Republican presidential candidate Joe Walsh announced on CNN Friday that he is dropping his bid for the GOP nomination after getting crushed in the Iowa caucus, but he's not stopping his efforts to deny President Trump a second term.
"I am ending my candidacy for president of the United States. Look, I got into this because I thought it was really important that there was a Republican, a Republican out there every day calling out this president for how unfit he is. I want to stop Trump. I believe he’s a threat to this country. He can’t be stopped within the Republican Party. Nobody can beat him. It’s Trump’s party, John. It’s not a party. It’s a cult," Walsh said. "He can’t be beat in the Republican primary, so there’s no reason for me or any candidate really to be in there. The party has become a cult."
Walsh told CNN anchor John Berman he did not realize how "cult-like the party was" before he started his long-shot bid for the presidency and blamed the "conservative media world" for "not giving me the time of day."
"I’m going to do whatever I can to stop Trump. I think, John, this is one of those rare moments in American history — I’m a conservative — where conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats, independents and moderates, got to come together to stop this guy," Walsh continued.
The former Illinois congressman said he will support whoever the Democratic nominee is because "Donald Trump is a dictator. He’s a king. He literally is the greatest threat to this country right now," adding, "I would rather have...a socialist in the white House than a dictator, than a king, than Donald Trump."
The former radio host was a staunch Trump supporter during the 2016 presidential election.