Gov. Mary Fallin says she's "disappointed and offended" by comments Donald Trump made about women in 2005, but she didn't pull her endorsement of the Republican presidential candidate.
In a statement posted on her campaign's Twitter account during Sunday night's presidential debate, the Republican governor said that both Trump and Hillary Clinton "are very flawed and have made mistakes."
— Mary Fallin (@MaryFallin) October 10, 2016
The chair of the Oklahoma Republican Party called Trump's comments in a video released Friday "some of the most disgustingly vile" she's ever heard.
But Pam Pollard stopped short of denouncing Trump or pulling her endorsement as many other national Republican leaders did over the weekend.
In a Facebook post early Saturday morning, Pollard said Trump's ego has empowered him for most of his life, and in her opinion, "arrogance is exactly what people are looking for right now to send to Washington, D.C."
“They see Mr. Trump as a fighter against the 'establishment' that has ruled our government for the last 20 years. They are not looking for a moral leader,” Pollard said. “Almost everyone I talk to has a common goal, change the direction of our government. People believe Donald Trump will restore our country and Make America Great Again with the same success he has had in his businesses.”
The Oklahoma Republican Party’s director of communications resigned Saturday morning because he said the state's Republican leadership refused to make a clear and unequivocal statement calling for Trump to withdraw as a candidate.
The time for bold action is long overdue. I have officially resigned as Director of Communications for the OKGOP. https://t.co/oYBUUg2Xi4
— Brett Farley (@brettfarley) October 8, 2016
Brett Farley said in a blog post over the weekend he could not continue to work for a party "that offers passive support" to Trump by refusing to call for him to step aside.
I am the father of three daughters with a fourth daughter due in February. One of my greatest joys of late has been teaching my oldest daughter of twelve years about the sort of character and Christian ethic that befits a man worthy to call himself one day her husband and my son-in-law. I cannot and I will not, then, through some twisted logic attempt in the same breath to justify a vote for a man who is the quintessential opposite of everything I am teaching her to expect in a man. To put a finer point on it, I cannot bring myself to place a mark next to the name of a man whom I cannot trust to be alone in a room with my daughters. Once upon a time the word ‘party’ meant more than simply a letter after a candidate’s name. Not so long ago, membership in a political party meant necessarily that one ascribed to a set of principles and policies that he or she believed along with fellow members would aid our republic in creating a brighter future for our posterity. That word now clearly rings hollow. If many of my Republican colleagues are to be believed, we have some sort of unholy imperative to cast a vote for a man simply for the fact that the letter ‘R’ follows his name, despite that that man has publicly professed values and positions in recent years — and in many cases within recent months — that are diametrically opposed to the very platform passed by the same delegates who gave him our party’s nomination. The argument can be summed thusly: Donald Trump because Hillary Clinton.
Oklahoma's senior U.S. Senator called Trump's comments "disgusting" and says he doesn't support women being talked about in "such vile ways."
But U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe went on to call Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton hypocritical to criticize Trump's past because of what he described as expensive and well-coordinated campaigns to bully and degrade women.
A handful of other Oklahoma Republican lawmakers weighed in on social media over the weekend. The Tulsa-based online news outlet The Frontier took stock of 151 state lawmakers’ social media accounts over the weekend. Just 11 publicly posted comments about Trump’s 2005 statements, Dylan Goforth reports:
Three state senators (A.J. Griffin, R-Guthrie; Stephanie Bice, R-Oklahoma City; and David Holt, R-Oklahoma City) came out against Trump’s comments strongly. Griffin tweeted “When someone shows you who they really are — believe them,” then later clarified she was “speaking about the presidential candidates.” Bice quoted a link to a story about the comments, which called them “inappropriate and offensive.” She said on top of the story “You don’t say?? …. SMDH,” (an abbreviation for shaking my damn head.) Holt, who supported Marco Rubio’s presidential bid, has been strongly against Trump prior to the businessman becoming the republican nominee. Holt tweeted “As I’ve said for months, I have a daughter & couldn’t sleep at night if I voted for Trump. This monster deserves any judgment he receives.”
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