The New Hampshire senator has maintained this stance since she first announced that she would support Trump when he emerged as the presumptive Republican nominee in May. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) in the upcoming New Hampshire U.S. Senate election, refused on three separate occasions to say whether or not she thought Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was “honest”.
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Maggie Hassan says Hillary Clinton should be the next president. “She has a critical, critical plan among others for making college more affordable”, Hassan began.
Raju asked again, “Do you think she is honest?”
According to the most recent presidential poll of New Hampshire, 71 percent of likely voters responded that “honest and trustworthy” is not a description that befits Clinton. “And unfortunately, Gov. Hassan has not”, Ayotte said. “I think he’ll surround himself, I assume, with people who will help him understand”. “And so while he has my vote he doesn’t have my endorsement, and I’m going to continue to really focus on my race”.
“I think that she has demonstrated a commitment always to something beyond herself, bigger than herself”, Hassan said in her third evasion of the question.
The Clinton campaign clarified later that Hassan did find Clinton to be honest. “An endorsement is when you are campaigning with someone”. But he attempted to walk that back during a subsequent rally, where he characterized her as “a rising star [who] will continue to represent the great people of New Hampshire so very well for a long, long time”. Her line has been more hard to hold as she has spoken out against Trump’s “offensive” attacks on the Mexican heritage of a federal judge and on the parents of a Muslim-American soldier killed in Iraq.
“I will take on my own party”, Ayotte told CNN in Nashua Monday.
Asked about that contention, Ayotte said: “I respect her but each person has to make their own individual decision on who they’re going to vote for”. “By supporting Trump, she’s supporting racism, climate denial, and violence”.
Ayotte said the situation differs from 2012 when she was barnstorming the state with Mitt Romney – something she won’t do for Trump when he comes to the Granite State. Rubio repeatedly called Trump a “con artist” during the Republican primary and said he’s “wholly unprepared to be president of the United States”.
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Asked by a CNN reporter to explain the difference, Ayotte said that “there’s actually a big distinction”. But she didn’t seem too concerned about it.
