Conservative national security leaders unite to oppose Trump
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican national security leaders and experts have assailed GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump as unfit to be commander in chief, calling him dishonest and describing his positions on key issues as dangerous and uninformed.
The broadsides began Wednesday evening and carried into Thursday when Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the chairman of the Armed Services Committee and the 2008 presidential nominee, said that Republicans should "think long and hard about who they want to be our next commander in chief and leader of the free world."
The experts who signed the letter said they'll work to prevent Trump's election, a stance that suggests there may be a shallow pool of experienced conservative national security professionals willing to join Trump's administration should he win in November.
Other experts who signed the letter included Fran Townsend, former homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to President George W. Bush; Eliot Cohen, former counselor to the State Department during Bush's administration; Dov Zakheim, who held Defense Department posts in the Bush and Reagan administrations; and Robert Zoellick, the former president of the World Bank who was Bush's U.S. trade representative and later served at the State Department.
Cohen and Bryan McGrath, a retired Navy officer and managing director of The FerryBridge Group defense consulting firm, organized the letter after exchanging their concerns about Trump over Twitter.