Rep. Charlie Dent Calls on Republican Party Chairman to 'Stand Up' to Trump
GOP chair should encourage Trump to drop out of race, Dent said.
— -- A Republican Pennsylvania congressman put the responsibility on GOP Chairman Reince Priebus to "stand up" to nominee Donald Trump, "do what's in the best interest of the Republican Party," and encourage him to withdraw from the presidential race."
"As a party leader, I think at times you have to stand up and do some pretty difficult things," Rep. Charlie Dent said on ABC News' "This Week." "This may be one of them."
The GOP congressman slammed Trump for his lewd comments in a 2005 video uncovered Friday, but said no one should be "surprised," given the candidate's past statements about former Miss Universe Alicia Machado and others.
"Nobody should be surprised by what's happened here. We've been listening to these incendiary and inflammatory comments for over a year now," Dent told ABC's George Stephanopoulos.
Dent similarly took GOP Chairman Priebus to task in a New York Times story on Saturday where he said the party chairman should himself resign if he doesn't work with Trump "to step down" from the presidential ticket.
“The chairman of the R.N.C. must look out for the good of the party as a whole, so he should be working to get [Trump] to step down,” Dent told the Times. “If he can’t, then he should step down.”
Dent, a leading moderate Republican who chairs the House Ethics Committee, has always been critical of Trump as the Republican nominee, and said in early August that he would not vote for Trump or Clinton.
The Pennsylvania representative backed Ohio Governor John Kasich in the Republican primary.