(NewsNation) — Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson formalized his presidential bid by criticizing the Biden administration’s response to migration policy.
As the expiration of Title 42 looms, Hutchinson told “Elizabeth Vargas Reports” that if he’s elected president he would fund more resources to support border patrol, reform asylum laws and “go after the cartels.”
“The items that the Biden administration are trying to do now are two years too late. …We’ve got to start discouraging people from coming here for economic reasons,” Hutchinson said. “The visibility of our commitment to securing the border will discourage people from getting in that pipeline. Then you gotta put economic pressure on Mexico to cooperate with us in going after the cartels.”
Hutchinson announced his presidential bid just days after Trump was indicted by a grand jury in New York, the former governor positioning himself as an alternative to Trump. The attorney and businessman served as governor of Arkansas from 2015 to 2023.
“In this campaign for president, I stand alone in terms of my experience, my record and leadership. From congress to the DEA, to homeland security, I have served our country in times of crisis,” Hutchinson said during his presidential announcement.
Hutchinson, 72, left office in January after eight years as governor. He has ramped up his criticism of the former president in recent months, calling another Trump presidential nomination the “worst scenario” for Republicans and saying it will likely benefit President Joe Biden’s chances in 2024.
The former governor, who was term-limited, has been a fixture in Arkansas politics since the 1980s, when the state was predominantly Democratic. A former congressman, he was one of the House managers prosecuting the impeachment case against President Bill Clinton.
Hutchinson served as President George W. Bush’s head of the Drug Enforcement Administration and was an undersecretary of the Department of Homeland Security.
Hutchinson also said we need to control federal spending while discussing his stance on inflation and rising interest rates and said
“We need to reduce Federal Civilian Employment by ten percent. That’s a start for it, and we need to continue down that path,” Hutchinson said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.