Tea Party Favorite Joe Walsh to Challenge Trump in 2020 Republican Primary

Tea Party conservative and former Republican Congressman from Illinois, Joe Walsh announced he will be challenging Donald Trump for the Republican nomination for president in the 2020 elections on Sunday.

The radio show host who transitioned from being a supporter of Trump to a vocal critic made the announcement on ABC News. "We've got a guy in the White House who is completely unfit to be president and it stuns me that nobody in the Republican party stepped up," Walsh told anchor George Stephanopoulos on The Week.

It's uncertain the impact Walsh's candidacy will have on the electoral race since Trump's approval ratings remain consistently high at 88% among Republican voters, according to Gallup's most recent poll.

"Friends, I'm in. We can't take four more years of Donald Trump. And that's why I'm running for President. Let's show the world we're ready to be brave," he tweeted on Sunday.

In a surprising win, Walsh had served for two years from 2011 to 2013 after defeating three-term incumbent Democratic Representative Melissa Bean by almost 300 votes. He lost his bid for reelection in 2012 by over 20,000 votes.

The former U.S. representative claims he turned on Trump when he refused to confront President Vladimir Putin on Russia's interference in the American elections during their meeting in Helsinki, Finland in July 2018.

"These are urgent times, these are scary times. We are tired of a president waking up every morning and tweeting ugly insults at ordinary Americans," Walsh said in a two-minute video posted on his website. "We're tired of a president who is tweeting this country into a recession," he added.

Walsh has been at the center of several controversies for backing Trump in 2016 and using inflammatory language on social media. Shortly before the elections, he had declared he would "grab his musket" if Trump lost. He had also said radical Muslims are "trying to kill Americans" in the U.S. Walsh was also taken off radio for using racist slurs in 2014.

Following former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld, Walsh is the second Republican to announce a run in the primaries as the anti-Trump lobby within the party is eager to contest the President despite bleak prospects of strong competition.