Dan Quayle says in this election, Trump is 'more qualified' than Clinton to be president

(Image credit: Ben Sklar/Getty Images)

last updated 13 May 2016

Donald Trump has a new supporter — Dan Quayle, the former vice president, who argues that Trump is the candidate best suited for the White House.

"On paper, you'd say, well, [Hillary Clinton's] more qualified," Quayle said Thursday on the Today show. "But you know what? He's more qualified in the sense that the American people, I think, want an outsider." Quayle is at odds with the president he served under, George H.W. Bush, who will not attend the Republican convention this summer and is not going to endorse Trump.

By the end of his time as vice president (at the hands of Clinton's husband, Bill Clinton), Quayle was more famous for the things he did outside of Washington — he is perhaps best known for shaming fictional character Murphy Brown over single parenthood and urging a 12-year-old to misspell "potato." Until now he had been quiet about this year's race, and acknowledged he was one of the people who underestimated Trump during the primary. "In the normal sorting-out process, the cream usually goes to the top, right?" he told CNN's New Day. "And I didn't realize that Donald Trump was going to be the cream that got to the top. I totally misjudged his ability to win." Quayle said he's certain the Republican Party will soon rally around Trump, and he also doesn't expect to see Trump's tax returns any time soon. "Let me give you a little news flash here: This is gonna be different, he's a different candidate," he said. "It's gonna be a different campaign, so stay tuned."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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