Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who holds a slight lead in many national polls for the GOP presidential nomination, said Wednesday he plans to announce officially if he'll be a candidate after pressing business in his own state concludes.
"I haven't made an announcement yet, and won't until after our budget is done at the end of this month,"
Walker told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program.
"Hopefully, we will get our fifth and sixth years' property taxes down from when I took office."
But he is already planning to be in Iowa again this weekend, and believes it will take a "grassroots organization" to pull off a campaign, as he did three times in the past few years in Wisconsin.
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He admitted an announcement could give him a bump in the polls, but said, "our interest is less about the timing of a bump but getting through our state budget and then announcing what our intentions are."
He lauded the large group of Republicans who are seeking the nomination, and said that what he's seeing among voters is they want someone who can fight and win "for taxpayers like them."
There are good fighters, Walker said, including senators "who have been fighting the good fight but have yet to win any real victories there," and another group, "governors and former governors who are good at winning."
He pointed out that many of those governors "haven't taken on the big fights in their states," but "what would make us unique is we have done both. We have fought the fight on issue after issue."
Walker not only crushed most public employees' right to bargain with his support of the state's Act 10, resulting in a recall election that Walker won, he also signed off on a bill that made
Wisconsin the 25th right-to-work state in the union.
Meanwhile, he railed against runaway Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, telling Fox that people see her and her husband, ex-President Bill Clinton, as people who have different sets of rules for themselves and anyone else.
"People don't want a leader anointed in America," said Walker. "They don't want someone who is part of a monarchy or legacy. They want someone who earns it by working hard."
And he said he thinks it would be a real challenge for someone like Clinton to win a nomination without a "serious primary," but the number of "great candidates on the Republican side and those coming in the future is good for the party and, most importantly, good for America."
Walker also voiced his concerns on the troubled relationship between President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, adding that he traveled to Israel recently and told the leader he would like to try to establish a strong relationship.
Further, he said that he spoke with leaders who are concerned about the proposed nuclear deal with Iran, as "they see it as a direct threat to their safety and security."
Also on Wednesday, the governor said he is glad the Senate passed the USA Freedom Act, which modifies controversial provisions of the Patriot Act, but would have preferred a full reauthorization of the Patriot Act instead.
The new act is not a step back, he said, which would mean doing nothing, but he still considers the new act as "another example of the failure of this president to lead."
"This is an example where the president could lead, have used the bully pulpit to tell the American people to make sure we will prevent another terrorist attack out there," said Walker. "This is one of the many tools we need. I hope we will re-establish the Patriot Act."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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