Appearing Thursday on CNN’s New Day, former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) said he is “strongly, strongly considering” mounting a 2020 primary challenge to President Donald Trump.
A partial transcript is as follows:
JOHN BERMAN: Are you running against [President Trump?]
JOE WALSH: I’m strongly, strongly considering it. I’m not trying to be cute or coy, If somebody’s going to get in there and go after him, John, it’s got to be done soon. You’re running out of time. More importantly, these are not conventional times, look at the guy in the White House. These are urgent times. Somebody needs to make that case. I have yet to hear any potential Republican make that case.
BERMAN: Why wouldn’t you run at this point? Why not you?
WALSH: I may. I just don’t know yet, John. If I do it, I will do it soon. I’m a former congressman, I’ve been on the radio around the country for the last six years, I’m on okay guy, there are bigger names than me, there are former senators and members of Congress. None of them have the courage to challenge him. This is the time where someone’s got to be brave.
BERMAN: Bill Kristol, who you’ve been talking to, makes clear in a New York Times article that you’re appealing to him because you’re the kind of guy who could punch the president in the nose, rhetorically. Why is that important?
WALSH: Trump’s a bully, and he’s a coward, and the only way you beat a bully and you beat a coward is to expose them, is to punch them. Donald Trump’s been a con man his whole life. For the life of me, I don’t know why any other Republican can’t say this. It’s got nothing to do with the debt and the deficit, it’s got nothing to do with his bad, horrible tariffs, he is a bad man.
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