In a sharp rebuke, Gov. Susana Martinez said Saturday that her party’s presidential nominee, Donald Trump, has displayed “a pattern of disturbing conduct and offensive rhetoric” and she “will not support” him.
Heath Haussamen / NMPolitics.net
Gov. Susana Martinez
“What Trump brags about is appalling and completely unacceptable,” Martinez said, referring to a 2005 video released Friday in which Trump talks about trying unsuccessfully to have sex with a married woman and claims to kiss and grab women “by the pussy” without their consent.
“Unfortunately, there is a pattern of disturbing conduct and offensive rhetoric that raises serious questions about his fitness to be president,” Martinez, a Republican, said. “That’s why I have withheld my support from the very beginning and will not support him now.”
Martinez, who chairs the national Republican Governor’s Association, didn’t say if she will vote for one of the other candidates in the presidential race.
While many other Republican holdouts, such as Ted Cruz, have ended up endorsing Trump in recent months, Martinez refused to back her party’s nominee even as he sought her support. Their relationship has been rocky, at best. Trump criticized Martinez at a campaign rally he held in Albuquerque in May. At that rally, Trump said the governor “has got to do a better job” to improve New Mexico.
The next day, Martinez fired back.
“Governor Martinez doesn’t care about what Donald Trump says about her,” Martinez spokesman Mike Lonergan said. “She cares about what he says he will do to help New Mexicans. … She’s disappointed that she didn’t hear anything about that last night.”
Martinez endorsed Marco Rubio in March in the GOP presidential primary. Months later, she did show up to help cast New Mexico’s votes for Trump in July at the Republican National Convention.
Some were saying on social media this weekend that Martinez had been smart to not endorse Trump.
Shortly after Martinez released her statement, state Sen. Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, thanked her in a tweet. “Thank you Governor Martinez. Just learned of statement you will not be voting for D. Trump,” he wrote. Earlier Saturday, Cervantes tweeted a plea for Martinez to “condemn Trump’s misogyny & disavow him.”
In the 2005 video, which was first released by the Washington Post, Trump can be heard talking about trying unsuccessfully to have sex with a married woman, saying he “moved on her like a bitch.”
Trump can also be heard saying he is “automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait.”
“And when you’re a star, they let you do it,” Trump says. “You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
You can watch the video here:
The bad news continued on Saturday for Trump when CNN released audio recordings made over 17 years of interviews Trump gave to radio jock Howard Stern. Among the revelations: Trump told Stern it was OK to call his daughter a “piece of ass.”