Tea Party Republican and former Rep. Joe Walsh mulling primary challenge against President Trump

Walsh went from being a fervent Trump supporter to an outspoken critic of the president.

Tea Party Republican and former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh is considering a primary challenge against President Donald Trump, and the now-talk radio host says if he does announce a run, "it's going to be before Labor Day."

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Walsh "is expected to announce he is running for president as early as this weekend." He told The Times, "If I do it, it's going to be before Labor Day."

Walsh went from passionately supporting President Trump's candidacy in 2016 to regularly — and adamantly — speaking out against the president and calling him "unfit" for the office. The former congressman from Illinois told WTTW-TV this week that the turning point for him came when President Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2018.

"He lost me for sure, for good, at Helsinki," Walsh told the outlet. "When he stood in front of the world last summer and said 'I believe that guy, Putin, and not my own people,' that was disloyal, that was un-American, and, again, no Republican should support that."

Since the Helsinki meeting, Walsh has ramped up his public rebukes of the president, and penned an op-ed for The New York Times last week wherein he argued that "Trump needs a primary challenge."

But Walsh has a tough row to hoe in presenting any significant threat to President Trump according to the current political landscape, where the president enjoys strong polling numbers from Republican voters and the "undivided" support of the Republican National Committee.