On Sunday, conservative talk radio host and former Republican Congressman Joe Walsh announced his intention to primary President Trump on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos.
During the lengthy segment, Walsh and Stephanopoulos discussed several issues, including the talk radio host’s primary motivation for taking on the president. Walsh first told Stephanopoulos that President Trump is “unfit.”
STEPHANOPOULOS: Have you reached a decision?
WALSH: Yes – and it’s great to be with you. I’m going to run for president and I’m to be on your show announcing my candidacy. George, no surprise, we’ve got a guy in the White House who’s unfit, completely unfit to be president, and it stuns me that nobody stepped up, nobody in the Republican party stepped up. Because I’ll tell you what, George, everybody believes – in the Republican party, everybody believes that he’s unfit. He lies every time he opens his mouth.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You say that, you say, “everybody believes he’s unfit,” but one of the things the White House points to and the president points to often is just about every poll shows more than 80 support for the president among Republicans.
WALSH: They don’t have an alternative. I’ll tell you what, George – and look, I’m running because he’s unfit. Somebody needs to step up and there needs to be an alternative. The country is sick of this guy’s tantrum. He’s a child. Again, the litany – he lies every time he opens his mouth. Look at what’s happened this week. The President of the United States is tweeting us into a recession. I can tell you, George, that most of my former colleagues up on the Hill, they agree privately with everything I’m saying.
Stephanopoulos challenged Walsh’s assertion regarding his former colleagues, asking the talk radio host to “explain why they stand behind [Trump] so strongly.”
Walsh replied: “Because they’re afraid … scared to death.”
He also claimed that behind closed doors, elected Republicans are “tired of the drama,” want the president to go down in 2020, and want things to “go back to normal” after the election:
…the president of the United States ordered private companies to not do business with China. The president of the United States said our Fed chair is as big of an enemy as China. Most Republican voters are tired of the drama. They’re tired of his BS.
After Stephanopoulos noted that former Republican Governor Bill Weld, who has also announced a primary challenge to President Trump, tweeted using a “25th Amendment” hashtag, the host asked Walsh if that’s a route worth examining.
Walsh replied:
It should be looked at. George, we’ve never had a situation like this. You can’t believe a word he says. And again, I don’t care your politics, that should concern you. 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. Everything he cares about – the only thing he cares about – is Trump. He doesn’t give a damn about America. He doesn’t care about the border.
Walsh added that it was Trump’s remarks in Helsinki that finally put an end to his support of the president: “When the president of the United States stood in front of the world and said, I stand with that guy and not my own people, that’s disloyal, that’s un-American.”
Since rumors of his candidacy began circulating, years-old social media commentary has surfaced in which Walsh used disturbing language and entertained conspiracy theory. This was also addressed on Sunday’s episode of “This Week,” which you can read about here.