Former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson says he is running for president in 2024, offering himself as an alternative to Republicans willing to reject the party from former President Trump. I’m in because I believe I’m the right time for America, the right candidate for our country and its future, he said.

Hutchinson told ABCs This Week in an interview that aired Sunday that he would make a formal announcement in Arkansas in April. “I’m a firm believer that people want leaders who appeal to the best of America and not just appeal to our worst instincts,” he said.

Hutchinson, 72, left office in January after eight years as governor. He has ramped up his criticism of the former president in recent months, calling another presidential nomination for Trump the worst-case scenario for Republicans and saying it would likely benefit the president

joe

Biden’s chances in 2024.

I’ve made a decision and my decision is that I’m going to run for president of the United States, Hutchinson said in the broadcast interview. Speaking of Trump, he said, I don’t believe he should be the next leader of our country.

In addition to Trump, Hutchinson joins a Republican field that also includes former UN ambassador Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is expected to jump into the race in the summer, while U.S. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and former Secretary of State

Mike Michael R

Pompeo is among those considering an offer.

Hutchinson, who served a limited term, has been a fixture in Arkansas politics since the 1980s, when the state was mostly Democratic. A former congressman, he was one of several House executives prosecuting the impeachment case against the president

Account

Clinton.

Hutchinson was the head of President George W. Bush’s Drug Enforcement Administration and undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

As governor, Hutchinson advocated a series of income tax cuts as the state’s budget surpluses increased. He signed several abortion restrictions into law, including a ban on the procedure that took effect when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Roe v. Wade knocked down last year. However, Hutchinson has said he regrets that the measure does not include exceptions for rape or incest.

Hutchinson angered Trump and social conservatives last year when he vetoed legislation banning gender-affirming medical care for children. The majority of the Arkansas Republican legislature overruled Hutchinson’s veto and enacted the ban, which has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge.

Trump called Hutchinson a RINO a Republican in Name Only because of the veto power. Hutchinson’s successor, former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, has said she would have signed the bill.

Hutchinson, who signed other restrictions on transgender youth into law, said the Arkansas ban went too far and he would have signed the measure if it focused only on surgery.

While he has supported Trump’s policies, Hutchinson has become increasingly critical of the former president’s rhetoric and lies about the 2020 presidential election. He said Trump’s call to terminate parts of the constitution to overturn the election, hurt the country.

Hutchinson also criticized Trump for meeting with white nationalist leader Nick Fuentes and the rapper Ye, who has praised Adolf Hitler and spewed anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Hutchinson has compared that meeting to his own background as a US attorney prosecuting white supremacists in Arkansas in the 1980s.

Hutchinson, an opponent of the federal health bill, supported keeping Arkansas’ version of Medicaid expansion after taking office. But he argued for a work requirement for the law that was blocked by a federal judge.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Hutchinson tried to counter misinformation about the virus with daily press conferences and a series of town halls he held across the state to encourage people to get vaccinated.

Hutchinson infuriated death penalty opponents in 2017 when he ordered eight executions over a two-week period, scheduling them before one of the state’s lethal injection drugs was due to expire. The state eventually carried out four of the executions.

The former governor is known more for talking about policy than his fiery speeches, often flanked by charts and graphs at his Capitol press conferences. Instead of picking a fight on Twitter, he tweets

out

Bible verses every Sunday morning.