Friday, February 15, 2019

Weld exploring primary challenge to Trump

Bill Weld looking to challenge Donald Trump in 2020 Republican primary - CNNPolitics - Veronica Stracqualursi, Harry Enten & Daniella Diaz:

February 15, 2019 - "Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld said he's launching a presidential exploratory committee to run in 2020 as a Republican.

"'I hope to see the Republican Party assume once again the mantle of being the party of Lincoln. It upsets me that our energies as a society are being sapped by the President's culture of divisiveness in Washington,' he said Friday in New Hampshire, adding later, 'Because of the many concerns I've talked about today, I've established an exploratory committee ... as a Republican in the 2020 election.'

"Speaking at the 'Politics & Eggs' breakfast in Bedford, New Hampshire, Weld called Donald Trump a 'schoolyard bully,' 'unstable,' and 'a president whose priorities are skewed to the promotion of himself rather than toward the good of the country.'

"Weld is the first potential primary challenger to the President [and] ... will face an uphill battle.... Trump recently scored an 89% approval rating among Republicans nationally in a Gallup poll. Even in New Hampshire, where Weld is expected to base much of his campaign effort, Trump showed a similarly strongly 83% approval rating with Republicans in a late October University of New Hampshire poll.....

"Weld has had a unique political path. He served as a two-term Massachusetts governor during the early 1990s and later lost the 1996 US Senate race in Massachusetts against John Kerry. He resigned as governor in 1997 after Democratic President Bill Clinton nominated him to be US ambassador to Mexico [but] he was blocked by then-chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Sen. Jesse Helms....

"He was Mitt Romney's co-chair in New York when Romney ran for president in 2008. After Romney dropped out, Weld ended up endorsing then-Democratic nominee Barack Obama for president over the GOP nominee, Sen. John McCain.

"Weld was the 2016 vice presidential nominee on the Libertarian Party ticket with former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson. And despite that, Weld vouched for Hillary Clinton, even saying at one point he's 'not sure anybody is more qualified' than her to be president."

'via Blog this'
Read Weld's full speech here: https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2019/02/15/bill-weld-2020-speech

No comments:

Post a Comment