on february 15, 2019, weld officially announced the formation of an exploratory committee in preparing to run for the 2020 republican party presidential primaries. soon after, weld began making appearances in media, appearing on cnn on presidents day 2019, stating he believed trump has "showed contempt for the american people". he appeared on both bloomberg news and msnbc's "morning joe" the next day. on "morning joe", he criticized donald trump as president, with a focus especially on what he labeled bad foreign policy in regards largely to north korea and russia.