Rep. Justin Amash won’t rule out White House run

WASHINGTON – Rep. Justin Amash, a congressman from Michigan who left the Republican Party last week, said Sunday that he wouldn’t rule out making a White House run.

“I still wouldn’t rule anything like that out,” Amash told CNN’s Jake Tapper in his first sit-down since he wrote an Independence Day op-ed for the Washington Post saying he was done with the GOP. “I believe that I have to use my skills, my public influence, where it serves the country best.”

Amash continued by saying that he still felt “confident” about running for Congress in his current district.

“I feel a close tie to my community, I care a lot about my community, I want to represent them in Congress,” Amash said.

As for when he might make a decision about a presidential run, the Michigan independent said he didn’t know.

He’s been floating the possibility he could run on the Libertarian ticket or with another third-party.

“It’s something people talk about all the time. It’s not something on my radar right now so I couldn’t tell you,” Amash told Tapper.

Amash didn’t target the president in his July 4 op-ed — he instead wrote about toxic partisanship — but he was quickly slapped by President Trump who went on Twitter and branded him a “total loser.”

Asked to react, Amash said, “I don’t have a response to that.”

“It’s what he does, it’s what he says. I think people understand that’s not how people are supposed to talk about each other, to each other,” Amash said.

Later he added, “I don’t think a lot of people appreciate it,” he said of Trump’s leadership style. “I think a lot of people put up with it because the economy’s good right now, but I don’t think they’d put up with it if things went south.”

Amash was the only Republican who has called for an opening of an impeachment inquiry, coming to that decision after reading the Mueller report.

On Sunday, he guessed that only a handful of members of Congress have actually read its text.

“I think it’s probably less than 15 percent and I say that’s probably the case on both sides of the aisle,” Amash answered when Tapper asked him to guess how many Republicans members had read the report.

“I think a large number would reach the same conclusion,” he added.