ANALYSIS – Why do so many of Donald Trump’s former top advisors say he is ‘not fit for office’ due to his character and actions while president? Former White House national security adviser John Bolton, who worked closely with Trump for a year and a half, has said that the former president is not “fit for office.”
The most recent to say that is former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. Trump’s ex-defense chief reaffirmed his views on the former president in a recent TV interview.
The segment, reported by Breitbart, which began by discussing the most recent criminal charges being levied against Trump over the January 6 Capitol riot, turned to Esper’s views of his former boss.
Esper, a former Army officer, was fired from his post after Trump lost the 2020 election. He told Kaitlan Collins on CNN that he doesn’t plan on endorsing anyone in the GOP primary but made clear that he doesn’t support Trump because he puts himself first, not America.
Esper said:
I don’t plan on endorsing anybody. I said that I wouldn’t support Donald Trump. I don’t think that he is fit for office because he puts himself first and I think anyone running for office should put the country first. And they should abide by their oath and do a number of other things.
He added that the GOP needs a nominee who will grow the party: “I’m looking for somebody who puts the country first, a person who will abide by their oath, who will advance traditional, Republican policies and objectives and who will bring the Republican Party together and grow the party.”
Esper also said Trump has proven he isn’t a winner: “You have to win elections, and Donald Trump is not winning elections whether they are House, Senate or White House. That’s what Republicans need to do.”
The former Trump defense chief emphasized that at least half of the dozen current Republican candidates for president are very credible and could beat Joe Biden, noting that he was willing to “Assist any one of them, help them.”
Collins concluded by noting: “We talked about this many times, but to hear someone who was the Pentagon chief for a new candidate for president saying that you would willingly help his challengers who are running against him just speaks to the moment that we are in.”
While he didn’t name any specific candidates in this interview, earlier he praised Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a veteran of the war in Iraq, as one of those in the “next generation” who looks like a promising presidential candidate, reported the New York Post.
“He did a great job in Florida. He brought more Hispanics on board. He appears to me to be the frontrunner,” Esper said of DeSantis.
Esper first called Trump unfit for office back in November 2022 after he announced he was running again in 2024.
“I think he’s unfit for office,” Esper said in an interview with CNN.
Esper added that Trump “has integrity and character issues as well,” describing one of those “character issues” as Trump’s difficulty with telling the truth, noting that he believes Americans want a trustworthy commander-in-chief.
“I don’t think he’s an honest person. We saw the falsehoods that came out of his remarks last night … Americans need a leader they can trust,” Esper said.
And John Kelly, former Trump Chief of Staff, and a retired 4-star Marine Corps general, agrees with Esper. Since Trump left office, Kelly has reportedly said Trump was the “most flawed person” he has ever met.
“The depths of his dishonesty are just astounding to me. The dishonesty, the transactional nature of every relationship, though it’s more pathetic than anything else. He is the most flawed person I have ever met in my life,” Kelly told friends, according to a report by CNN in 2020.
Kelly has also warned of the dangers to the country of a second term for Trump, telling the New York Times that it ‘…would be chaotic, because he’d continually be trying to exceed his authority but the sycophants would go along with it.’
Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.
