Grassley: GOP presidents held to different standards

U.S. Senator Charles Grassley held a conference call with Iowa reporters on Tuesday afternoon—just over a day after visiting the Grundy County Memorial Hospital in Grundy Center—and bemoaned what he saw as a double standard in the way Republican and Democratic presidents are evaluated.
           
Responding to a question regarding a town hall meeting in Logan, Iowa, where patrons repeatedly pressed him on President Trump’s behavior and mental stability for office, Grassley pointed to 1964 GOP nominee Barry Goldwater, who lost to Lyndon Baines Johnson in the general election, as the first example of unfair, unwarranted criticisms lobbed specifically at one party.
           
“When Goldwater was a candidate, they had 100 psychiatrists sign a letter that he wasn’t mentally fit, and there were a lot of questions about (Ronald) Reagan’s ability,” he said.  “And now it’s come over to this president. How come it’s only Republicans that have to answer these questions and never Democrats?”
           
Grassley, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, also addressed a disagreement between he and ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein of California over whether Christopher Steele’s testimony to the FBI on the infamous dossier he compiled in the run-up to the 2016 election—claiming extensive ties between Trump and Russia—should be released to the public. 
 
(Editor's note: the question about President Trump and the recent town hall meeting was edited out of the final recording of the call released to the public on the Senator's website. The rest of the conversation can be heard at this link.) 
 
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