A Republican lawmaker called out evangelical supporters of President Donald Trump who are turning a blind eye to the growing number of scandals coming out of the White House.
“I don’t know how many in the evangelical community can reconcile some of their positions at this moment,” Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Penn.) said Tuesday on CNN.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked Dent what he thought would happen if “the shoe were on the other foot” and President Barack Obama was embroiled in a scandal similar to Trump’s alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels.
“They’d be waving a bloody shirt,” Dent said. “It’d be a human rights violation had it been the shoe on the other foot.”
He also said that if a Democratic president had been conciliatory toward Russia “as Republicans, we’d be screaming from morning to night.”
Dent then brought up his party’s response to Bill Clinton’s sex scandal in the 1990s.
“A lot of folks were pretty darn alarmed and outraged and had a strong voice about it, saying ‘character counts,’” he said. “Now that the shoe’s on the other foot, a lot of those same folks are pretty damn silent.”
Dent, one of a growing number of Republicans not seeking re-election in November, said the coming midterm vote will be a referendum on Trump and his conduct as president.
“These issues will have an impact,” he warned.
See the clip above, and watch the full exchange here.
