Watch Video | Listen to the Audio
JUDY WOODRUFF: Now, back to the race for the White House.
As we reported, House Speaker Paul Ryan today became the highest ranking Republican yet to say he’s not ready to support Donald Trump.
We examine the divisions the Trump nomination is driving with two conservatives on either side of the split. We start with a Trump supporter, Representative Tom Marino who joins us from State College, Pennsylvania.
Congressman Marino, thank you for joining us.
You endorsed Donald Trump as early as just about anybody in the House of Representatives back in February. Why?
REP. TOM MARINO (R), Pennsylvania: Well, it’s very simple. I’ll answer that with a rhetorical statement. How’s it been knowing the last 30 years having governors, senators, and career politicians being president, we’re $20 trillion in debt, 20 million people out of work, businesses are leaving the country in droves, the borders are not secured, people tell me in my district they’re afraid they’re not going to be able to even send their kids to school because they don’t know if they’re going to have a job or find a job.
So, Donald Trump has hired tens of thousands of people. He’s the only candidate that has signed the front of a paycheck.
I just was talking to him the other day — and you know what one of his first meetings among others is going to be? It’s going to be with business people, businesswomen and -men, who can tell Donald what the problem is, why they have to leave this country.
So, I think it’s a no-brainer.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Congressman, what do you say to fellow Republicans who say they don’t believe Donald Trump is really, truly conservative?
REP. TOM MARINO: Well, you know, I’m a conservative. Donald is a — he’s an individual that touches all Americans, Republicans, Democrats and independents. He’s a populist. He’s bringing more and more people out to vote that ever came out to vote in the past.
He’s going to have — when the primary is over, he’s going to have more votes from the Republicans than any other presidential primary candidate in the history of this country. He’s built a $10 billion business by surrounding him with the best and the brightest, and I don’t see what any of these other people have to offer.
The American people are sick and tired of being sick. They’re sick and tired of the establishment, the career politicians, the so-called political bosses in Washington, and, really, what we needed to do was bulldoze Washington and start over.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Congressman, the other — one of the other criticisms one hears about Mr. Trump is about his temperament. There are some who say they might be willing to support him but worry as president he doesn’t have the temperament to be leader of the free world.
REP. TOM MARINO: Well, if he didn’t have the temperament to be the president, I don’t think he would be as successful as he is in business. I have been with him many times, smoking with him many times. He asked my advice. I give it to him.
I don’t say just exactly what you might want to hear because I’m that kind of a person, but just look in the past. What has — what does Hillary Clinton have to offer? You know, what do other candidates have to offer as far as creating jobs?
He’s known all over the world and he’s certainly going to let the rest of the world know that we don’t think we’re better than anyone else, but we’re not going to be taken advantage of anymore like we have been in trade, like we have been in foreign affairs concerning Putin. He’s going to take China on. I think they know that he’s a serious guy and I believe that he’s going to make this country great again with the help of the American people.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And what do you say to the leader in your own party in the House of Representatives, Speaker Paul Ryan, who said today he’s not ready to support Donald Trump because he still has work to do to unify your party?
REP. TOM MARINO: Well, Paul is new at the job. It’s a big switch going from the chairman over to the Speaker of the House because there is no one in the public’s eye than the speaker other than the president.
But I’m going to give Paul the benefit of the doubt. We’re back in D.C. next week. We’ll have a discussion about that. There it is a responsibility there that he has to work to bring the party together and I know he and Donald have been having discussions.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Representative Tom Marino of Pennsylvania, we thank you very much.
REP. TOM MARINO: It’s always my pleasure.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And Donald Trump has responded to Speaker Ryan this evening. In his statement, he said, quote, “I am not ready to support Speaker Ryan’s agenda. Perhaps in the future we can work together and come to an agreement about what is best for the American people. They have been treated so badly for so long that it’s about time for politicians to put them first.”
Now for a view from a conservative critic of Donald Trump, we turn to John McCormack, senior writer at “The Weekly Standard” magazine.
John McCormack, welcome.
Why are you opposed to Mr. Trump as the party’s nominee?
JOHN MCCORMACK, The Weekly Standard: Well, you know, what you heard Paul Ryan say today is that we want a standard bearer who bears our standards. And you could view that from one respect as a matter of ideology, something that Paul Ryan would say is that we’re going to have a debt crisis if we don’t get entitlements under control, Donald Trump is completely not a conservative on that and many other issues.
But for me, really, the issue is more of temperament and character. I think that for the past ten months, Donald Trump has proven to be nothing less than an unstable conspiracy theorist with an authoritarian streak. You know, he has — he got his start in politics saying Barack Obama’s birth certificate was fake. He suggests that George W. Bush knowingly lied that there are weren’t weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. That’s an unproven conspiracy theory. Just this week, he said that Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the JFK assassination.
That’s just sheer lunacy, and it doesn’t, it’s not the kind of stability that you want in a commander-in-chief. So, for me, I’d be willing to take a chance on Donald Trump, if you just simply want quite (ph) as conservatives I like. But again, on matters of character and temperament, I just don’t think he’s there.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, you probably heard, I talked with Congressman Tom Marino of Pennsylvania, who I asked him that temperament question, and he said, well, he’s been a successful businessman. He said his temperament is what’s helped him get him where he is today. What about that?
JOHN MCCORMACK: Well, if you look at a lot of his business dealings, you know, he’s really just insulted a lot of people, been very aggressive. He’s gotten where he is more out of his fame than business acumen. I mean, just in his campaign, we’ve seen him denigrate women, he has insulted even prisoners of war when he said of John McCain, tat I like people who weren’t captured. I can’t believe a patriotic party has chosen someone who has denigrated prisoners of war like that.
And until Donald Trump can prove he’s a man of character and a man of temperament, which he hasn’t done, which I don’t think he can do, I can’t support him.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Are you saying you don’t think you could come around — you and others who agree with you, couldn’t come around to support Donald Trump if he demonstrates temperament you say you look for in a president changes and maybe comes up with positions on issues that you can agree with?
JOHN MCCORMACK: Well, I think the Donald Trump that we’ve seen over the last ten months is the real Donald Trump. I don’t see him, you know, apologizing publicly to all the women he’s insulted — degraded, really — to the prisoner of war people like John McCain, to excommunicate the nationalists who have found a welcoming home in his campaign, to prove that he has a sober and steady hands. You know, I mean, he bounces all over the place on tissues. He can’t control his worst impulses, as he insults Heidi Cruz, he threatened to, quote, “spill the beans” on her.
It’s not the stability you’re seeing, and I think the person you’ve seen in the last ten months is the real Donald Trump. So, I don’t think I’ll be able to support him in November. I hope there is a third party candidate, maybe somebody like Dr. Coburn from Oklahoma. Time is running out to get on the ballot, but I hope there’s a viable option for principled conservatives in November.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, that’s what I want to ask you, John McCormack. What do you and other conservatives do who aren’t able to support Donald Trump? If you support a third party, doesn’t that automatically help the Democratic nominee who’s likely to be Hillary Clinton?
JOHN MCCORMACK: Well, you know, the polls show right now that Hillary Clinton is going to beat Donald Trump whether or not conservative. It’s very likely she’ll beat him whether or not conservatives support Donald Trump. A recent CNN poll found 84 percent of Republican back Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton was leading Trump overall by 13 percentage points, which means if you have 100 percent of Republicans supported Donald Trump, he would still lose to Hillary Clinton.
But, you know, at the end of the day, conservatives, they just kind of take a stand and say that they believe that both candidates are disqualified. On one hand, you see Hillary Clinton, someone who’s Supreme Court nominee would trample the Constitution, send the country hurdling to the left, and then Donald Trump, who as I said, is simply unfit to be commander-in-chief.
And you just have to take a stand, let the chips fall where they may. You can hope that there is a third party principled candidate there and if not, write somebody in and vote down ballot.
JUDY WOODRUFF: I want to ask you about another point that we heard Congressman Marino make, and that is, he said Trump appeals — he’s a populist. He’s appealing to Democrats, to independents, as well as Republicans. Why wouldn’t Donald Trump be able to put together a coalition that could prevail in November?
The post Trump the leader of the free world? Two GOP perspectives appeared first on PBS NewsHour.