Donald Trump faces Republican flak

Washington, August 9

Fifty senior Republican national security officials have issued a stinging rejection of their party’s White House nominee Donald Trump, warning if elected he would be “the most reckless president in American history”.

The group, some of who had already announced they would not vote for Trump, included former homeland security chiefs, intelligence directors, senior presidential advisers and a former US trade representative.

They served under Republican presidents from Richard Nixon to George W Bush.

“We are convinced that he (Trump) would be a dangerous president and would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being,” they wrote in a statement published in The New York Times on Monday.

Their disavowal of the Republican presidential nominee was followed by another setback for Trump, when influential US Senator Susan Collins said today he was “unworthy” of America’s highest elective office and will not receive her support.

“Donald Trump does not reflect historical Republican values nor the inclusive approach to governing that is critical to healing the divisions in our country,” Collins wrote in an op-ed article appearing in today’s Washington Post.

Trump has garnered disdain from a huge swath of America’s political, defence and security establishment for his unorthodox some say downright dangerous views, such as his professed admiration for the Russian President and suggestions he might be willing to accept Moscow’s annexation of Crimea.

Trump has also raised concerns about his recent war of words with the family of a fallen Muslim American soldier, his scant knowledge about global defence and security architecture, and his readiness to scuttle America’s central role in the NATO military alliance.

Further to the shock and dismay of many in America’s political class, he has even questioned why the nation has bothered to develop nuclear weapons if it has no intention of putting them to use.

While the US security experts did not say they would vote for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton -- indeed they expressed “doubts” about her -- they were clear in stating that “none of us will vote for Donald Trump.”

They essentially declared the brash billionaire unfit for office, echoing Clinton’s criticism by saying Trump “lacks the character, values, and experience to be president” and displays “alarming ignorance of basic facts” of international politics.