PA Bill Number: HB335
Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.
Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...
Last Action: Removed from table
Last Action Date: May 1, 2024
Sen. Toomey still - not there yet - on supporting Trump :: 08/19/2016
Reporter Mike Jones asks Senator Pat Toomey about whether or not he will support Donald Trump for president, the Miner Pension Protection Act and solving the heroin epidemic.
Calling Donald Trump a “unique character” during a campaign swing through Washington and Greene counties Thursday, Sen. Pat Toomey said he still has reservations about supporting the Republican nominee for president but could eventually change his mind depending on what Trump does over the next three months.
Toomey, the junior senator from Pennsylvania who is locked in a tough re-election battle with Democrat Katie McGinty, said he has supported the Republican nominee for president in every election since he began voting in 1980.
But Toomey, who avoided the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last month, still has concerns about Trump and is not prepared to formally endorse him.
“I’ve had my differences of opinion with some, but it was never a close call for me. With Donald Trump, he’s a unique character,” Toomey said in an interview with the Observer-Reporter outside the Waynesburg VFW Post 4793 following a meeting with supporters. “Some of the things he has said and done have really concerned me. Some of the positions he’s taken I’m concerned about.”
Both Washington and Greene counties have been trending red during general elections in recent years.
Trump is enjoying substantial support in Greene County after winning the Republican primary in April, receiving 2,532 votes and trouncing his five primary opponents. He also received more votes than Hillary Clinton’s 2,268 votes in her Democratic primary, even with Democrats holding a 2-to-1 party registration advantage.
Toomey said he would never support Clinton for president and he left open the door to endorsing Trump if he changes his tone over the next few months.
“But I have said, repeatedly, Hillary Clinton is permanently, completely unacceptable to me and I’m hoping that Donald Trump will be able to convince me – and I’m not the only Republican who has some reservations – because I’d like to be able to fully support him,” he said. “I’m not there yet, but I am certainly not in the ‘Never Trump’ category.
Trump also easily won the Republican primary in Washington County, and several people attending Toomey’s appearance at the Presidents Pub in Washington later in the day demanded he support the presidential nominee.
“We are the people who support you,” said a woman in the audience who did not identify herself. “We are the people who pay your salary, this is what we want.”
Toomey said he was trying to be “straight-forward” with the estimated 65 people in the restaurant’s upstairs banquet room. He did praise Trump’s vice presidential pick of Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and also said he agreed with the list of potential Supreme Court nominations put forward by the Trump campaign earlier this summer.
“He’s taken some good steps,” Toomey said. “For instance, when first asked who would be a good Supreme Court justice, he said, ‘my sister.’ Then he produced a list that’s a terrific list of 11 good candidates. I also think he made a good decision with his selection for the VP nominee. Pence (is) a very smart guy, good guy, solid conservative. I’m hoping that Donald Trump will convince all of us and unite our party and unite the country.”
Still, Toomey said Trump is an unorthodox candidate that the Republican establishment is trying to come to terms with.
“He is a different kettle of fish,” Toomey said. “I think everybody can agree on that.”
