Jason Chaffetz's announcement he's voting for Donald Trump is not going over too well

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last updated 27 October 2016

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) isn't getting any head pats for his decision to "not defend or endorse" Donald Trump while still voting for him.

After the Access Hollywood recording featuring Trump making vulgar comments about women came out earlier this month, the House Oversight Committee chairman said he could "no longer in good conscience endorse this person for president. It is some of the most abhorrent and offensive comments that you can possibly imagine." Later, he went on MSNBC and told Lawrence O'Donnell: "How in the world could I look my 15-year-old daughter in the eye and say, 'Honey you know what? Your dad endorses Donald Trump for president,' and I can't do that.... At the end of the day I've got to look at myself in the mirror and say, I call balls and strikes as I see them, and you know what, no matter which party, if you're going to act like that and that's how you think, you're not gonna get my endorsement, you're not gonna get my support. I hope we do that on both sides of the aisle. It's just wrong, and we've got to call it out as wrong."

On Twitter Wednesday night, Chaffetz — whose handle, @jasoninthehouse, sounds like a Disney Channel show from the '90s — announced that he will vote for Trump because "HRC is that bad. HRC is bad for the USA." This didn't sit well with many in the media, including Business Insider's Josh Barro, who told Chaffetz he is a "pathetic, craven hack," The Huffington Post's Sam Stein, who asked him to "explain where the line is between endorsing and voting for someone," and The New Republic's Jeet Heer, who said Chaffetz could "play with words all you want; if you vote for Trump and encourage others to, you are endorsing him. He's on you." Chaffetz is also receiving 140 characters worth of flack from constituents and other random Twitter users, calling him a "shell of a man," a "coward," and "pathetic." Have fun reading your mentions for the next few days, congressman!

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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.