Heller not ready to jump on 'Trump bandwagon' yet

U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., said Tuesday he still isn’t ready to support Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, but was waiting to make a final decision until later in the election.

Heller is one of the few, yet growing, list of Republican congressional holdouts who are not actively supporting Trump, but while others have mostly closed the door on any possibility of backing the nominee, Heller said he is being open minded.

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“Let me be clear, I’d like to get to a position that I can support him,” Heller said. “Here’s the problem: I want to wake up every morning and look in the mirror and feel very good about myself and what I’m doing for the state of Nevada. And I’ll continue to do so. Right now jumping on the Trump bandwagon isn’t there for me yet.”

Heller said he is concerned with several comments Trump has made over the past few weeks. Those same comments prompted other Republicans to completely distance themselves from the candidate, including Heller’s colleague U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. Collins published an op-ed in The Washington Post on Monday denouncing Trump.

“My conclusion about Mr. Trump’s unsuitability for office is based on his disregard for the precept of treating others with respect, an idea that should transcend politics,” Collins wrote in the piece. “Instead, he opts to mock the vulnerable and inflame prejudices by attacking ethnic and religious minorities.”

Trump has made several remarks through the election season that some derided as offensive. He started his campaign by calling for a wall along the United States-Mexico border to keep undocumented immigrants out, whom he called drug dealers and rapists. In the wake of the San Bernardino shooting, Trump called for a ban on Muslim immigrants into the country, a stance he’s reiterated several times.

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In her op-ed, Collins cited Trump’s mocking of a disabled reporter, demand that a Hispanic judge recuse himself from a lawsuit involving Trump because he was Hispanic and his spat with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of Army Capt. Humayun Khan, who was killed in Iraq, as reasons she could not support the nominee.

Heller said he has also been unhappy with Trump’s comments, but wasn’t ready to abandon any chance of supporting him.

“I’m not happy with some of the comments that he’s made about women, about minority groups, about the disabled, about veterans. I mean we can go down the list,” Heller said. “This is a game of addition, not a game of subtraction and I think (Trump) needs to learn that.”

Instead, Heller said he would wait for the debates to see if Trump shows improvement and leadership qualities.

“I want to get through the debates and see how the debates go, see how he does,” Heller said. “You know, I tell you the last week or two wasn’t healthy as far as my decision making process with some of the comments that he’s made, but I figure I have two choices. I have two choices as a Republican and that’s to either vote for Trump or vote for ‘none of the above.’”

Heller gave the comments at nearly the same time Trump made headlines again for comments some interpreted as condoning violence against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton at a rally in North Carolina. Trump said there was nothing anyone could do if Clinton were allowed to pick Supreme Court justices.

“Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know,” Trump said.

Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook quickly released a statement calling Trump’s comments dangerous.

"A person seeking to be the President of the United States should not suggest violence in any way," he said.

Trump spokesman Jason Miller also released a statement saying he was referring to the “power of unification.”

“Second Amendment people have amazing spirit and are tremendously unified, which gives them great political power,” Miller said. “And this year, they will be voting in record numbers, and it won’t be for Hillary Clinton, it will be for Donald Trump.”

A spokesman for Heller said the senator knew about Trump's comments and stood by his earlier statements.

Seth A. Richardson covers politics for the Reno Gazette-Journal. Like him on Facebook here or follow him on Twitter at @SethARichardson.