Grassley: 'You’ve got to have faith in our electoral process'

Confidence in elections is critical to American democracy, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley said Thursday. But don’t interpret that as a rebuke of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

“You have to have faith in elections in order for our country to function,” Grassley said Thursday, during a meeting with The Des Moines Register’s editorial board, when asked about Trump’s comments during a debate Wednesday night at which Trump didn't commit to accepting the outcome of the November election. “You’ve got to have faith in our electoral process.”

When asked if Trump’s comments undermined that faith, Grassley said he didn’t hear Trump’s remarks directly and dismissed the candidate’s lack of specificity as merely typical of his campaign.

“He said, ‘I’m not going to tell you now. I’m going to keep you in suspense,’” Grassley said, paraphrasing Trump’s comments. “Isn’t that the way he is on a lot of things?”

Grassley, a Republican, is seeking re-election to a seventh term in the Senate and is seen as the front-runner in his race against Democrat Patty Judge.

When asked what he admires about Trump, an outsider candidate who has opened a rift within the GOP and led several Senate Republicans to withdraw their support, Grassley cited his success in business.

“He’s a businessman, and I don’t think our federal government’s run in a very businesslike way,” Grassley said. He added, “If we can get more transparency in government and … he’s going to run it in a more businesslike way, that’s something Washington needs.”

Grassley addressed a range of questions in the hourlong editorial board meeting — from criminal justice reform efforts to his thoughts on Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and his own fitness for office at age 83.

Criminal justice reform

In a frank assessment of how politics dictates policy in the Senate, Grassley said Thursday he believes a criminal justice reform bill with bipartisan support was denied a final vote and likely passage this year because of skittishness from Republican lawmakers up for re-election.

“What happened?” Grassley asked rhetorically when asked about the bill’s failure. “I think there were a lot of Republican senators — and a lot of them up for re-election — that went to the (Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell) and said, 'Don’t take that up.' I draw this conclusion. What I just said to you, I don’t know to be a fact. But that’s what my gut tells me.”

After running through the bill’s legislative progress through the Judiciary Committee he leads and his own efforts at whipping votes from Republican senators, Grassley said he believed he had secured support from more than half the GOP caucus.

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“If we could’ve got this up for a vote, we would’ve had 65 to 70 votes,” he said. “But you’ve got to get it up, and the leader decides when it comes up. I just think that’s the situation. A lot of people said, ‘I don’t want to deal with this because it catches me between those people that think we ought to have reform and my law enforcement people.’”

Hillary Clinton

Grassley also predicted that if Clinton, a former U.S. senator from New York, is elected president, she’ll be “much better” at working with members of Congress than President Barack Obama, whom he described as “disengaged entirely” from lawmakers.

That said, Grassley said he had no meaningful relationship with Clinton during her eight-year tenure in the Senate, owing mostly to the fact that they shared few committee assignments and found few opportunities to overlap on policy matters.

“But I never,” he added, “in all the time she was in the United States Senate, never had a bad experience with her. We probably had a lot of disagreements, but they weren’t disagreements we talked about, they were just disagreements in the way you vote and what you believe.”

Age

Grassley, who turned 83 years old last month, also fielded a question about his intentions for completing a seventh six-year term, should he win re-election.

“I wouldn’t be running if I didn’t think I could complete my full term,” he answered. “You’re really asking a question that you ought to ask God, you know, because the only way it would end is if I’m either incapacitated or if I’m dead.”

When pressed further about rumors that he might step down to allow his grandson, Iowa state Rep. Pat Grassley, to be appointed in his place, Grassley dismissed the notion entirely.

“Somebody’s been speculating for two years that I’m running and then my grandson is going to take my position,” he said. “I’ve never had my grandson talk about running here.”

Full video: Chuck Grassley meets with the Des Moines Register editorial board