Walker says he has no interest in Cabinet position

Scott Walker told his biggest donors on Wednesday that he has no interest in being appointed to a cabinet position by a Republican president and that he will serve out his term as Wisconsin governor.

Walker thanked his donors  — a number of whom have written six and seven figure checks to Walker’s super-PAC — in a 15-minute conference call. He told them that as a fiscally conservative governor he was not prepared to run a presidential campaign that was heading into debt, according to three sources who participated in the call.

“I thought the most interesting thing was he said he wasn’t interested in a cabinet position. That he would go back and continue his reforms in Wisconsin,” said a donor on the call, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Donors could not ask questions of the governor on the call but they were allowed to leave a voicemail for Walker after the dial-in finished, another source on the call said.

Minnesota billionaire Stanley Hubbard said Gov. Walker was “very gracious” and “was personally very gracious to me [on the phone] yesterday.”

“The bottom line was the expenses were going to outrun his income and there’s no point getting in a big hole and wasting people’s money,” Hubbard said.

“I think he made a smart decision. Kind of guy I want managing my tax money.”

Hubbard said that one of Walker’s “key people” called him yesterday and said 
”they were going to return all the super-pac money because they haven’t spent any of it.” Hubbard is impressed by the super-PAC’s frugality.

Hubbard, a media mogul, gave $50,000 to the pro-Walker Unintimidated PAC, which was on track to raise $40 million, a source familiar with the PAC said.

Walker told his donors on the call he had not decided whether to re-contest the Wisconsin governorship in 2018, but would serve out the rest of his term and make that decision later.

“He said he made the decision that he’d like to be governor for that period of time and come up with bigger and bolder reforms,” a source on the call said.

Walker also implicitly criticized the frontrunner, Donald Trump, saying he thought it ironic that a debate held in California’s Ronald Reagan Presidential Library would descend into personal attacks — the very opposite of President Reagan’s optimistic leadership style.