If it’s strength they need, there’s strength in numbers.
I’m referring to former officials who worked for Donald Trump, especially the national security stewards, who have declined to come forward publicly and directly to warn voters that he’s unfit to be president — even though, as insiders know well, that’s how they feel.
Imagine the pre-election power of a news conference in which a phalanx of senior Trump advisers stood shoulder to shoulder to deliver that message, each providing first-hand examples of his derelictions of duty. What could better tip the few undecided voters against Trump than former military leaders, on national TV, giving witness to his disregard for the Constitution, the rule of law and America’s national interests? President George W. Bush, 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, among others, should join, too. We know what they think about Trump.
Last Monday, 10 retired military officers, including six former generals and two admirals, released a letter in which they not only condemned Trump but also endorsed Harris as “the best — and only — presidential candidate in this race who is fit to serve as our commander-in-chief.” Trump, they wrote, “is a danger to our national security and our democracy. His own former National Security Advisors, Defense Secretaries, and Chiefs of Staff have said so.”
The Harris campaign is exploiting earlier, unprecedented pans from Trump’s former aides. It trolled Trump pre-debate with a new ad on Fox News, featuring condemnatory clips from Vice President Mike Pence, former national security adviser John Bolton, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley. At the debate, Harris’ guests included two outspoken Trump veterans, White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci and national security official and Pence aide Olivia Troye. And in the debate, she cracked, “If you want to really know the inside track on who the former president is … just ask people who have worked with him.”