WAUKEE, Iowa — In his first trip to Iowa as a formal presidential candidate, former Arkansas Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson vowed to take former President Trump head on in his challenge against the party’s frontrunner.
“If you don’t say, ‘I’m different from Donald Trump [and] that I’m going to provide a different leadership than he does,’ then why are you in the race?” Hutchinson said in an exclusive NBC News interview in the caucus state.
Hutchinson, who also served as a congressman, is currently hardly registering in national polls of the Republican presidential field and currently lacks the national name recognition of other Republican rivals. But in contrast to the likes of other GOP presidential hopefuls, like former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and South Carolina Republican Tim Scott, Hutchinson said he is determined to squarely take on Trump in his campaign.
“Donald Trump has taken us back to bitterness. He’s taken us back to, you know what, a personal vendetta,” Hutchinson said. “Whenever you look at what he wants to do as president, it’s more about getting even with his political enemies than leading our country which concerns me.”
He continued: “I want America’s freedoms to be the envy of the world — our democracy to be that they see this is how you transfer power from one leader to the next leader.”
The former governor also pushed back against the likelihood that Republican National Committee will require Republican candidates to pledge their support to the eventual GOP nominee in order to be allowed onto the primary debate stages. Instead, Hutchinson said that he is urging the RNC to amend any potential pledge to merely require candidates to commit to not running as a third-party candidate if they lose the Republican contest.
Hutchinson, who also served as Arkansas Republican Party chair during the Clinton Administration, is shaping himself as a traditional conservative. “The party has gotten more conservative, and I think I’ve stayed the same,” he said.
In the interview, he stopped short of saying he would veto a bill to federally ban abortion, suggesting: “it depends on what it provides. I’ve always signed pro-life legislation.”
But he followed: “I support returning that power to the states. And I think that is the right approach that I fought for 40 years with the Supreme Court, reversing their position and returning that power to the state. So I’d be hesitant to change that. I would have to see what the legislation says. But I believe right now, it is where it should be, in terms of the states having that decision making authority in terms of protecting the life of the unborn.”
Hutchinson, however, pushed back on efforts within his party to more keenly interfere in private corporations’ decisions. “Do we want the conservative government to tell businesses what you can and can’t do or what you can’t speak out on and not speak out on?” Hutchinson responded. “I think we have to restrain ourselves in telling the private sector what to do.”
He also defended his decision to veto a bill in Arkansas that banned gender-affirming care for minors, calling that particular measure “very extreme.” He further explained: “I think whether you’re talking about the government telling parents about vaccines or parents telling how you raise your children on some very sensitive issues like gender identity, I think you have to be careful about getting the government right in the middle of it.”
Hutchinson also suggested that the U.S. government has potentially not done enough to assist Ukraine in its defense effort against Russia’s invasion over the last year.
“So far, we’re stringing them along,” he said. “We’re giving them bit by bit … Let’s give them what they need to win so we don’t have a prolonged war.”
He also spoke last week at the NRA’s annual convention.
