A handful of Congressional Republicans have expressed concern over having Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for President, but Tuesday morning, the first Republican Congressman officially broke ranks, endorsing Hillary Clinton for President.
Rep. Richard Hanna of New York (NY-22) announced, in his column on Syracuse.com, that he’d endorse the Democratic Presidential nominee, calling Donald Trump, “unfit to serve.”
Hanna says he made up his mind this weekend, after Donald Trump lashed out in what Hanna called a “foray of insults” against the Khan family, a Muslim mother and father who spoke about their soldier son’s heroic death in Iraq at the DNC.
Calling Trump, “profoundly offensive and narcissistic” and a “world class panderer,” Hanna said he found the candidate “flawed in endless ways.” He closed by telling Republicans that while they may disagree with his choice to vote for Secretary Clinton, that they could “live to win or lose another day with a real candidate.”
While Hanna used some strong words in his rebuke of Trump, he’s hardly a fly-off-the-handle kind of guy. He’s decidedly moderate, particularly on social issues like gay marriage, but a strong conservative on trade and gun rights. That said, he’s also on his last term in office — he announced last year that he would not run for re-election — so his “principled stand” is not likely to cost him anything at the ballot box.
