Eric Cantor, the former House GOP leader who was unseated by a tea party challenger in a huge midterm upset, thinks Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump won’t make it through the primary season.
Cantor made the bold prediction in an interview with Bloomberg published Thursday. He added that he thought the world economy would suffer under a Trump administration.
“Unfortunately I do think that if there were to be a Trump administration the casualty would likely be trade,” Cantor told Bloomberg. “That’s a very serious prospect for the world.”
The former House majority leader has long argued that Trump doesn’t reflect the values of the Republican Party, either.
“There’s a real difference between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party,” Cantor told the BBC in October. “And I would not say Donald Trump is reflective of the Republican Party, he’s not a conservative.”
Cantor endorsed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for the GOP nomination last year, which elicited this response from Trump:
Who wants the endorsement of a guy (@EricCantor) who lost in perhaps the greatest upset in the history of Congress?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 27, 2015
Cantor was defeated in his own 2014 primary by a little-known Virginia economics professor, David Brat. Considered a big win for tea partiers, Cantor’s loss marked the first time in the history of the country that a House majority leader had been defeated in a primary while holding that position.
h/t The Hill
