GOP lawmaker: ‘I try and tune out the president whenever I can’

Republican Rep. Mike Coffman (Colo.) says in a new interview that he tries to “tune out” President Trump whenever possible.

“I try and tune out the president whenever I can, in terms of his tone and saying things that I think are inappropriate,” Coffman told BuzzFeed News for a story published Tuesday.

“Unfortunately … it takes a lot of oxygen,” Coffman added.

{mosads}Coffman, who has previously criticized the Trump administration, is facing a difficult reelection bid in November’s midterms against Democratic challenger Jason Crow.

The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates the race as a “toss-up,” while FiveThirtyEight projects that Coffman has less than a 20 percent chance to hold the seat. 

Coffman also told BuzzFeed News that he doesn’t want anyone from the Trump administration to campaign for him ahead of the election.

“My strategy in this race is to localize it, not to nationalize it,” he said.

Coffman previously promised to “stand up” to Trump in an ad from 2016.

“People ask me, ‘What do you think about Trump?’ Honestly, I don’t care for him much. … If Donald Trump is president, I’ll stand up to him,” he said in the ad.

Coffman’s Democratic challenger argued in an interview with BuzzFeed that the five-term GOP lawmaker hasn’t lived up to that promise.

“He’s had two years to fulfill that promise, and he’s broken it,” Crow said.

Coffman contested a FiveThirtyEight calculation that he has voted with Trump about 96 percent of the time.

“That is just so ridiculous; it’s off some blog. I mean, the only time the president reached out for me personally and asked for something, I said no. That was on the health care bill,” he said.