GOP 2024 candidate and businessman Perry Johnson told Newsmax Wednesday that rival and former Vice President Mike Pence’s views do not appear to be popular with today’s Republican voters.
“That is why [Pence] is polling around 2%,” Johnson said during “Rob Schmitt Tonight.” “Keep in mind he is a former vice president of the United States, and he probably should be polling around 15 to 20% at least. I don’t know if his views are necessarily popularized by everyone.”
Johnson mentioned Pence’s stance of continuing aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia.
“Let’s be realistic. You have a situation where he is encouraging us to go to the Ukraine, and he wants more and more to the Ukraine,” Johnson said. “But we have no plan. What is their objective? I say we have to have an objective first.
“And by the way, although we’ve sent $240 billion over there, we have no accounting for where that money’s going. Is the money really going to the war? Is that going to the oligarchs? We don’t know, and it looks like they don’t care.”
Johnson said Congress failed to pass legislation to account for the war aid and that the nations neighboring Ukraine are not being asked to pay more, although the war is next door to them.
“Don’t you think they should contribute least as much as we do?” he said. “We’re not doing anything to try to politick to try to get them to contribute more.”
Johnson said he is hoping to make an appearance on the stage at the upcoming second Republican National Committee debate by reaching 3% in the polls because he already has the required number of donors.
“I think we have to realize that, obviously, the RNC is quite corrupt,” he said. “They kept me off the debate stage, despite the fact that I really had met the requirements.”
The second debate, scheduled for Sept. 27 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, requires candidates to have at least 50,000 unique donors including at least 200 donors in 20 states, and reach 3% in two national polls or 3% in one national or two early voting state polls, The Hill reported.
The levels are higher than they were for the first RNC debate in Milwaukee to show the candidates are “stepping up the criteria.”
“Once you get on the debate stage and you get in front of the American people, if you’re not having momentum, if you’re not showing growth in your campaign, then that’s a problem,” RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel said in that report.
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Charles Kim ✉
Charles Kim, a Newsmax general assignment writer, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years in reporting on news and politics.
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