If he decides to run, Jindal would likely be the first Republican candidate to announce his decision. Most potential challengers have said they are waiting until spring 2015.
In his speech, Jindal tried to rouse hawks in the party by harshly criticizing President Barack Obama.
“The Russian reset, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Europe, China, and the list goes on. In each of these areas, it’s not just the President took too long to come up with an answer. It’s that the answer was wrong,” he said at an American Enterprise Institute event.
Jindal called Obama’s cutting back on defense spending “foolish” and “unacceptable” at a time when the administration has considered intervening in several foreign conflicts.
The two-term governor went on to say that the U.S. is at war with ISIS and that the President’s hesitancy to call it a fight is “a projection of weakness.”
He also slammed former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a potential Democratic presidential candidate, for making decisions the he believes has set America on a path for “more chaos, more conflict and more wars.”
“Today, we are living with the consequences of the Obama-Clinton ideas when it comes to foreign, domestic and defense policy… If only it had the help of a wise, steady hand, a policy expert in dealing with foreign affairs, he’d have come up with better answers. But instead he just had Hillary Clinton,” he said.
In a set of policy proposals, Jindal suggested that defense spending should be 4% of the country’s GDP. He also called for increasing the Pentagon’s funding, following the administration’s decision to cut back $78 billion in 2011 as a way to decrease the deficit.
In the interim before potentially launching his campaign, Jindal hopes to see the Republican Party take the initiative rather than being known as the opposition party. Jindal mentioned that several Republican members have sided with Obama in the past, including on defense spending cutbacks.
“[The people] are frustrated with the President, but they have yet to hear a comprehensive alternative from the Republicans. All they heard so far is that we are opposed to many of his policies,” he said. “What they are hungry for is a positive agenda from the Republican side.”