Video confirms Bryant claim on calling Trump unfit

Republican candidate for governor Bill Bryant avoided direct answers for months, then dropped a surprise comment about Donald Trump at his first debate with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democratic.

Bryant said that he's long thought Trump was unfit to be president.

At the debate, Inslee hammered Bill Bryant on taking months to reject Trump.

Bryant explained that he was thinking of the people Trump attracts, people who feel abandoned by government.

Bryant also made a claim we hadn't heard before.

“What I was afraid of if I came out against Mr. Trump, and in January I said he was unfit to be president, but if I continued to come out against Mr. Trump those people were going to think that I had abandoned them, too.”

But Bryant never mentioned calling Trump unfit in earlier interviews.

Here’s how he answered when we asked him about Trump in June, “The presidential race is such bizarre beast in its own way this year that I'm going to focus on the issues that the people in Washington state care about and that are really going to be on the governor's desk.”

And this is how he answered at the beginning of August, when we asked how he could stand by and say nothing.

“Because I'm running for governor,” Bryant said.

When we plowed through online video today we found Bryant's memory was off only a little.

It was Dec. 14 of last year, not January of this year, when he spoke against Trump at a Seattle City Club forum.

It was just a week after Trump made one of his most controversial proposals, a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States."

At the forum, Bryant was asked what surprised him in 2015.

“The rise of Trump has taken me by surprise. I mean if he believes what he says he believes, he's unfit to be president, and if he doesn't believe it he's a farce.”

We got reaction at the Naked Trump statue put up in Seattle today.

“It's good to see when people admit their mistakes I guess,” said Andrew Flier

“If you are not denouncing someone with such reprehensible views, it means you are in collusion with them,” Bruce Taylor.

Bryant’s staff did not make him available for an interview today.

Cox Media Group