GOP Rep. David Jolly Calls on Donald Trump to Withdraw

Rep. David Jolly (R-FL) is calling for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to drop out of the presidential race.

“I rise today to call on Donald trump to withdraw his candidacy for the White House,” Jolly said on the House floor Tuesday morning.

Jolly was one of 11 Florida House members who endorsed GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush in June.

Tuesday, reacting to Trump’s call for a halt of Muslims entering the U.S. until the “country’s representatives can figure out what is going on” Jolly, argued that while the Obama administration’s plan to confront ISIS has ben inadequate, Trump’s call for a religious test to enter the country is unAmerican.

“I have been most critical of the president’s foreign policy,” Jolly said. “It is an area that respectfully I have the greatest disagreement with this administration. I have begged him in correspondence, and I have used the word beg to do more to defeat the threat of terror.”

According to the Florida lawmaker, Obama’s Oval Office address Sunday evening was “forgettable,” lacking in new idea to defeat ISIS, and replete with lectures to the American people and Congress.

Jolly said that while the President has “underestimated” the security threat the country also must remain committed to religious freedom.

“We either are going to defend that religious freedom or we are not,” he said “It should be heartbreaking to every American that we have a frontrunner in the presidential race that suggests there will be a religious test for anybody who wishes to come to our shores. It is an affront to the very principles upon which our nation was founded.”

Jolly highlighted his own faith, using that public declaration to highlight the freedom that might be at stake under Trump.

“I’m a Born-Again Christian,” he said. “I believe in the saving grace of the Jesus Christ that I call my God and the beautiful thing about this country is I can stand here on the House floor among my peers and in front of the nation and declare that faith without fear of any reprisal. But if Donald Trump has his way, we may not have the liberty to do that anymore.”

He concluded by once again called for Trump to withdraw.

“We must always insist on a security test but we must never require a religious test,” he said. “It is time that my side of the aisle has one less candidate in the race for the white house. it is time for Donald Trump to withdraw from the race.”