GOP congressman blasts Trump’s attack on Sanford as ‘classless’

Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) said Tuesday that President Trump’s attack on Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) was “classless.”

“This was a classless cheap shot,” Amash wrote in a tweet, referring to reports that the president criticized the congressman during a meeting on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.

This was a classless cheap shot. https://t.co/uatCw7qwGV

— Justin Amash (@justinamash) June 19, 2018

Trump reportedly called Sanford a “nasty guy” during his meeting with congressional Republicans, which was ostensibly focused on immigration.

{mosads}

Trump’s comments come just one week after Sanford lost his primary bid to state Rep. Katie Arrington (R), an ardent supporter of the president.

Trump had attacked Stanford just a few hours before the polls closed in the congressman’s district last Tuesday. In his tweet, Trump referenced Sanford’s 2009 affair with an Argentine woman.

“Mark Sanford has been very unhelpful to me in my campaign to MAGA. He is MIA and nothing but trouble. He is better off in Argentina,” Trump tweeted. “I fully endorse Katie Arrington for Congress in SC, a state I love. She is tough on crime and will continue our fight to lower taxes. VOTE Katie!”

Sanford has criticized Trump in the past and said on Sunday that he lost his primary bid because he wasn’t “Trump enough.”

“People are running for cover because they don’t want to be on the losing side of a presidential tweet,” the South Carolina Republican told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “The idea that you can’t speak out and say, ‘I disagree with you here, but I agree with you on 90 percent of the stuff’ … is, again, a twilight world that I’ve never seen.”