Former President Donald Trump said he “would like to see” Maryland Senate candidate Larry Hogan win his election in November, according to a Fox News reporter who interviewed Trump on Thursday.
Trump spoke with the reporter in Washington, DC, amid meetings with Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill. He told the reporter he wanted to see Hogan, a former Maryland GOP governor, defeat Democratic nominee Angela Alsobrooks, according to a social media post by the reporter.
“I’d like to see him win. I think he has a good chance to win. … I know other people made some strong statements, but I can just say from my standpoint, I’m about the party and I’m about the country. And I would like to see him win,” Trump said, according to Fox News.
According to a clip of the interview aired by Fox News on Thursday, Trump was asked if he was endorsing Hogan.
“Well, nobody’s asked me that, but essentially, I would be endorsing him, yeah,” the former president said.
In a statement reacting to Trump’s endorsement, Michael Ricci, a spokesman for Hogan, said, “Governor Hogan has been clear he is not supporting President Trump just as he didn’t in 2016 and 2020.”
Hogan and Alsobrooks are vying for the seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin. Democrats were expected to easily hold the seat in the deep-blue state, which last elected a Republican senator in 1980. But the entrance of Hogan, a popular two-term former governor, gave the race a jolt, and polling has shown him running competitively against Alsobrooks.
Trump’s reported comments come after Hogan urged Americans to “respect the verdict” in the former president’s New York hush money trial shortly before it was delivered. Trump was subsequently found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
The former president’s allies reacted harshly to Hogan’s statement. Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita responded in a social media post: “You just ended your campaign.” In an interview with CNN shortly after the verdict, Republican National Committee co-chair and Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump said Hogan “doesn’t deserve the respect” of any Republicans and called the former governor’s comments “ridiculous.”
Hogan, however, has continued to criticize the former president, telling CNN that a Trump versus Joe Biden matchup was a “terrible choice” and that he wouldn’t vote for either man. “I know that sounds like a cop-out, but I just don’t think either one of them should be president,” he said.
“If Trump loses this election, I think that will be the end of the movement. And I think we’ll try to get the party steered back to a more Reaganesque, bigger-tent party that can win elections by appealing to a broader audience of people,” Hogan said. “If Trump wins, then, you know, we’re going to see how long that movement will be successful.”
