The Republican Party is not able to overcome its own internal divisions, according to Jim Bennett, a Utah third-party candidate who is running for Congress to replace former Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah.
"The entire party has failed me, I think by uniting behind a president who is unfit to hold the office," Bennett said Monday on MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports."
The interview begins at the 12:10 mark of the above video.
"You look at the fact that you have both houses of Congress united with one party and yet, they are on track to be the most unproductive Congress in 164 years," Bennett said. "So, the Republican Party has demonstrated that it's incapable of overcoming the divisions within its own the party.
"I want to get back to Washington and show that it's important to solve problems, not just please your party," Bennett added in the Mitchell interview.
Bennett left the Republican Party after Donald Trump won the presidential nomination. A district judge ruled Friday that Bennett would be allowed to enter the Utah congressional race with the United Utah Party.
"Ronald Reagan used to say he didn't leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left him, and I feel the same way about the Republican Party. The Republican Party is now the party of Trump, which is a party that I didn't want to be associated with anymore," Bennett said in the interview.
He noted 63 percent of voters in Utah said in a poll they would be willing to support a third-party candidate.
"I think in the era of Trump, people are looking for an alternative," Bennett said.
Republicans in Utah "have a new home" in the United Utah Party, Bennett said.
"You don't have to go along with the party of Trump," he said in the interview. "You can come along with a centrist, moderate party, the United Utah Party, that represents what you believe and who you are."
In an August 3 statement, Bennett said that neither Republicans nor Democrats are focused on fixing healthcare, but if elected, he would be.