UNFIT: Number of GOP National Security Officials Signing Off On Letter Condemning Trump as "Unfit" Rises

FILE - In this Feb. 27, 2016 file photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump pauses during while speaking at a rally in Millington, Tenn. Tough talk about torture is a guaranteed applause line for Donald Trump on the GOP presidential stump. Trump has repeatedly advocated waterboarding, an enhanced interrogation technique that simulates the feeling of drowning. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

What have I (and others here at RedState) been saying for months, now?

Donald Trump would be a disaster as president on an apocalyptic level.

Now, with the election looming and Trump as nominee, others have reached the peak of their panic level.

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From the New York Times today:

Fifty of the nation’s most senior Republican national security officials, many of them former top aides or cabinet members for President George W. Bush, have signed a letter declaring that Donald J. Trump “lacks the character, values and experience” to be president and “would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being.”

Mr. Trump, the officials warn, “would be the most reckless president in American history.”

The letter says Mr. Trump would weaken the United States’ moral authority and questions his knowledge of and belief in the Constitution. It says he has “demonstrated repeatedly that he has little understanding” of the nation’s “vital national interests, its complex diplomatic challenges, its indispensable alliances and the democratic values” on which American policy should be based. And it laments that “Mr. Trump has shown no interest in educating himself.”

You could change that last line to “has shown no ability to educate himself.”

While many of those signing the letter say they are doubtful of Clinton’s qualifications, as well, they said they would not vote for Donald Trump.

Among the most prominent signatories are Michael V. Hayden, a former director of both the C.I.A. and the National Security Agency; John D. Negroponte, who served as the first director of national intelligence and then deputy secretary of state; and Robert B. Zoellick, another former deputy secretary of state, United States trade representive and, until 2012, president of the World Bank. Two former secretaries of homeland security, Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff, also signed, as did Eric S. Edelman, who served as Vice President Dick Cheney’s national security adviser and as a top aide to Robert M. Gates when he was secretary of defense and ambassador to NATO, also signed.

Robert Blackwill and James Jeffrey, two key strategists in Mr. Bush’s National Security Council, and William H. Taft IV, a former deputy secretary of defense and ambassador to NATO, also signed.

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This is an actual revision of the letter, as many had demurred from signing the letter in March, but after hearing Trump invite Russia to hack into Clinton’s emails, this mental image began to form in their minds of late night Twitter rants and mushroom clouds, so they agreed to sign.

Missing from the signatories are any of the living Republican former secretaries of state: Henry Kissinger, George P. Shultz, James A. Baker III, Colin L. Powell and Condoleezza Rice.

It is unclear whether the former secretaries plan to stay silent or will issue their own statements. But particularly striking is how many of Ms. Rice’s closest aides at the White House and the State Department, including Philip Zelikow, Eliot A. Cohen, Meghan O’Sullivan, Kori Schake and Michael Green, are all signatories.

This is what Trump has done to the party.

Some of those signing have indicated that they will vote for Hillary Clinton, while others will not vote, at all, but they are all in agreement that Trump cannot be allowed anywhere near the nuclear codes.

“He is unable or unwilling to separate truth from falsehood,” the letter says. “He does not encourage conflicting views. He lacks self-control and acts impetuously. He cannot tolerate personal criticism. He has alarmed our closest allies with his erratic behavior. All of these are dangerous qualities in an individual who aspires to be president and commander in chief, with command of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.”

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I agree. Where do I sign?

You can read the letter here.

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