Appearing on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show on Thursday, radio host and former California gubernatorial candidate Larry Elder announced he’s jumping into the 2024 presidential race.
Elder joins a Republican field that already includes former president Donald Trump, former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchison. The radio host last ran for office in 2021, when he received the most votes out of 46 candidates who were hoping to replace California governor Gavin Newsom in a recall effort. Though Elder was able to tap into frustration with the governor’s pandemic response, voters ultimately decided to keep Newsom in office.
“I’m announcing that I’m running for the presidency of the United States,” said Elder. “The reason I’m doing this is because my father was a World War II vet. He served in the island of Guam. He was a Marine. . . . My late older brother Kirk was in the Navy during the Vietnam era and my little brother Dennis actually served in Vietnam in the Army. I’m the only that didn’t serve. I feel I have a moral, religious, and a patriotic duty to give back to a country that’s been so good to my family and to me, and that’s why I’m doing this, Tucker.”
Elder listed a number of policy positions he supports, including his desire to secure the border, fix urban schools, and make America energy independent. He also said he is pro-life.
America is in decline, but this decline is not inevitable. We can enter a new American Golden Age, but we must choose a leader who can bring us there. That’s why I’m running for President.#WeveGotACountryToSave https://t.co/jOqOBPpre2 pic.twitter.com/MTyibgbKyK
— Larry Elder (@larryelder) April 21, 2023
Carlson asked Elder if he had to narrow down his campaign to only two issues, what they would be. Elder said he’d first want to draw attention to “the absolute disgraceful lie that the Democrats put on everything, which is that America is systemically racist.” Elder said it is having real consequences, claiming the police are pulling back in many places, which Elder called the Ferguson effect. The second issue most important to Elder is the “elephant in the room regarding all of this stuff we see in Chicago and some of these other cities with these mass mobs — the lack of fathers in the home.” The radio host said that through the welfare state, “we’ve incentivized women to marry the government; we’ve incentivized men to abandon their financial and moral responsibility.”
“If I do nothing else in this race but focus people on those two issues, I will have done a service to my country,” he said.