Ex-GOP governor bows out of 2024 race because he doesn't want 'pileup' to help Trump win
Former Gov. Larry Hogan (R-MD) revealed that he is not running for president because he does not want to help former President Donald Trump win a third nomination.
"I did give it serious consideration, and I talked to people everywhere, and I talked to my family, and it was a tough decision," Hogan told CBS correspondent Robert Costa in an interview that aired on Sunday. "I've decided that I will not be a candidate for the Republican nomination for president."
"It's a decision about running against former President Trump, who's as tough on his opponents as anyone I've ever covered, merciless," Costa noted.
"Yeah. Well, that didn't really scare me. You're right. It would be a tough race, and he's very tough, but I beat life-threatening cancer, so having Trump call me names on Twitter didn't really scare me off," Hogan replied.
RELATED: 'If it’s not Trump, I won’t vote': CPAC exposes schism as attendees rip into 'traitor' DeSantis
"So at the end of the day, you're looking at this, and for all the personal reasons you've outlined, you're not going to run, but politically, by staying out of the race, it's a smaller field, maybe tougher for Trump to get the nomination," Costa observed.
"I think so. I mean, a lot of people have been talking about that. I didn't want to have a pileup of a bunch of people fighting," Hogan explained. "Right now, you have Trump and DeSantis at the top of the field, soaking up all the oxygen, getting all the attention, and then a whole lot of the rest of us in single digits. And the more of them you have, the less chance you have for somebody rising up."
Hogan later told ABC "the stakes are too high for me to risk being part of another multicar pileup that could potentially help Mr. Trump recapture the nomination."
Watch the video below from CBS or at the link.