‘If I was a Republican, I’d be voting for Trump’: Former Trump advisor says

A former White House adviser said Donald Trump would have won the 2016 election had he lost his primary race in Wisconsin, even though he lost by a razor-thin margin in the state.

“If I were a Republican I would have voted for Trump, and that’s because he was the only candidate who could have beaten him,” Paul Manafort told Fox News on Wednesday.

Manafort is a former senior adviser to Trump and has worked for the Trump Organization for more than a decade.

Manafort told host Chris Wallace that he didn’t see a conflict between his support of Trump and his advocacy for a Republican candidate in Wisconsin.

“I have never said that,” Manafort said.

“My position is that I am for Trump and I am supporting the Republican candidate, which is what you would call a fair and balanced approach to a very difficult election.”

Manafort said the election results show that Wisconsin voters rejected “a far-left candidate who was not pro-American.”

“This was a vote against a far-right candidate who represented a far right-wing agenda that had no credibility in the states,” Manafort added.

“We are seeing that in the polls now.

That’s what we were told all along, and I think that the voters had a choice to make.”

Manafort has spoken out about his ties to Trump, calling him a “friend” and praising his ability to “make deals” with foreign leaders.

“He’s been a loyal friend, he’s been good for me,” Manafort told Wallace.

“The reason I say that is because he knows what I’m going through, I know what he’s going through and I know I can help him out,” Manafort continued.

“And that’s a big reason why I support him.”

Manafort was one of the leaders of the effort to get Trump elected to the presidency in 2016, including the infamous June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer who claimed to have damaging information on then-candidate Hillary Clinton.

The meeting was held on Trump’s private island in Lake Ontario, a move Manafort said was a sign of the Trump administration trying to influence the outcome.