Former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) this morning announced he would mount a primary challenge to President Trump.
The conservative radio host made the announcement on ABC’s “This Week.”
“We’ve got a guy in the White House who is unfit, completely unfit to be president and it stuns me that nobody stepped up, nobody in the Republican party stepped up, because I’ll tell you what George, everybody believes in the Republican party, everybody believes he’s unfit,” Walsh told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “He lies every time he opens his mouth.”
“We can’t take four more years of Donald Trump. And that’s why I’m running for President,” Walsh tweeted this morning. “It won’t be easy, but bravery is never easy. But together, we can do it.”
Friends, I’m in. We can’t take four more years of Donald Trump. And that’s why I’m running for President.
It won’t be easy, but bravery is never easy. But together, we can do it. Join me… join us: go to https://t.co/d40HA9h2Kz.
Let’s show the world we’re ready to be brave.
— Joe Walsh (@WalshFreedom) August 25, 2019
Walsh, 57, narrowly defeated a three-term Democrat in the Tea Party wave election of 2010.
He served a single term in Congress before losing his seat.
In 2016, Walsh, known for inflammatory language, was a vocal backer of Trump’s first presidential bid. “On November 8th, I’m voting for Trump. On November 9th, if Trump loses, I’m grabbing my musket. You in?” he tweeted shortly before the election.
Walsh subsequently turned into a persistent critic of the president and apologized for “the role I played in helping to put an unfit con man in the White House.”
Walsh stands virtually no chance of wresting the Republican presidential nomination from Trump, whose approval rating with Republican voters is consistently in the high 80s, and whose political aides have been aggressively moving to tighten their control over state parties to thwart primary challenges.
Walsh is joined in the Republican primary by former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, who himself announced a challenge to Trump in February but has earned little interest among prospective GOP voters.