50 GOP national security experts oppose Trump

‘Donald Trump is not the answer to America’s daunting challenges and to this crucial election’

Fifty prominent Republican foreign policy and national security experts -- many veterans of George W. Bush’s administration -- have signed a letter denouncing Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy and pledging not to vote for him.

The letter, first reported by The New York Times on Monday, warns: “We are convinced that in the Oval Office, he would be the most reckless President in American history.”

Its signatories include former CIA and National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden, former Director of National Intelligence and Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and Eric Edelman, who was Vice President Dick Cheney’s national security adviser and has worked closely with Michele Flournoy -- a candidate for secretary of defense in a prospective Mrs Clinton administration -- to forge a centrist group of defense experts on key military issues. It also includes two Homeland Security secretaries under Bush, Tom Ridge and Michael Chertoff, and Robert Zoellick, a former World Bank president, US trade representative and deputy secretary of state. Mr Trump’s campaign responded with a statement from Mr Trump denouncing the signatories as people who deserve the “blame for making the world such a dangerous place.” Many of the same leaders wrote an open letter in March during the Republican primaries condemning Mr Trump and pledging to oppose his candidacy, at a time when other GOP candidates remained in the race. The letter acknowledges that many Americans “have doubts about Hillary Clinton, as do many of us.” “But Donald Trump is not the answer to America’s daunting challenges and to this crucial election,” it says.

In the new letter, the group warns Mr Trump “lacks the temperament to be President.”

CNN