Arkansas Governor Mulls Run for US President In 2024

By Staff, Agencies

The Arkansas governor, Asa Hutchinson, is considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 and would not be deterred if Donald Trump made an expected bid to return to the White House.

“No, it won’t [deter me],” Hutchinson told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday.

“I’ve made it clear. I think we ought to have a different direction in the future and so I’m not aligned with [Trump] on some of his endorsements, but also the direction he wants to take our country.

“I think he did a lot of good things for our country, but we need to go a different direction and so that’s not a factor in my decision-making process.”

Trump is free to run – and has amassed huge campaign funding – after being acquitted in his second Senate impeachment trial, in which he was charged with inciting the deadly January 6 Capitol attack, in his attempt to overturn defeat by Joe Biden.

More than 20 years ago, Hutchinson was a House impeachment manager in the trial of Bill Clinton. As Arkansas governor, Hutchinson now operates in the more moderate lane of Republican politics.

On CNN, he was asked about an appearance last week at a “Politics & Eggs” event in New Hampshire, a “traditional stop for any presidential hopeful” in an early voting state.

“You’ve got to get through course this year,” he said, “but that’s an option that’s on the table. And that’s one of the reasons I was in New Hampshire.”