New Congressman Charlie Crist likes some of what President Elect Trump plans to do
New Congressman Charlie Crist (D-FL) seems to be very willing to give President Elect Donald Trump a chance to lead the country without any early questions from him. The former governor who was a Republican at the time supported Trump in 2009-2010 when he was pondering a run at the White House.
In a conversation with the media yesterday he said “As President Obama said, I think he’s pragmatic,” Crist said as he entered Democratic Party headquarters near the Capitol.
Crist told POLITICO he was not as concerned as some others about Trump’s appointment of Steve Bannon – who runs Breitbart, the news site accused of appealing to white nationalists — to a top White House post. Though Bannon in the West Wing gives him pause, Crist said, the tandem hire of Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus to be chief of staff helps balance it out.
“The Priebus hire gives me faith. I know him to be a good man,” Crist said. “He’s a fellow Greek and I think he’ll do a good job.”
Crist also praised Trump’s plan to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to fix roads, bridges and tunnels. “It’d certainly help my state, and all states,” Crist said. “That’s a godsend.”
Crist, who as a Democrat ran in 2014 and lost a close race attempting to unseat GOP Gov. Rick Scott, decided to take two years and give politics one last chance. He was rewarded last week with a seat in Congress beating incumbent Republican David Jolly by a relatively slim 52 percent to 48 percent margin in the 13th Congressional District.
St. Petersburg’s Crist won the new parts of the district, added in a court-ordered redraw last year, and also managed to cut enough into Jolly’s Clearwater base to prevail in one of the most closely watched congressional races in the country.