President Trump has finally gotten a primary challenger. Bill Weld has announced he will challenge the president in the 2020 GOP primary.
According to The Daily Wire:
Bill Weld, the Harvard-educated former Massachusetts governor whose name appeared next to presidential candidate Gary Johnson’s on the Libertarian ticket in 2016, officially announced on Monday that he is going to challenge President Donald Trump for the Republican nomination in 2020. And while he’s calling for a return to “principles” and “dignity,” Weld clearly isn’t shy about using some of Trump’s most-maligned past comments against him.
“It is time for patriotic men and women across our great nation to stand and plant a flag,” Weld said in a statement announcing his candidacy Monday. “It is time to return to the principles of Lincoln – equality, dignity, and opportunity for all. There is no greater cause on earth than to preserve what truly makes America great. I am ready to lead that fight.”
In a three-minute video announcing his candidacy released Monday, Weld highlighted some widely criticized comments by Trump, including Trump saying then-Senator John McCain was not a war hero, his infamous “grab them by the p***y” comments caught in the “Access Hollywood” tape and President Trump’s initial response to the Charlottesville, VA tragedy in which he said there were “very fine people on both sides” in the protests and counter-protests over Confederate monuments that erupted into violence, ending in the death of a peaceful liberal protester.
The announcement video also touts Weld’s record on helping to fight corruption, particularly Democrat corruption in Massachusetts, as well as his connection to President Ronald Reagan, who appointed him to be a “crime-fighting” U.S. attorney. Among his achievements presented in the video are busting politicians for fraud and saving millions in tax-dollars in the process. His platform when he ran for governor as a Republican in the “one party” Democrat-controlled state: “Guts. Integrity. Independence.” After his “historic victory,” Weld “cut taxes 21 times,” “balanced the budget,” “reformed welfare,” and went on to win re-election “by the widest margin ever” in the state’s history, the video states.
Weld is known for his liberal views on social issues and climate change causing him to move along the political spectrum from election to election. It is unknown how this will affect his chances with the GOP.
