Nation/World

Former congressman Joe Walsh announces primary challenge against Trump

Former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh announced Sunday that he will challenge President Donald Trump in the 2020 primary, becoming the second Republican to wage a bid against the president.

Walsh, a talk-radio host, was elected to Congress in 2010 as part of the tea party wave and served one term. He has described himself as an immigration hard-liner and said he would not challenge Trump from the center but from the right and on moral grounds.

"I'm going to run for president," Walsh said Sunday in an interview on ABC News' "This Week," charging that the president is "incompetent," "a bigot" and "a narcissist."

Former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld also has declared that he is running against Trump in the Republican primary, but he has struggled to gain traction.

In Sunday's interview, Walsh staked his run on harsh criticism of the president and questioned Trump's support among Republicans, despite polls showing that the president is popular with the overwhelming majority of GOP voters.

According to a Monmouth University poll released last week, 84% of Republicans approve of Trump's job performance. His highest recent approval mark among fellow Republicans was 88% in a Fox News poll of registered voters earlier this month.

"He's nuts. He's erratic. He's cruel. He stokes bigotry. He's incompetent. He doesn't know what he's doing, George, he's a narcissist," Walsh told host George Stephanopoulos.

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Walsh also apologized for his past criticism of former President Barack Obama during his time in office, saying he and other tea party Republicans helped create a partisan political environment that facilitated Trump's election.

"I got personal and I got hateful. I said some ugly things about President Obama that I regret . . . that helped create Trump, and I feel responsible for that," he said.

Others who are mulling Republican primary challenges against Trump include Mark Sanford, a former South Carolina governor and congressman, and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

Jeff Flake, a former senator from Arizona and a Trump antagonist, also has said he has taken a flurry of recruitment calls from GOP donors rattled by signs of an economic slowdown and hungry for an alternative to Trump.

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The Washington Post’s Robert Costa and Scott Clement contributed to this report.

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