Sixty Republican foreign policy veterans released a letter on Wednesday pledging to oppose Republican US presidential front-runner Donald Trump and saying his proposals would undermine US security, in the latest sign of fissures between the Republican presidential front-runner and the party establishment.
“Mr. Trump’s own statements lead us to conclude that as president, he would use the authority of his office to act in ways that make America less safe and which would diminish our standing in the world,” the letter said.
“Furthermore, his expansive view of how presidential power should be wielded against his detractors poses a distinct threat to civil liberty in the United States,” it said.
The signatories include Robert Zoellick, a former World Bank president and deputy secretary of state; former US secretary of homeland security Michael Chertoff; and Dov Zakheim, a top Pentagon official under former US president George W. Bush.
They represent both centrist Republican foreign policy circles and neoconservatives who favor a robust US international role and wielded clout during Bush’s 2000 to 2008 tenure.
Billionaire businessman Trump won the largest number of state nominating contests on Tuesday, intensifying moves by the party’s establishment wing to derail his path to the nomination.
Bryan McGrath, a retired US Navy officer and adviser to former US presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s unsuccessful 2012 campaign who helped organize the effort, called the signatories “the right set of people.”
He said that at least two people declined to sign the letter, citing concerns it would only fuel Trump’s campaign theme of being an anti-Washington candidate opposed by the establishment.
Eliot Cohen, who served as counselor to former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, also helped spearhead the letter, several people familiar with the effort said.
Cohen would not comment.
Trump’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The letter, which was posted on a blog site called War on the Rocks, rejects numerous Trump foreign policy statements, including his anti-Muslim comments; his demand that Mexico fund a wall to control illegal immigration across the US border; and his insistence that Japan pay much more for US security assistance.
“As committed and loyal Republicans, we are unable to support a Party ticket with Mr Trump at its head,” the letter said. “We commit ourselves to working energetically to prevent the election of someone so utterly unfitted to the office.”
The War on the Rocks blog calls itself a platform for former diplomats, military and intelligence officers and academics to comment on global affairs “through a realist lens.”
“I would sooner work for [North Korean leader] Kim Jong-un than for Donald Trump. I think Trump is objectively more dangerous than Kim Jong-un and not as stable,” said Max Boot, one of the signatiories, who was a foreign policy adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign and supported the Iraq invasion.
In related news, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson signaled on Wednesday he was quitting the Republican presidential race.
Carson, a conservative who briefly led opinion polls among Republicans earlier in the campaign, said he did not “see a political path forward” after performing poorly in this week’s Super Tuesday nominating contests.
He said he would not participate in a Republican debate yesterday.
His departure is unlikely to have a major impact on the fight among Republicans.
Reuters/Ipsos polling last month showed Carson supporters would mostly likely be split if he dropped out between Trump and US senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.
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