This series contact traces prominent Republicans who have given up on Donald Trump. Read part one here, two here, three here, four here, five here, six here and part seven here. Today we pass fifty.
46. Richard Painter, chief ethics attorney for President George W Bush:
“I think we need to understand why we’re in this situation. The president [Trump] is not well at all mentally. I think he’s an extreme narcissist ... He is out of control.”
47. Charles Fried, US solicitor general under President Ronald Reagan:
“This action [sacking inspector general Michael Atkinson] and the president’s justification fit perfectly in this president’s crude, proto-fascist conception of his own power, in which loyalty is due not to the laws and the constitution but to the person of the president, a view presented with only a bit more subtlety by his Attorney General. James Madison’s view, it is not.”
48. Barbara Bush, wife of Republican President G H W Bush and mother of President G W Bush:
"He doesn't give many answers to how he would solve problems. He sort of makes faces and says insulting things. He's said terrible things about women, terrible things about the military. I don't understand why people are for him."
49. Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee:
“You know what I’m looking forward to? A reporter stands up when the president says something like he’s done over the last few weeks and says, ‘Mr President, this is my last day on the job. You are full of shit because what you just said is a bold-faced lie to the American people’.”
50. George Will, veteran pro-Republican media commentator:
“I believe that what this president has done to our culture, to our civic discourse ... you cannot unring these bells and you cannot unsay what he has said, and you cannot change that he has now in a very short time made it seem normal for schoolboy taunts and obvious lies to be spun out in a constant stream. I think this will do more lasting damage than Richard Nixon's surreptitious burglaries did.”
51. Will Hurd, former Republican congressman for Texas:
“Because of this disastrous decision to pull U.S. troops from northern Syria and abandon the Kurds, and all the actions and inactions that led up to this decision, we have let our friends down, hurt our national security and ceded leadership in the region to Russia and Iran.”
52. Joe Scarborough, former Republican congressman for Florida:
“This is another violation of constitutional norms. This is the president of the United States lying about what the FBI has been doing, lying about what the Republican FISA court judges have been doing, lying about what the Justice Department has been doing. Lying, lying, lying!”
53. Elise Jordan, policy advisor to Senator Rand Paul’s presidential campaign, former staffer to George W Bush:
“It is very plain and obvious that Donald Trump is racist. He uses incendiary racist language constantly ... We don’t have to debate ‘is he’ any longer, we have to debate why are we tolerating this? What can we do to get out of this dark hole, and who can lead us out of it?”
To be continued ...
Readers’ tips in the comments are invited.