South Carolina's Mark Sanford weighing challenge to Trump
Mark Sanford, the former South Carolina congressman and Donald Trump adversary, announced Tuesday morning he is considering a run for president, telling The Post and Courier that he would spend the next month deciding whether to formally launch a campaign.
Sanford was pushed out of office by a primary challenger in 2018 after Trump urged voters not to support him, calling him “nothing but trouble” and alluding to an extramarital affair Sanford had more than a decade before.
On Tuesday, the South Carolinian said he is taking a serious look at a run against Trump, telling The Post and Courier he felt “convicted” to do so because of his alarm over the nation's mounting debt.
"I'm a Republican. I think the Republican Party has lost its way on debt, spending and financial matters," Sanford said.
Sanford further pushed these beliefs in an interview with CNN on Tuesday afternoon, putting financial policy at the core of his platform and saying Trump's attacks on four freshman congresswomen of color distract from core party principles.
"I think that [the tweets] are obnoxious and they're weird and all those different things that people are discussing," he said. "The place where there's no discussion is the way in which interest is the largest growing expense in the federal government. We will spend more on interest than we do on our national defense bill in just three years. Nobody is talking about it."
Sanford also responded to claims that lack of support from party leadership will limit his chances of being a viable presidential challenger.
"I've never gotten a lot of support from the GOP establishment," Sanford said. "But I have invested the better part of my professional life in terms of doing something on debt, deficit and government spending. This is at a tipping point now. This is not a grandkids' problem or kids' problem, this is our problem."
Only one Republican — former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld — has so far announced a presidential challenge to Trump.
"Sometimes in life you've got to say what you've got to say, whether there's an audience or not for that message," Sanford told The Post and Courier.
