'GOP foreign policy veterans' see second Trump term as 'unmitigated disaster': conservative

23 May 2024

When Nikki Haley dropped out of the 2024 presidential race in early March, the former South Carolina governor and ex-U.S. ambassador to the United Nations didn't endorse presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump right away. Haley, in fact, kept a low profile for the next two months.

But on Wednesday, May 22, Haley finally gave Trump her endorsement. And she cited foreign policy as a reason, which was a major departure from attacking Trump as "unfit" and "unstable" during the final weeks of her campaign.

Other Republicans, however, are still criticizing Trump vehemently from a foreign policy standpoint.

In a scathing column published on May 23, the Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin points to former National Security Adviser John Bolton and ex-CIA Director Robert Gates as two well-known GOP hawks who are really worried about the foreign-policy decisions Trump will make if he defeats President Joe Biden in November and returns to the White House in January 2025.

"Four-times-indicted former President Donald Trump's terrifying plans to assume dictatorial powers and try for a third term, deploy the military against civil protesters, create a massive police state to carry out mass deportations and use federal power to exact revenge on his opponents should be enough to convince voters that his election would be a disaster for the United States domestically," Rubin warns. "However, returning him to the position of commander in chief and 'leader of the free world' is just as scary on a global front. Don't take it from me; just listen to two former senior Republican national security experts."

During an appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Rubin notes, Bolton complained that Trump lacks a basic understanding of how foreign relations work.

Bolton told an MSNBC panel, "He's fundamentally ignorant, and he really doesn't care about the facts. He thinks international relations are about personal relations, which is a line and approach that I can tell you, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping are eagerly looking forward to."

Bolton has said that he won't be voting for either Trump or Biden in November and instead, plans to write in former Vice President Dick Cheney. Although Cheney won't be on the ballot, Bolton wishes that he were.

Rubin points out that Gates has had "measured" criticism of Biden on foreign policy but has been more critical of Trump.

"Bolton is not the only conservative foreign policy veteran sounding the alarm about Trump's strange brew of isolationism and dictator-worship," Rubin observes. "Former (White House) chief of staff and retired Marine general John F. Kelly has warned about Trump's unfitness and fond thoughts about Adolf Hitler…. If Republicans share Gates' measured criticisms of the Biden team's delays in sending arms to Ukraine, they should find the notion that we would hand over an ally to Putin utterly disgraceful."

The columnist adds, "One cannot care about Ukraine, the Western alliance and the United States' standing in the world and then turn around to vote for the candidate certain to undermine all three."

Jennifer Rubin's full Washington Post column is available at this link (subscription required).

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