Democrats to GOP hawks: Admit Trump is ‘unfit’

Democratic lawmakers are attempting to force their Republican colleagues to “just admit that Donald Trump is not fit to be commander in chief” because of recent remarks he made about NATO.

Pointing to a recent New York Times interview in which Trump said it may be time for the U.S. to dial back some of its NATO involvement, Democrats are looking to get hawkish Republicans to disavow the GOP nominee’s seeming reluctance to have the U.S. play world police.

Trump told The Times that his test for whether the U.S. would involve itself in the foreign affairs of NATO allies would hinge on whether “they fulfill their obligations to us.”

“This is not 40 years ago,” he said. “We are spending a fortune on military in order to lose $800 billion. That doesn’t sound very smart to me.

“To me, ‘America First’ is a brand-new, modern term. I never related it to the past. We are going to take care of this country first before we worry about everyone else in the world.”

Several congressional Republicans rejected the comments, saying less involvement in NATO affairs would negatively impact national security.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., the vice chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Center, is spearheading a campaign to get those GOP lawmakers to join the Third Way and Truman National Security Project’s “Admit He’s Unfit” campaign to undermine Trump’s candidacy.

“We certainly can see why: certainly based on the kind of comments in that recent interview that Donald Trump has done,” Stabenow said. “About half of those up for re-election have chosen not to be in Cleveland with their nominee. And so we are calling on Republican senators who’ve not attended the party convention to just admit it; just admit that Donald Trump is not fit to be commander-in-chief.”

The “Admit He’s Unfit” campaign makes its case against Trump thusly:

For those of us who think about national security, it is evident that Donald Trump’s presidency would pose the gravest danger to the future of the United States of any candidate in our lifetime—graver even than Barry Goldwater. It is not merely because of policy disagreements that all of us may have with him. Rather, Trump’s character and temperament are manifestly unsuited to the job of Commander-in-Chief.

Because of this, Republican leaders must be called upon to take a stand on a single, simple, defining question: Do you believe Donald Trump is fit to be commander-in-chief and be in charge of the nation’s national security? To that end (and along with the work many are doing to defeat Donald Trump), we ask you to join us and together demand that Republicans and their allies throughout the country “admit he’s unfit.” This is the question Republicans are afraid to confront. It is the question that makes them most uncomfortable. And it is the question that if asked consistently and publicly enough may help ensure that this dangerous, reckless, autocratic, xenophobe never has the opportunity to command troops, send the nation to war, and repel our allies.

For hawkish Republicans, Trump’s NATO comment has been viewed mostly as a signal that the candidate is willing to take a less volatile approach to relations with Russia than the current administration.

“The Republican nominee for President is essentially telling the Russians and other bad actors that the United States is not fully committed to supporting the NATO alliance,” Sen. Lindsey Graham said. “NATO has been the most successful organization in modern history to provide collective defense for democracies. If Mr. Trump is serious about wanting to be Commander in Chief he needs to better understand the job which is to provide leadership for the United States and the free world.”

Graham and other Republicans who say Trump would be handing power to Russia are playing directly into the Clinton campaign’s narrative that the billionaire businessman is too friendly with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Top Democrats even went so far as to blame the recent hacking of DNC servers on Trump’s “admiration for Putin and his belittling of NATO.”

“[It] would not be the first time cyber intrusions linked to the Kremlin and its supporters have sought to influence the political process in other countries,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). “Given Donald Trump’s well known admiration for Putin and his belittling of NATO, the Russians have both the means and the motive to engage in a hack of the DNC and the dump of its emails prior to the Democratic convention.”

The emails, of course, revealed all kinds of damning new things about the extent to which the Democratic Party has gone in order to attempt to claim Clinton is fit to be president.

The increased focus on Russia as the election season continues could give voters the opportunity to weigh some interesting potential consequences of the 2016 race. After all, Putin has referred to Trump as “a bright person,” and “absolutely the leader in the presidential race.”

The Russian leader isn’t so fond of Clinton.

“If it’s Hillary Clinton, it’s war,” Putin reportedly said of the 2016 race.

Perhaps that means voters should think less about exerting U.S. machoism toward Russia and more about how a woman who couldn’t even provide security to the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, is going to hold up as commander in chief during WWIII?

The post Democrats to GOP hawks: Admit Trump is ‘unfit’ appeared first on Personal Liberty®.

from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2016/07/25/democrats-to-gop-hawks-admit-trump-is-unfit/

from WordPress https://toddmsiebert.wordpress.com/2016/07/25/democrats-to-gop-hawks-admit-trump-is-unfit/