Maryland Governor Larry Hogan says the Republican party would be insane to offer Donald Trump the presidential nomination again. Ahead of speaking at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California a sneak peek of Hogan’s speech was obtained which shows him desperately urging the party to distance itself from the former president.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
“We won’t win back the White House by nominating Donald Trump or a cheap impersonation of him,” Mr. Hogan will say, according to a copy of his speech shared with The Wall Street Journal. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”
“A party that lost the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections and that couldn’t even beat Joe Biden is desperately in need of course correction,” he will say. “The truth is the last election was not rigged and it wasn’t stolen. We simply didn’t offer the majority of voters what they were looking for.”
Hogan, who has been floated as a possible presidential contender, is also planning to target Trump’s divisive leadership style.
“As Ronald Reagan understood, successful politics is about addition and multiplication, not subtraction and division,” he will say. “We have been doing far too much subtracting and dividing.”
In an interview prior to delivering his speech, Hogan predicted Trump will lose his grip on the party this year if some of the candidates he has endorsed fail to win their primaries.
“What happens in 2022 may have some bearing on what happens in 2024,” he said. “It’s going to show a little bit about which direction the party wants to head and how critically important—or not—is an endorsement from Donald Trump.”