Kelly Ayotte Still Supports Donald Trump, Who Says She’s ‘Weak’

Photo by Gage Skidmore on Flickr/Creative Commons

The Donald Trump campaign, in the midst of its most earnest impression of a dryer with a brick in it, made a stop at the Washington Post this week, where the Republican presidential nominee took aim at the GOP elites who took exception to his attacks on the family of a fallen Muslim-American soldier.

Using nearly the same words Ryan used in May to explain why he had yet to back his party’s then-presumptive nominee, Trump said he was “not quite there yet” with regard to endorsing the Wisconsin congressman in his reelection bid. He added that he wouldn’t be endorsing Sen. John McCain either, after the former POW issued a blistering statement condemning Trump’s remarks about Khizr and Ghazala Khan, parents of Army Capt. Humayun Khan. Lending a heaping scoop of poetic justice to the whole ordeal is that neither Ryan nor McCain have withdrawn their endorsements of Trump.

Hardly immune from Trump’s ire was Sen. Kelly Ayotte. Pitted in one of the closest Senate races in the country against New Hampshire’s Gov. Maggie Hassan, Ayotte has routinely said she supports Trump, but will not formally endorse him.

“New Hampshire’s one of my favorite places. You have a Kelly Ayotte, who doesn’t want to talk about Trump, but I’m beating her in the polls by a lot,” Trump told the Washington Post, lapsing into the third-person. “You tell me. Are these people that should be representing us? Okay? You tell me.”

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton leads Trump in New Hampshire, where he was called a racist while eating a burger with mac-and-cheese on it a scant few month ago, by roughly four points, according to the RealClearPolitics average.

“I don’t know Kelly Ayotte. I know she’s given me no support, zero support, and yet I’m leading her in the polls. And I’m doing very well in New Hampshire,” Trump went on. “We need loyal people in this country. We need fighters in this country. We don’t need weak people. We have enough of them. We need fighters in this country. But Kelly Ayotte has given me zero support and I’m doing great in New Hampshire. You know, as you saw, I’m eight points up. I’m leading Hillary Clinton by eight points.”

Ayotte did not directly address Trump’s comments in a statement released by her campaign Tuesday evening. “I call it like I see it, and I’m always going to stand up for our military families and what’s best for the people of New Hampshire,” she said.