Rick Perry interested in role in a Donald Trump administration

Tom Abrahams Image
Monday, July 18, 2016
Rick Perry
FILE PHOTO
ktrk-AP Photo

CLEVELAND, OH (KTRK) -- Former Texas governor and two-time Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry says he's interested in a role in a Donald Trump administration.

Speaking to reporters after addressing the Texas delegation on the first day of the party's national convention in Cleveland, Ohio, Perry said he'd reached out to the Trump campaign and expressed his interest in working with veterans issues.

Perry was flanked by military veterans when he announced his own 2016 campaign in North Texas more than a year ago. He is an Air Force veteran himself.

Perry also talked about having been a candidate, then endorsing rival Ted Cruz, and now backing the presumptive nominee Donald Trump.

"It's a process," he told Eyewitness News. "If you go back and look through the years there were lots of multiple choices, if you will, till you get down to the final nominee or the person who's going to be our nominee and that's the process we went through here. I am quite comfortable, not only with my actions over the last three years, but why I am here today."

He told delegates Trump wasn't his first choice. "I was my first choice," he said to laughter and applause.

Perry is still a popular figure in Texas politics after having served as governor longer than anyone in the state's history. He received a standing ovation before his address in Cleveland Monday morning.

He said the choice for those who haven't yet decided to back Trump is not complicated.

"I try to tell people this is really simple," he said. "Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump. Supreme Court."