A group of conservative foreign policy experts, former GOP presidential candidates John McCain and Mitt Romney mounted attacks on unexpected frontrunner Donald Trump, whose campaign train appears to be unstoppable after Super Tuesday victories over Ted Cruse and Marco Rubio.
Hours before Thursday night’s debate, Trump continued his fiery rhetoric that may inflict further harm on the party’s standing with Latino and Muslim voters, and also ratchet up international anxieties, as the interconnected world closely watches American political scenario.
Trump scoffed off Romney’s salvo that the businessman (Trump) “is a phony, a fraud,” and dismissed the 2012 GOP presidential candidate – seen a Republican establishment voice – as “irrelevant” who “failed badly.”
Addressing a rally in Maine and appearing in a TV program, Trump made fun of Romney by recalling how as 2012 candidate he begged his support. “I called him (Romney) a choke artist, and it’s true.”
Trump’s untraditional campaign built around inflammatory rhetoric on immigration, discriminatory treatment of Muslims, reversal of trade deficit with China, demonization of Mexicans as criminals and rapists and no-holds-barred attacks on Democratic leading candidate Hillary Clinton, saw the billionaire attract disillusioned conservative and undecided voters in many Super Tuesday contests.
He also used his speech at the Maine rally to reject criticism that he was stoking hate by appealing to raw notions among groups of voters.
“I love love Mecixans, the Mexican people. … I have many many, thousands of Mexicans who have worked for me over the years.”
Trump also presented himself as the right choice for American voters as their leader. “I have the lowest (campaign) expenditure by far and the biggest result. Wouldn’t it be great if we could do that for the country?”
On Thursday, as the Republican establishment struggled for a unifying alternative that may convincingly define the GOP’s political vision in the face of new domestic and international challenges, McCain, a respected political voice, issued a scathing statement.
“I share the concerns about Donald Trump that my friend and former Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, described in his speech today. I would also echo the many concerns about Mr. Trump’s uninformed and indeed dangerous statements on national security issues that have been raised by 65 Republican defense and foreign policy leaders.”
“At a time when our world has never been more complex or more in danger, as we watch the threatening actions of a neo-imperial Russia, an assertive China, an expansionist Iran, an insane North Korean ruler, and terrorist movements that are metastasizing across the Middle East and Africa, I want Republican voters to pay close attention to what our party’s most respected and knowledgeable leaders and national security experts are saying about Mr. Trump, and to think long and hard about who they want to be our next Commander-in-Chief and leader of the free world,” McCain added.
Even Republicans’ attacks against Trump are double-edged, and might go in favor of the businessman, further complicating the Party’s 2016 primaries predicament. A report in The Washington Post on Thursday said Romney’s attacks could amount to doing a favor to Trump.
Trump also reacted to Romney’s speech Thursday morning, terming his 2012 run as one of the worst Republican campaigns.
“He (Romney) was a disaster,” Trump said in MSNBC’s Morning Joe program.
Trump’s rocketing to the top of the Republican field comes even as his position on several issues like healthcare, social security and free market economy contradict traditional party vision.
Meanwhile, representing a “broad spectrum of opinion on America’s role in the world,” and with differences on many issues, including the Iraq war and intervention in Syria, a group of Republican foreign policy and security experts said they “are united in our opposition to a Donald Trump presidency” and described him as “fundamentally dishonest.”
“His (Trump’s) vision of American influence and power in the world is wildly inconsistent and unmoored in principle. He swings from isolationism to military adventurism within the space of one sentence,” the group wrote in an open letter.
“His advocacy for aggressively waging trade wars is a recipe for economic disaster in a globally connected world.His embrace of the expansive use of torture is inexcusable.
“His hateful, anti-Muslim rhetoric undercuts the seriousness of combatting Islamic radicalism by alienating partners in the Islamic world making significant contributions to the effort. Furthermore, it endangers the safety and Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of American Muslims,” the group wrote.
“His admiration for foreign dictators such as Vladimir Putin is unacceptable for the leader of the world’s greatest democracy” said the statement coordinated by Dr. Eliot A. Cohen, former Counselor of the Department of State (2007–8), and Bryan McGrath, Managing Director of The FerryBridge Group, a defense consultancy, also rejected Trump’s proposals on Mexicans paying for erecting a border wall.
The signatories of the letter included experts including Robert Kagan and officials who served under President George W Bush including former homeland security secretary Michael Chertoff, former deputy secretary of state Robert Zoellick, former homeland security adviser Frances Townsend and former undersecretary of defense Dov Zakheim.
A report in the Politico said some neoconservatives have even said they would rather vote for Democratic Hillary Clinton than Trump. “Hillary is the lesser evil, by a large margin,” a report quoted Eliot Cohen as saying.
Trump has been rejecting criticism against him on the campaign trail, citing a series of wins he has chalked up in the Republican primaries.
