Former GOP Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, says Trump's campaign message is bad for the party: 'We don't need to be led by arrogance and revenge'

Hutchinson said key voter groups want a new kind of leadership and not someone who will "appeal to the worst instincts of our country."

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said former President Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign message is bad for Republicans.

Hutchinson, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, told CNN's Dana Bash on Sunday that he thinks more voices countering Trump's message is the "best thing in the right direction."

"We need to have alternatives again to Donald Trump. We don't need to be led by arrogance and revenge in the future. We need to be led by those that are problem-solving. That want to stick to the principals of our party and unite us together," Hutchinson said.

Hutchinson, who has not decided whether he will run for president, said he disagreed with the idea that there will be too many people running in the GOP race that could allow Trump to win since the votes would be split.

"This is not 2016. Donald Trump is a known quantity. He makes his message of revenge clear," he told CNN.

Trump lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden but has spent years flouting baseless theory of election fraud and that the election was stolen from him. Trump and his associates waged dozens of unsuccessful lawsuits in various swing states in an attempt to overturn the election.

The former governor said he sees some distinctions between Trump's 2016 and the upcoming election, noting that while the Evangelical community played a pivotal role in electing Trump, they're now convinced that there needs to be a different "type of leadership in the future."

"It should not be someone that's going to appeal to the worst instincts of our country," Hutchinson said.
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