As governor, Hutchinson signed a near-total abortion ban and kicked greater than 18,000 folks off Medicaid.
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson introduced Sunday that he’ll run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, casting himself as a “totally different” sort of Republican than Donald Trump and his most fervent GOP allies.
However Hutchinson’s document as governor of Arkansas — a submit he held from 2015 to 2023 — signifies that his coverage positions on abortion rights, immigration, federal spending, healthcare, and different key points intently align with these of extremist Republicans.
“I’m going to be working,” Hutchinson said in an look on ABC’s “This Week” with Jonathan Karl. “And the reason being, I’ve traveled the nation for six months, I hear folks speak in regards to the management of our nation. I’m satisfied that individuals need leaders that enchantment to the very best of America, and never merely enchantment to our worst instincts.”
Hutchinson mentioned following information of Trump’s indictment by the hands of a Manhattan grand jury that the previous president ought to drop out of the 2024 race, a place he reiterated in his ABC interview.
“For the sake of the workplace of the presidency, I do assume that’s an excessive amount of of a sideshow and distraction,” mentioned Hutchinson, who in 2016 described Trump as “precisely the sort of clear, straight-talking chief America wants.”
As governor of Arkansas, Hutchinson signed into legislation a near-total abortion ban and — with permission from the Trump administration — made his state the primary to impose work necessities on Medicaid recipients, a transfer that kicked more than 18,000 folks off this system.
A federal decide struck down the work necessities in 2019.
“Asa Hutchinson now needs to rewrite historical past — however his help for Trump and the MAGA agenda speaks for itself,” Democratic Nationwide Committee Chair Jaime Harrison mentioned in a statement Sunday. “As governor, Hutchinson signed one of many strictest abortion bans within the nation, ripped healthcare away from 1000’s of Arkansans, and advocated for taking away the ACA’s protections for these with preexisting situations. He’s simply one other extremist becoming a member of the ever-expanding race for the MAGA base.”
Whereas Hutchinson didn’t define in any element the coverage platform he intends to run on, he advised ABC: “I feel that we have to have border safety. I feel we have to have a powerful America. We have to spend much less on the federal degree.”
Hutchinson joins a GOP presidential subject that features Trump, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, and far-right activist Vivek Ramaswamy. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis can be expected to run.
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