A8 MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 2019 LATIMES.COM
■■■ ELECTION 2020 ■■■
WASHINGTON — For-
mer Rep. Joe Walsh, once a
backer of President Trump,
said Sunday he would
mount a Republican pri-
mary challenge to the presi-
dent because “we can’t take
four more years of Donald
Trump.”
Appearing on ABC’s
“This Week,” the former Illi-
nois congressman, now a ra-
dio talk show host, called
Trump “completely unfit to
be president.” He said he
was launching his quixotic
bid because “nobody in the
Republican Party stepped
up” despite what he de-
scribed as deep dismay over
Trump’s performance.
“He’s nuts. He’s erratic.
He’s cruel. He stokes big-
otry. He’s incompetent. He
doesn’t know what he’s do-
ing,” Walsh said.
“Everybody believes — in
the Republican Party, every-
body believes he’s unfit,”
said Walsh, a tea party stal-
wart with his own history of
inflammatory comments,
who formerly represented a
suburban Chicago district
before losing his seat in 2012.
“He lies every time he opens
his mouth.”
Walsh’s announcement
that he would contest the
2020 Republican nomina-
tion followed a head-spin-
ning week, even by the tur-
bulent standards of Trump’s
administration. Over a pe-
riod of days, the president
engaged in a series of strik-
ing policy gyrations and a
stream of provocative com-
mentary.
With many economists
citing signs that the econo-
my could be tilting toward
a recession, Trump re-
sponded by touting the
economy’s strength even as
he repeatedly contradicted
himself on tax policy, inten-
sified a trade war with China
and excoriated his own ap-
pointed head of the Federal
Reserve Board, Jerome H.
Powell.
Along the way, he scrap-
ped a visit to Denmark, a
NATO ally, angered by the
country’s firm rejection ofhis idea to buy Greenland.
He also denounced Demo-
cratic-voting Jews as “dis-
loyal,” reviving a centuries-
old anti-Semitic trope, and
declared that he was “the
chosen one.” He later in-
sisted he had been joking.
Through it all, leading
congressional Republicans
were almost uniformly
silent. Walsh said that left
him convinced that the
party was out of step with
voter perceptions, despite
polling that indicates strong
support for Trump among
Republican voters.
Polls suggest the a large
majority of Republican
voters approve of the direc-
tion in which Trump has tak-
en the party. A significant
minority disapprove, whichcould provide a base for a
challenge, but because the
Republicans have winner-
take-all rules in many prima-
ries, a challenger might end
up with no convention
delegates even if the candi-
date won a large share of
votes.
The party’s national
committee has thrown its
machinery into high gear in
support of the president,
and Trump backers are in
firm control of GOP party
leadership in key primary
states such as Iowa, New
Hampshire and South Car-
olina.
Supporters say Walsh,
with his talk show experi-
ence, will have a unique abil-
ity to rattle a president who
devotes large amounts of at-tention to his image on tele-
vision.
Walsh insisted he was un-
daunted by the challenge.
“The country is sick of this
guy’s tantrum,” Walsh, 57,
said of Trump, who is in Bi-
arritz, France, this weekend
for a meeting of the Group of
7 industrialized democra-
cies. “He’s a child.”
In contrast to the
crowded Democratic field,
Trump so far has faced only
one GOP challenger, former
Massachusetts Gov. William
Weld, who ran for vice presi-
dent in 2016 on the Libertari-
an Party ticket.
Weld said he thought it
was “terrific” that Walsh was
entering the race, and called
on others to jump in as well,
because more Republicancandidates would lead to a
more robust debate about
the party’s direction.
“We need to assemble ra-
tional people,” Weld said on
NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“Sure, a crazed president
makes the stock market go
down, but that doesn’t mean
we have to like it.”
A few other Republicans
have flirted with the idea of
challenging Trump, includ-
ing former Rep. Mark San-
ford of South Carolina,
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan
and former Sen. Jeff Flake of
Arizona. Former Ohio Gov.
John Kasich, who ran
against Trump in the 2016
primaries, has also talked
about a rematch but ap-
pears to have decided
against it.
Walsh has a history of
rhetoric that has sometimes
targeted ethnic, religious
or racial minorities in a man-
ner reminiscent of Trump’s.
In December 2016, he
tweeted “Obama is a Mus-
lim,” referring to the former
president. In 2017, he said the
country had held Obama “to
a lower standard cuz he was
black.”
Asked about those state-
ments, Walsh told “This
Week” host George Steph-
anopoulos that he now re-
gretted them.
“I said some ugly things
about President Obama
that I regret,” Walsh said,
calling some of his own lan-
guage “hateful.” He said he
himself helped champion a
political style that became a
Trump hallmark.
“Well, again, the beauty of
what President Trump has
done is, George, he’s made
me reflect on some of the
things I have said in the
past,” he said. “I had strong
policy disagreements with
Barack Obama, and too
often I let those policy dis-
agreements get personal.”
Asked if he truly had
believed Obama was Mus-
lim, he responded, “God,
no.”
“I helped create Trump,”
Walsh told Stephanopoulos.
“And George, that’s not an
easy thing to say.”Incendiary figure to challenge Trump
Former Rep. Joe
Walsh, a conservative
radio talk show host,
enters the 2020
Republican race.
By Laura King
JOE WALSH,who has his own history of inflammatory rhetoric, said he “helped create Trump.” He is the
second Republican challenger in the 2020 race, after former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld.Carolyn KasterAssociated Press‘The country is
sick of this guy’s
tantrum. He’s a
child.’
— Joe Walsh,
talk radio host and former
congressman