Missouri Republican Sen. Roy Blunt, who faces a tough reelection battle in part thanks to Donald Trump’s ascendance to the top of the GOP ticket, was one of the members of Congress to meet with Trump in Washington yesterday, an opportunity that his staff said he would use to warn the presidential candidate about the language he uses on the campaign trail.
In an interview with home-state radio host Jamie Allman this morning, Blunt lamented the nasty rhetoric on “both sides” in the election and, apparently taking a cue from his colleague Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, declined to explicitly say he was endorsing Trump, merely saying that he was “for him.”
“Do you endorse Donald Trump?” Allman asked.
“I’m for him,” Blunt replied, “and look forward to helping them understand what can be done to get regulation under control and move forward.”
Blunt told Allman that he had a “good meeting” with Trump.
“And Donald talked, as you might imagine,” he said, “but he also listened and we had a chance to talk as well and I think there’s some real potential to get things done, like getting the regulators under control and figure out how the Congress can take responsibility for regulation again. I think things like getting Obamacare off the books and getting better health care policies on the books are all very possible with him, and I don’t think they’re possible with Mrs. Clinton at all.”
“Do you think that Donald Trump is a conservative?” Allman asked
Blunt paused for an awkwardly long time before responding: “He says he’s a conservative and I don’t have any reason to doubt that. Do all conservatives agree on everything? No. But I sure think he’s more conservative than Mrs. Clinton.”
