Republican nominee Donald Trump lacks “optimism,” balanced “realism” and “civility” to ever be considered president, said a dozen members of former President George W. Bush’s Cabinet in an open letter Wednesday led by Bush’s former Environmental Protection Agency chief and New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman.
“We believe in effective government, a society of hope and optimism balanced with realism, and a politics of civility and honesty,” the officials said in the letter. “None of these values are present in Donald Trump’s campaign.”
The letter comes five days after Trump was caught making sexually offensive comments on a videotape with “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush in 2005. The tape caused a number of Republicans to condemn the nominee, while some have gone as far as to say they will be voting for Democrat Hillary Clinton.
On Saturday, the Republican Whitman said she had made the decision to vote for Clinton in an op-ed published in the New Jersey Star-Ledger. “A Hillary presidency promises more of the Obama failed policies, but she would at least walk into the Oval Office ready to govern. She would be a steady hand on the nuclear code and she demonstrated a willingness to work across the aisle when she was in the Senate,” she said.
In the Wednesday letter, the former officials, which also included former Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, did not say whether they would vote for Clinton over Trump on Nov. 8.
However, the language they used to describe the damage that Trump has done to their party suggests little alternative but to withhold their votes for him.
“From our experience in government and politics, we believe that his appeals to racial and religious differences, his unfounded charges and personal attacks against those with whom he disagrees, and his broad and repeated misuse of facts and data have damaged the future of our party and have undermined his ability to govern effectively, should he be elected,” the Bush officials wrote.
On Trump’s environmental priorities, which make repealing EPA regulations a central theme, the letter said the nominee has not given serious consideration to the repercussions.
He has called for “eliminating regulation without regard to the circumstances,” the officials wrote. They also said he has not been clear on how he would pay for new investments in infrastructure “beyond substantially expanded federal borrowing.”
Former EPA administrators under former Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, who created the agency, have come out in recent months in support of Clinton.
