Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Republican nominee Donald Trump traded epithets Saturday morning, with Gates calling Trump “beyond repair” on national security.
In an op-ed published by the Wall Street Journal, Gates outlined the flaws that both Trump and Hillary Clinton have as potential commander in chief. He criticized both candidates, but ended the piece with a harsh condemnation of the Republican nominee.
Trump, he wrote, is “beyond repair. He is stubbornly uninformed about the world and how to lead our country and government, and temperamentally unsuited to lead our men and women in uniform. He is unqualified and unfit to be commander-in-chief.”
Responding on Twitter Saturday morning, Trump said that Gates “knows nothing about me. But look at the results under his guidance – a total disaster!”
Gates retired as President Obama’s secretary of defense in 2011, but has a long record within the Republican national security apparatus. He had begun serving as secretary under George W. Bush, and was kept in office by Obama. Previously, he had run the CIA under George H.W. Bush, and served five other presidents as well.
In his op-ed, Gates reviewed the problems in world affairs that will confront the next president, and warned that both Trump and Clinton “have a credibility problem in foreign affairs.”
But he spared his toughest criticism for Trump, who he wrote is “naive and irresponsible” in his relationship with Vladimir Putin, and “willfully ignorant” about major concerns.
