William F. Weld, the twice-elected former Republican governor of Massachusetts, who was last seen campaigning in the 2006 Republican primary for governor of New York, now hopes to be on a national ticket as the vice-presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party.
And he is already on the attack.
In his first interview since accepting an invitation to be the running mate of former Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico, Mr. Weld assailed Donald J. Trump over his call to round up and deport the 11 million immigrants in the country illegally.
“I can hear the glass crunching on Kristallnacht in the ghettos of Warsaw and Vienna when I hear that, honest,” Mr. Weld said Thursday.
Mr. Weld, 70, was not uniformly critical of the presumptive Republican nominee. “I don’t consider myself part of the Never Trump movement,” he said, expressing admiration for Mr. Trump’s success in the primary contest.
“I’m not horrified about everything Mr. Trump has done at all,” he said, adding: “I think he’s done a lot. But when I think about some of the positions, I think they’re way out there.”
Where he differs with Mr. Trump most sharply is on Mr. Trump’s call for mass deportations.
Asked if he believed Mr. Trump was a fascist, Mr. Weld demurred. “My Kristallnacht analogy does evoke the Nazi period in Germany,” he said. “And that’s what I’m worried about: a slippery slope.”
After a circuitous answer, he eventually came to a conclusion. “No, I wouldn’t call Mr. Trump either a fascist or a Nazi,” Mr. Weld said. “I’m just saying, we got to watch it when we get exclusionary about people on account of their status as a member of a group.”
Mr. Weld also objected to Mr. Trump’s repeated threats to impose tariffs on goods imported from Mexico and China. “That’s a pretty good prescription to having China be the only superpower in about 10 years,” he said, leaning forward to make sure a reporter understood him. “China — not the U.S.”
Mr. Weld’s best known previous turn on the national stage was in 1997, when he resigned as governor to focus on his appointment by President Bill Clinton as ambassador to Mexico.
That did not go well: He was blocked by Senator Jesse Helms and withdrew his nomination after a heated battle in which Mr. Weld, a pillar of what was left of the moderate northeastern Republican establishment, loudly assailed Mr. Helms and the archconservatives who stood behind him.
A former prosecutor, Mr. Weld could appeal to some disaffected Republicans on a ticket alongside Mr. Johnson at a time when other efforts by Republicans to recruit a third-party candidate — in part in the hopes of keeping anti-Trump Republican voters from staying home and costing the party’s lower-tier candidates — are close to fizzling.
Mr. Weld said Mr. Johnson, the Libertarian presidential candidate in 2012 who is seeking the party’s nomination again, spoke to him last weekend about running. Their hope is to amass enough support in national polls to be included in the presidential debates. If that happened, Mr. Weld said hopefully, it would not be impossible to envision a minor-party ticket winning the White House.
But he also did not protest too much when asked how he would reassure those who, mindful of his willingness to roll the dice in politics, might question his level of commitment to a national run.
Graphic | Where Trump Breaks With the Republican Party Donald J. Trump is set to be the Republican standard-bearer, but when it comes to some of his policies, he is out of sync with many Republican leaders in Congress.
“There’s some truth in that,” said Mr. Weld, who now works at a law firm, Mintz Levin, and its lobbying arm, ML Strategies. “I do like to climb mountains in politics, and I do enjoy running for office.”
The Libertarian Party says it already will be on the ballot in 32 states and is working on the rest. It will pick its presidential and vice-presidential nominees at a convention over Memorial Day weekend in Orlando, Fla.
Mr. Weld suggested that the Libertarian message, which emphasizes civil liberties and small government, could appeal to younger voters.
Discussing foreign policy, he spoke critically of the Iraq invasion of 2003 and of putting “boots on the ground” in the Middle East to project American strength. But he was supportive of the Obama administration on the Iran nuclear deal that Republicans frequently criticize.
“I thought the game was worth the candle there, and that’s politically incorrect in almost all circles — certainly in Republican circles — but I think I do feel that way, and I followed that closely,” Mr. Weld said, adding, “I know John Kerry quite well and I saw his going back and forth, and rather admired it.” (Mr. Weld unsuccessfully challenged Mr. Kerry in the 1996 Senate race.)
Asked about Hillary Clinton, Mr. Weld noted that he had known her since they were both in their 20s. “I’ve always just thought of her as a really great kid,” he said.
Mr. Weld said he possessed a deep libertarian streak, and pined for a time when that was more widespread in the Republican Party. He complained about the polarization in Congress and remembered his early days working on Capitol Hill, before law school, for Senator Jacob K. Javits, Republican of New York.
“It was a totally different era and a wonderful era,” he said. “It was wonderful to be in Washington in those days. And things absolutely got done.”