Ex-tea party favourite to challenge Trump
United States
Joe Walsh, a former Illinois congressman and tea party favourite turned radio talk show host, announced a challenge yesterday to President Donald Trump for the Republican nomination in 2020, saying the incumbent is unfit for office and must be denied a second term.
‘‘He’s nuts. He’s erratic. He’s cruel. He stokes bigotry. He’s incompetent. He doesn’t know what he’s doing,’’ Walsh told ABC’S This Week. The longshot portrayed himself as a legitimate alternative in party where he said many are opposed to Trump but are ‘‘scared to death’’ of saying so publicly.
His campaign slogan: ‘‘Be brave.’’
Polls shows Trump is backed by most Republican voters, and the lone rival already in the race is former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld, the 2016 Libertarian Party vice presidential nominee who is regarded as fiscally conservative but socially liberal.
Undeterred from pressing ahead with his candidacy, Walsh said, ‘‘I think this thing ... will catch on like wildfire.’’ The former Trump booster added: ‘‘I’m a conservative. And I think there’s a decent chance to present to Republican voters a conservative without all the baggage.’’
The one-word response from Trump’s campaign to Walsh’s entry: ‘‘Whatever.’’
Walsh narrowly won a House seat from suburban Chicago in the 2010 tea party wave but lost a 2012 reelection bid and has since hosted a radio talk show. He has a history of inflammatory statements regarding Muslims and others and declared just before the 2016 election that if Trump lost, ‘‘I’m grabbing my musket.’’
But he has since soured on Trump, criticising the president over growth of the federal deficit and writing in a New York Times column that the president was ‘‘a racial arsonist who encourages bigotry and xenophobia to rouse his base.’’
The road ahead for any Republican primary challenger will be difficult. In recent months, Trump’s allies have taken over state parties that control primary elections in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and elsewhere. –AP