WORLD NEWS | Former Arkansas Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson is running for president

LITTLE ROCK (USA) April 2 (AP) – Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said he will run for president in 2024, citing himself as an alternative to Republicans who are preparing to turn the party away from Donald Trump .

“I’m running because I believe I am the right time for America, the right candidate for our country and its future,” he said.

Read also | Indonesia Earthquake: An earthquake measuring 4.4 on the Richter scale hits Papua, no casualties reported.

Hutchinson told ABC’s “This Week” in an interview that aired Sunday that he will make a formal announcement in Arkansas in April. “I believe people want leaders who will attract the best in America, not just pander to our worst instincts,” he said.

Hutchinson, 72, stepped down in January after eight years as governor. He has stepped up his criticism of the former president in recent months, calling Trump’s re-nomination the “worst-case scenario” for Republicans and saying it could benefit President Joe Biden Opportunities in 2024.

Read also | Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe asked India to help integrate IT into the country’s civil service.

“I’ve made a decision, my decision is that I’m going to run for president of the United States,” Hutchinson said in a radio interview. Of Trump, he said: “I don’t think he should be the next leader of our country.”

In addition to Trump, Hutchinson joins a Republican camp that also includes former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to enter the race in the summer, while South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are also considering bids.

The limited-term Hutchinson has been a fixture in Arkansas politics since the 1980s, when the state was largely Democratic. A former member of Congress, he was one of the House managers prosecuting President Bill Clinton’s impeachment.

Hutchinson served as the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration under President George W. Bush and was the deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

As governor, Hutchinson supported a series of income tax cuts as the state’s budget surplus grew. He signed several abortion restrictions into law, including a ban on the procedure that took effect when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year.

However, Hutchinson said he regretted that the measure did not include exceptions for rape or incest.

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

Trump called Hutchinson a “RINO” — a nominal Republican — because of the veto. Hutchinson’s successor, former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said she would sign the bill.

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

While consistently supportive of 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 end parts of the constitution to overturn the election hurt the country.

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

An opponent of federal health care law, Hutchinson took office in favor of keeping Arkansas’ version of the Medicaid expansion. But he backed a work requirement for a law that was blocked by a federal judge.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Hutchinson has sought to counter misinformation about the virus with daily news conferences and a series of town halls he’s held across the state aimed at encouraging people to get vaccinated.

Hutchinson outraged opponents of the death penalty in 2017 when he ordered eight executions over a two-week period, arranging them before the state’s lethal injection drug expired. The state ended up carrying out four executions.

The former governor is known for talking policy rather than fiery speeches, and his news conferences at the state capitol are often accompanied by diagrams. Instead of stirring up controversy on Twitter, he tweeted Bible verses every Sunday morning. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)