Jon Huntsman stood behind the presumptive Republican nominee Monday, saying "of course" he would vote for Mitt Romney in a general election.
When pressed on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on whether he would vote "enthusiastically" for the former Massachusetts governor, Huntsman said, "Well, I think he [Romney] is the person who can get this economy going again."
The former Utah governor praised Romney's campaign message of job creation and economic revitalization.
"I think he's been consistent on that theme, I really do. You can talk about the other, you know, back-and-forth and flip-flopping and other things, but when it comes right down to it, the final stretch ... this is going to be about jobs," Huntsman said on "Morning Joe" Monday. "I think his commitment to jobs and his ability to articulate a plan for getting us back in action — I think he can overcome those challenges."
Although Huntsman was critical of his fellow candidate during the primary, he endorsed Romney and called for party unity in a speech announcing the suspension of his campaign in January.
His comments on "Morning Joe" follow an interview he gave on Sunday in which he was highly critical of the Republican Party.
In it, according to a report in BuzzFeed, he compared the GOP to China's Communist Party and recalled that during his first presidential debate in Iowa last August, he thought: "Is this the best we could do?"
Huntsman hit back against Buzzfeed's characterization of his speech,
telling "Morning Joe" the online publication took his comments "out of
context."
"You spend an hour talking about all kinds of different things, waxing
philosophical and you get these blogs out there, you know, bottom
feeder, buzz saw, BuzzFeed, whatever they are and they take a sentence
out of context and it becomes a headline and pretty soon mainstream
newspapers have picked up on that," Huntsman said.
He said was speaking to the audience Sunday about an experience he had
of being disinvited to a Republican fundraiser shortly after making
comments about the party's need for a "bold" vision.
"We we're talking about that last night. I said 'you know if you're
not on script and you get knocked out of an event like that — the
parties are supposed to be big tent, you're supposed to bring in all
ideas' and I said 'I thought for a minute about what they do in China
if you're off-script … They knock you out. We shouldn't be doing that
here. We should be accommodating all voices,'" said Huntsman.
—This story was updated at 12:40 p.m.
