The ex-governor of Massachusetts is the sole Republican set to take on Trump, and he’s striking a chord with some conservatives

There’s only one way to begin an interview with the person poised to challenge Donald Trump for the presidential nomination of the Republican party in 2020, and that’s to ask him: are you a masochist?

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Having witnessed the excruciating humiliation last time around of Lyin’ Ted Cruz, Low Energy Jeb Bush and Little Marco Rubio, why would anyone put themselves through such misery?

Bill Weld ponders, in a New England patrician style that comes with having governed Massachusetts for six years, then says: “I think it’s going to be a lot of fun running against Trump. I don’t intend to stand on one leg looking uncomfortable – he’ll get as good as he gives.”

While the Democratic pool of candidates is already full to overflowing, Weld stands alone in glorious isolation as the sole Republican openly planning to take on the most powerful individual on Earth.

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Last month Weld announced he was setting up an exploratory committee to look into the logistics of a possible Trump challenge. Now, he tells the Guardian in an interview in New Hampshire, the state that will stage the nation’s first primary in February, that his mind is almost set and that he will probably launch his campaign within weeks.

“I am likely to run, and late April or early May is the likely time frame for me to declare,” he said during an interview at the Wild Irish Breakfast, New England’s largest St Patrick’s Day event in Nashua, New Hampshire.

Despite his lonely standing, Weld – at 73, a year Trump’s senior – is striking a chord with a small but growing band of conservatives who believe Trump should be confronted from within his own party. Last week Jeb Bush told CNN that he backed the idea of a primary challenge, arguing that it would allow Republicans to engage in a “conversation about what it is to be a conservative”.

That’s precisely what Weld wants to instigate. “My hope is that the Republican party – the party of Abraham Lincoln, which appeals to the better angels of our nature, rather than sows division in the ranks – will regain ascendancy. To my eye, Trump has set out to take actions antagonistic to the interests of the United States: he’s doing it all wrong.”

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Audacious is too mild a word for what Weld is proposing. Gallup’s latest poll gives Trump a 90% approval rating among Republicans. The last sitting president who was denied his own party’s nomination was Chester Arthur in 1884.

To which you might add that when Weld ran as running mate to the Libertarian party nominee, Gary Johnson, in the 2016 presidential race, they garnered a mere 3% of the national vote.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Bill Weld arrives to cast his vote in the 2016 election in Canton, Massachusetts, on 8 November 2016. Photograph: Michael Dwyer/AP

Weld swats away such inconvenient truths with historical references of his own. Of the last 10 incumbent US presidents who have stood for election, five of them were challenged in the primaries, and all five went on either to quit or to lose the general election (Harry Truman, challenged by Estes Kefauver in 1952; Lyndon Johnson, by Eugene McCarthy in 1968; Gerald Ford, by Ronald Reagan in 1976; Jimmy Carter, by Ted Kennedy in 1980; and George HW Bush, by Pat Buchanan in 1992).

“That’s a partial answer to the question, isn’t this crazy,” Weld says. “Don’t forget, George HW Bush’s numbers were at 91% in December 1991, and look what happened to him.”

So the question becomes, does Weld have the ability to wound Trump sufficiently that he renders the president vulnerable to defeat in November 2020. Weld insists that he intends to compete all the way to the White House, but adds: “I flatter myself that I could sink a few shots beneath the waterline.”

The bullets that Weld is preparing to fire at USS Trump come with their own libertarian stamp. Weld describes himself as a “classic economic conservative” who combines a desire for small government and balanced budgets with social tolerance.

“My political philosophy can be summed up in one sentence: I want the government out of your pocketbook and out of your bedroom.”

So he supported Trump’s tax cut, and says he would have backed the appointments of Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the US supreme court, but there the affinity ends. He is scathing of virtually every other aspect of the 45th president, from the $2tn that has been added to the national debt under Trump to his foreign policy, where “he’s gone out of his way to insult our allies”.

My political philosophy can be summed up in one sentence: I want the government out of your pocketbook and out of your bedroom Bill Weld

“The president takes an oath to execute the laws faithfully. Trump executes laws to deflect blame away from himself, while demanding loyalty from everyone else,” he said.

Weld draws on his experience as the former US attorney in Boston and head of the justice department’s criminal division to sound the alarm over the loyalty that Trump demanded from James Comey, then director of the FBI, before he fired him. “When I see somebody demanding loyalty in a law enforcement context, the buzzers go off: bing, bing, bing, bing. That’s simply not done.”

He predicts devastating consequences for Trump arising from the recent congressional testimony of his fixer Michael Cohen. Hush money payments to cover up Trump’s alleged sexual affairs before the 2016 election amounted to wire and mail fraud and could lead to accusations of racketeering against the Trump Organization.

“The assets of the Trump Organization would be subject to forfeiture. That would be quite visual – yellow police tape and a padlock on the front of Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.”

Climate change is another shot that Weld, a keen environmentalist, plans to aim at Trump. Taking the US out of the Paris climate agreement was a “disaster”, he says.

As for immigration, Trump’s wall is nothing but “a political shibboleth – it’s not real”. By contrast, he would opt for comprehensive immigration reform.

Weld’s critique is an implicit condemnation of today’s Republican party. As governor of Massachusetts between 1991 and 1997, he was a proud and prominent member of the party of Lincoln.

That party has all but ceased to exist. Today Trump can denigrate one of the heroes of the party, John McCain, beyond the grave with barely a murmur in protest.

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Isn’t Weld surprised that no one else has yet come forward to challenge Trump? Maryland’s governor, Larry Hogan, has been toying with the idea, as has the former governor of Ohio John Kasich, but Weld remains the only person who has so far made any firm move.

Weld describes the near-total capitulation of the Republicans as “the silence of the lambs”. He puts it down partly to Stockholm syndrome, “the phenomenon whereby people held in captivity begin to identify with their captor”.

Many leading Republicans are privately very critical of Trump – some have told him so personally, he says – but are too scared or self-interested to speak out. By his estimation, between a quarter and half of the 53 Republicans in the US Senate have “at least some concerns about Trump and would wish away the meanness emanating from the president in a heartbeat”.

Then there are the spoils of office. “Everybody wants to be re-elected or reappointed, and people are making a calculation not to rock the boat.”

There’s also fear. “They know the president is vindictive,” Weld says. “Government by vindictiveness – that is not a pretty picture.”