Trump Challenger Joe Walsh Calls for Referendum on the President

(Bloomberg) -- One of Donald Trump’s Republican challengers, Joe Walsh, said he’s running against the “bigotry and cruelty” of the president, not necessarily his policies.

“We’ve got a king and a dictator in the White House,” Walsh said on MSNBC’s “Up with David Gura” on Sunday. “It’s a referendum on Trump,” a man he said “lies virtually every time he opens his mouth.”

The former Illinois representative said he believes in strong national borders but welcomes those who want to enter the U.S. legally. “Donald Trump has turned that into some bigoted, cruel, dark thing that the Republican Party right now is saddled with,” Walsh said.

He said outspoken Trump critic George Conway, a lawyer, is “one of our greatest patriots,” and he hopes to win his support. Conway’s wife, Kellyanne, is a counselor to Trump and defends him in public, even as her husband questions the president’s mental health.

Walsh is seeking the Republican nomination along with former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld. Trump refers to them as the “Three Stooges.”

In a Washington Post op-ed, the three men said canceling GOP primaries, a decision already made by four states, “is a critical mistake.”

Walsh is set to debate Weld on Sept. 24 at an event hosted by Business Insider. Sanford and Trump have also been invited.

To contact the reporter on this story: Hailey Waller in New York at hwaller@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Ludden at jludden@bloomberg.net, Steve Geimann, Mark Niquette

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