WA gubernatorial candidate Republican Dave Reichert: ‘Trump is a joke’

Appearing on KIRO Newsradio, Republican gubernatorial candidate Dave Reichert said he stands by his comments made almost a decade ago when he declared, “Donald Trump is a joke.”

When asked by host Dave Ross Wednesday on “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio, Reichert reiterated his statement made in 2015. Reichert also made a later appearance on “The Gee and Ursula Show.”

Listen to the full intervew:

This is the first time in this camapaign that Reichert had been so clear about his feelings about Trump. Ross commented, “I think you’ve just made national news.”

New poll: Democrat Bob Ferguson dominates Dave Reichert in WA Governor Race

Reichert is trailing his Democratic opponent Bob Ferguson in the polls. Ferguson has also been invited by KIRO Newsradio for a late campaign interview but so far has declined.

When speaking to constant attacks from Ferguson on Reichert’s position regarding abortion rights in Washington state, he said:

I intend to honor that law. I enforced that law when I was a patrol officer in Federal Way, keeping the the driveways and walkways open to for access for women, women’s health care and access to abortions. And I plan to do the same thing as governor. I’m running to address the crime issue, the public safety issue, the homelessness issue, our economy and education. So my opponent also knows that the governor really has no power to change the abortion laws in Washington State. So I intend to fully support the will of the people here in Washington State, especially the will of the women in Washington state, who have already made it clear, very clear, that we want to have access to abortions here in Washington State and other women’s health care.”

Dave commented that he noticed that Reichert was running a campaign ad that included his sister.

“It was really hard for her to do this, as you might imagine. She’s a rape victim, so I’ve always supported the exceptions,” he said. “There’s another ad that’s out there (from the Ferguson campaign) that says I never supported exceptions. My sister was 17 or 18, years old when when the rape occurred, and she’s had a very tough life, so that was hard for her to do. I grew up in a family of domestic violence, and so I essentially was as the oldest of seven and was a surrogate father for her, so I’ve always been there to support her.”

Reichert said he did the ad because he believes that Ferguson is constantly misrepresenting Reichert’s position on abortion.

According to Axios fact-checking, Reichert is stretching the truth when he says the laws he supported in Congress are “almost exactly the same” as Washington’s law, which allows for more medical exceptions and defers to a doctor’s judgment. At the same time, ads that suggest Reichert supported no exceptions for abortions after 20 weeks are misleading, as he did support limited exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother.

Super PACs fuel spending surge: More money spent against Reichert than Ferguson in WA governor’s race

Reichert’s campaign has an emphasis on public safety and to that end, Reichert asked the former King County Sheriff how he was going to get the guns on of teenagers’s hands, especially as a Republican.

“I think it’s difficult for anyone to do because it hasn’t happened,” he said. “And you know, there are Democrats who support the second amendment because they realize the majority of Americans, including the majority of people in our Washington State, support this second amendment. The real challenge here is, let’s find a solution that really addresses gun crime and gang violence, because gang activity has increased here in Washington state since I was the sheriff.”

Reichert said he believed that gun possession should be addressed on the front end through mental health and family counseling.

On “The Gee and Ursula Show,” Reichert returned to say there should be more of an emphasis on gun training and safety.

Gun bans have have been applied, especially assault weapons bans have been applied, and the numbers don’t show that a crime has decreased. So here’s the problem we’ve got our our laws are not being enforced as it relates to violent gun crime and gangs. And when I was the sheriff, we built an organization in King County that was called the King County violent. Firearms coalition, and that was made up of people from ceasefire groups and, NRA Ron Sims, past county executive, nor mailing myself other community members. And it worked. We lowered gun crime. We had social services for young kids who were in gangs, mental health, drug addiction, job therapy, all of those things together, family counseling, all of that has to be pulled together to really have a solid solution when a gun comes to gun crime, you can’t just out ban a gun and expect gun crime to decrease. What causes a 13-year-old in downtown Seattle to grab a hatchet and attack someone or 11 or 12 year old to do that, however old this young man was, there’s something wrong with our society and the way that we’re raising children and and they’re great. They’re being raised today to understand that violence is somehow acceptable, which, of course, we know it’s not so my violent crimes coalition was recognized by then Vice President Gore. It was a Clinton-Gore Safe Cities initiative across the nation, and we were recognized as one of the 10 safe cities in the nation, we were the only County Sheriff’s Office. So I want to base my approach on reducing violent crime, reducing gun crime, reducing gang violence and juvenile crime, by looking at the facts and not based on an ideological approach. And this applies to any problem that we’re looking at.”

Bill Kaczaraba is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read his stories here. Follow Bill on X and email him here.