Sen. Chuck Grassley

Senator Chuck Grassley.

Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley denounces videotaped comments made by his party’s presidential nominee but won’t waver in his vow to support Republican Donald Trump in next month’s election.

Grassley joins others in the GOP in saying Trump’s comments about women in a newly-released recording from 2005 are disgusting, but he’ll still back the billionaire in his quest for the White House.

Grassley says, “I can’t say much more about my attitude towards the very shameful and unacceptable things and terrible things and obnoxious things about Trump’s words than I said in my statement over the weekend.” Grassley says the upcoming vote on November 8th isn’t just about who will be president the next four years, but it’s also about the direction of the U.S. Supreme Court for the next four decades.

“This isn’t a referendum, this is a choice,” Grassley says, “a choice between two people and I have to look at Clinton being far worse, particularly the type of people she would appoint to the Supreme Court.” Grassley says it’s important to look at the ideological policies the two main party candidates would champion if elected and he says Trump remains his personal choice over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

“With her attitude towards things in the Middle East and towards terrorism, Hillary would make our country less safe,” Grassley says. “For sure, pursuing the same economic policies that she’s going to pursue, the same ones that Obama pursued, Iowans are going to be less prosperous.” Grassley hesitated to urge Iowans to join him in voting for Trump, saying, he doesn’t think Iowans would necessarily heed his advice.

“I wish I could tell Iowans that you ought to vote for, uh, uh, I could tell them but I wish I knew I had some influence on enough Iowans to say, ‘I want this person elected or that person elected.'” Iowa’s other U.S. Senator, Joni Ernst, says she will not condone or excuse Trump’s actions, but adds, “This is bigger than Donald Trump and it is about the direction of the country.” Ernst says she “will not advise anybody to vote for Hillary Clinton.”

Radio Iowa