Fredreka Schouten

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Two of Donald Trump’s most important political benefactors on Saturday said they stood behind the Republican presidential nominee, as he faced widening condemnation from fellow Republicans over lewd comments caught on tape in 2005.

Billionaire hedge-funder Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah Mercer said they were “completely indifferent to Mr. Trump’s locker room braggadocio.”

In a blistering statement first provided to The Washington Post, the two charged the media with hypocrisy, saying journalists “resolutely looked away” as former President Bill Clinton committed “multiple violent sexual assaults.”

“We have a country to save and there is only one person who can save it,” they said. “We, and Americans across the country and around the world, stand steadfastly behind Donald J. Trump.”

The Mercers are influential figures in Trump’s orbit.

Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway and deputy campaign manager David Bossie helped operate a Mercer-funded super PAC that has been active in the presidential race. Rebekah Mercer has taken over the day-to-day operations of the group, which is running digital ads that attack Hillary and Bill Clinton.

Here is the list of Republicans who are not supporting Trump

Their statement may be another sign that the Trump camp has no plans to retreat from a strategy of using Bill Clinton’s infidelities against his wife, the Democratic presidential nominee.

In a 90-second video released early Saturday morning, Trump apologized for his crude comments about women but also offered a defiant message, saying his remarks were mild compared with the way the Clintons have treated women

Donald Trump's apology for his 2005 video comments (full transcript)

The Mercers are not alone in continuing to back Trump. In an interview with USA TODAY on Friday evening, Texas investor Doug Deason dismissed the controversy.

“That’s who he was then, and that’s not who he is now,” said Deason, whose family members have donated some $1 million to Trump and joint-fundraising committees the GOP nominee has established with the Republican National Committee.

Here’s the full statement from the Mercers: