Former Florida governor and failed 2016 Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush told CNN’s David Axelrod, a former Obama adviser, that a Republican should challenge President Trump for the 2020 GOP nomination for president.
Jeb’s reasoning, apparently, is that only by running a GOP challenge to the sitting and duly-elected president can the GOP have a “conversation about what it is to be a conservative.”
The Washington Examiner reports:
President Trump’s former primary rival Jeb Bush called on a Republican candidate to challenge the president in the 2020 GOP nomination because the party “ought to be a given a choice.””I think someone should run. Just because Republicans ought to be given a choice,” said Bush in an interview with former Obama adviser David Axelrod, which is set to air Saturday on CNN.Bush, who served as Florida’s governor from 1999-2007, acknowledged a Republican opponent’s chances of beating Trump in 2020 will be an uphill climb because “he has a strong, loyal base.”“It’s hard to beat a sitting president,” he said. “But to have a conversation about what it is to be a conservative I think is important.”Bush made the comments as he was discussing Maryland Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, a potential Trump challenger, according to CNN. Hogan is heading to New Hampshire in late April. The state is a must-stop for presidential candidates because it holds the first primary in the nation.
Given that the GOP is having and has been having that conversation since candidate Trump started winning GOP primary votes across the nation in 2016, Jeb’s reasoning falls short. It’s also a bit off-note for someone who declared in 2012 that he “used to be a conservative.”
How can someone who “used to be a conservative” feel comfortable advocating a primary challenge to a sitting president of his own party . . . to spark a national conversation about what it means to be something he has acknowledged he no longer is? Mind-boggling.
Furthermore, Hogan has next to zero name recognition and registers nowhere as a potential GOP primary favorite for 2020, Jeb(!) undoubtedly thinks he should be the one to challenge President Trump.
Watch the discussion on Fox Business:
Is he waiting in the wings to be called to duty by a desperate GOP . . . sort of like Michelle Obama but without the indifference of the potential candidate or the avid support of the party’s base?
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