Politics

Former Rep. Mark Sanford to challenge Trump in GOP primary

WASHINGTON – Former South Carolina Rep. Mark Sanford said Sunday that he will indeed challenge President Trump in the Republican primary.

“I have and I plan to announce that back home this week,” Sanford said on “Fox News Sunday.” “But I’m here to tell you now that I’m going to get in.”

Sanford, who has been flirting with running for president for weeks, joins former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld and former Rep. Joe Walsh on the GOP side of the 2020 race.

The news comes as state Republican parties are making it more difficult for challengers to damage Trump.

On Saturday, the South Carolina GOP voted to kill its 2020 presidential primary. Kansas and Nevada won’t hold caucuses next year.

The Arizona Republican Party is also expected not to hold a presidential preference election.

Sanford told Wallace he was running “because I think we need to have a conversation about what it means to be a Republican.”

Sanford, who served as South Carolina’s governor before being elected to Congress, said that he planned to focus on “debts and deficits and spending.”

“I think we need to have a conversation on humility and one’s approach to politics,” Sanford added. “At the end of the day, a tweet is interesting, maybe newsworthy, but it’s not leadership.”

Like Trump, Sanford has an imperfect record when it comes to scandal.

In June 2009, Sanford disappeared and staff said he was “hiking the Appalachian Trail,” when he was, in fact, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, carrying on an extramarital affair.

“I actually went on an apology tour if you want to call in that back home in the wake of that,” Sanford said when asked about the affair by “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace.

“I learned a level of humility, a level of empathy, that I didn’t have before, a level of judgment. It is something of great regret, it’s something that I’ve apologized extensively for,” he said.

“And in contrast to the president, where he says there’s not a single thing he sort of regrets or apologizes.”