yeah, for me … I come from a very conservative area [and] I just don’t believe Donald Trump is a conservative,” said Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich. Huizenga wasn’t sure his constituents “believe” Trump either.
“He’s been very vague about where he’s going … And at the end of the day, for me, I’m not willing to trade in an authoritarian president of one party who’s willing to go around the legislative branch and issue executive orders and do executive actions when he’s not getting his way and doesn’t wanna follow the constitution for an authoritarian president of my own party, who is gonna say, ‘Hey, you know what, if they don’t like it, I’m going to go around them,'” Huizenga said.
Tennessee Congresswoman Diane Black cited Trump’s penchant for insulting his opponents on both the trail and social media as cause for concern.
“I have six grandchildren. And my grandchildren know that I don’t allow them to say some of the things that he says,” she told Couric. Black added, “The second thing is that I’d like a little bit more meat. I’d like to know [his] plans.”
“If you’re gonna blow something up, I’d like to know how are you gonna blow it up? Are there any children in the building before you blow it up?” she asked. “I just like to have a little more specificity.”
Wisconsin Congressman Sean Duffy said he’s confident Trump will win his district, but remains skeptical of the “blue-collar billionaire” and his commitment to conservatism.
“Listen, I will join the group. I don’t think that he’s a conservative,” Duffy said of Trump. “He’ll say conservative things, but he had an opposite position five or eight or 10 years ago.”
He continued, “We spend a lifetime, and we spend a lot of time away from our families, working on a certain set of ideas because we think it’s going to help lift people up, give them more opportunity, a better salary, more freedom and more security.”
“And to have someone who doesn’t buy into that, that might actually blow all of that up and say they’re Republican is really disconcerting for a lot of us,” Duffy told Couric.
The four conservative representatives are part of a growing faction of Republican lawmakers who’ve joined the “Never Trump” movement or have yet to embrace the New York business mogul as the potential GOP nominee.
While he opposes Trump’s candidacy, Duffy suggested Republicans might be worse off if they block the billionaire from becoming the nominee during a contested convention.
“It’s going to be raucous … if Donald Trump has the most votes and doesn’t get the nomination,” he said, echoing a sentiment Trump himself has recently expressed.
