Larry Hogan, the Republican governor of Maryland, has asked his partymen to "move on" from Donald Trump and to refrain from nominating a "cheap impersonation" of the former president for the 2024 primary race.
"I don't think he should," Mr Hogan told CBS News when he was asked if he thinks Mr Trump should run for a second term.
"It would be better for the party if we moved on and looked forward to the future rather than, you know, going back and repeating," he said.
"We don't need Donald Trump and we don't need somebody that's a cheap impersonation of Donald Trump," Mr Hogan said.
The 65-year-old anti-Trump Republican leader earlier this year said that the 2024 bid was “certainly” something he and his political advisers would take a look at, while adding that he was focused on running the state through 2022.
"It was a terrible four years for the Republican party. We lost the White House. We lost the Senate. We lost the House. We lost governors. We lost state legislative bodies. And I want to get back to winning again," Mr Hogan said in Tuesday's interview.
The GOP member was re-elected in the heavily blue state in 2018, facing off against a progressive challenger who faced opposition from Maryland’s Democratic Party establishment. He is part of an informal group of Republicans who have taken a moderate position on issues such as Covid-19 guidelines and he came out in support of MrTrump’s impeachment after the 6 January riots.
In prepared remarks for a speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute, Mr Hogan projected himself to be a politician with a broader mass appeal akin to former president Reagan.
Mr Hogan has said that the GOP is “desperately in need of a course correction" while urging the Republican voters to "stand against the extremes".
He called last year's attack on the US Capitol “an outrageous attack on our Democracy, incited by the losing candidate’s inflammatory false rhetoric".
Slamming Mr Trump's denial of his loss in 2020 elections, the governor argued that the divide in the Republican Party is “more of a difference between those who know how to win, and those who only pretend that they won".
