‘Not qualified to be president’: What leaders, pundits, experts are saying about Trump

Sunday, July 31, 2016 | 2 a.m.

When Donald Trump says something idiotic or frightening or both, his supporters unfailingly shrug it off as Donald being Donald.

He doesn't really mean it, they'll say, he's just saying it for effect.

But in light of Trump's recent comments about Russia, Crimea and NATO, anyone who's laughing him off now is doing so at the risk of our nation's security.

The issue boiled over last week when Trump said Russia should hack Hillary Clinton's email. Afterward, true to form, the businessman said he was being sarcastic and that his comments were being overblown.

Wrong. Americans expect their leader to choose his or her words carefully and act presidential, which is why Trump's comments drew shocked responses from political leaders, foreign policy experts, pundits and more. We present some of that reaction today, as Trump's sideshow act — which was never funny to begin with — devolves into a horror show.

U.S. News & World Report

Simply encouraging a foreign government — let alone an antagonistic, expansionist power — to break into his political opponent's computers and steal documents would be unprecedented.

But Trump goes well beyond that: Remember he's not referring to political party communications. He's talking about data from Hillary Clinton's private server, and the GOP nominee and his fellow Clinton critics assume that the 32,000 emails Clinton deleted from her private server contain government secrets; so openly calling for Russian intelligence to find and release them is by definition encouraging foreign espionage.

Stop and think about that for a moment: One of the two people who will become the next president is encouraging foreign espionage against this country.

And just to underscore how weird and dysfunctional Trump's campaign is, it released a statement from vice presidential nominee Mike Pence promising "serious consequences" if Russia is behind the hacking. Serious consequences ... for something for which his running mate and boss is encouraging.

See complete editorial here.

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Slate

In the end, we only have circumstantial evidence about the Russian efforts to shape this election — a series of disparate data points and a history of past interference in similar contests.

But the pattern is troubling, and so is the premise. If Putin wanted to concoct the ideal candidate to serve his purposes, his laboratory creation would look like Donald Trump. The Republican nominee wants to shatter our military alliances in Europe; he cheers the destruction of the European Union; he favors ratcheting down tensions with Russia over Ukraine and Syria, both as a matter of foreign policy and in service of his own pecuniary interests. A Trump presidency would weaken Putin’s greatest geo-strategic competitor. By stoking racial hatred, Trump will shred the fabric of American society. He advertises his willingness to dismantle constitutional limits on executive power. In his desire to renegotiate debt payments, he would ruin the full faith and credit of the United States.

One pro-Kremlin blogger summed up his government’s interest in this election with clarifying bluntness: “Trump will smash America as we know it, we’ve got nothing to lose.”

See complete article here.

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The Independent (U.K)

The line between carefully calculated bomb-drop and off-the-cuff quipping for effect is always hard to discern when it comes to Mr Trump. Sometimes he strikes target with cruise-missile accuracy while pulling the trigger with a blindfold on. Certainly his Doral comments had not been communicated to his running mate, Governor Mike Pence, who on Wednesday said Russia should be made to pay “the consequences” if its involvement in the DNC hack is proved.

We also know by now Mr Trump’s supporters are rarely unsettled by even his most extreme statements. He called for a total ban on Muslims entering the US last December and his numbers climbed. But those same supporters are also dyed in the red, white and blue. Will they really find his invitation to Russia - Russia! - deliberately to destabilise the democratic institutions of their own country as something that is just another giggle? Perhaps they will.

But Mr. Trump should know this. At some point he will make his hill of garbage so high that instead of giving him a road to the highest office in the land it will bury him. And then he will not win in November or even come close to winning. He will be utterly destroyed by Ms. Clinton and by a country that will have awoken to the terrifying and ridiculous threat that he really is.

See complete commentary here.

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Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson

Trump looked directly into the television cameras and said, "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press."

You read that right. The man one of our two major parties has nominated for president just encouraged cyberespionage by an adversarial foreign power against a former U.S. secretary of state.

We've become almost numb to Trump's wild and irresponsible declarations because there are so many of them. But this one, for me, was jaw-dropping. Fortunately, FBI Director James Comey said in his Capitol Hill testimony that there is no evidence Clinton's server was ever hacked by anyone.

There is plenty of evidence, however, that Russia is behind the DNC hack, according to widespread news reports quoting U.S. cybersecurity officials. This did not seem to bother Trump in the least; nor did the release of hacked emails embarrassing to the Democratic National Committee on the eve of the convention. He reveled in the disclosures with undisguised glee.

What's the deal with Trump and the Russkies? He said he has never met Vladimir Putin, but once again he betrayed his man-crush on the Russian leader, saying he had better leadership qualities than President Obama.

Trump denied he had business interests in Russia -- though it is known that he earned millions from staging his Miss Universe pageant there -- and was vague about any possible involvement Russian oligarchs might have in Trump-related projects. Of course, it would be possible to know a lot more if Trump would release his tax returns, but he still won't.

See entire column here.

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The New York Times

“This is unprecedented — it is one of those things that seems to be genuinely new in international relations,” said Paul Musgrave, a University of Massachusetts professor who studies American foreign policy.

After a long pause, Mr. Musgrave added, “Being shocked into speechlessness is not the sort of thing you’re really used to in the business of foreign policy analysis.”

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American presidential elections are high-stakes events. Russia would not be the first foreign power, friendly or hostile, to pursue its preferred outcome. Nor would Mr. Trump be the first politician to leverage foreign actors for electoral benefit.

But this is the first time that a presidential candidate has openly asked a foreign power to meddle in the democratic process to his benefit. More than that, Mr. Trump seemed to be suggesting that Russia should violate United States law on his behalf.

Were Russia to follow Mr. Trump’s suggestion, the foreign intervention into American politics would be among the most severe of the past century.

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It is doubtful that Russia will alter its espionage practices based on public suggestions from Mr. Trump, which some defenders argue was meant as a joke. But Mr. Musgrave worried that such language could weaken norms, even if only slightly, against foreign involvement in American politics.

“Trump is legitimating behaviors that nobody ever thought could be legitimated,” Mr. Musgrave said, calling the incident “one of those reminders about how fragile norms are.”

See entire article here.

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The Atlantic

The candidate of the party of Ronald Reagan and Dwight Eisenhower now welcomes not only the warm wishes but the clandestine espionage aid of a regime that allegedly carries out assassinations on U.S. soil and is the first major power to conduct a land war on the European continent since 1945.

See entire article here.

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President Obama in his speech at the Democratic National Convention

“He suggests America is weak. He must not hear the billions of men and women and children, from the Baltics to Burma, who still look to America to be the light of freedom and dignity and human rights. He cozies up to Putin, praises Saddam Hussein, and tells the NATO allies that stood by our side after 9/11 that they have to pay up if they want our protection.

“America is already great. America is already strong. And I promise you, our strength, our greatness, does not depend on Donald Trump.”

See text of Obama's speech here.

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Conservative foreign policy analyst Max Boot in a tweet after the DNC used a clip of him in a video

“Coincindentally also the first time the GOP has nominated a fascist demagogue.” Boot told Talking Points Memo he didn’t object to being included in the video, in which he said Trump shouldn’t be handed the nuclear codes.

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Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe in a tweet

Trump's "jokes" inviting an adversary to wage cyberwar against the U.S. appear to violate the Logan Act and might even constitute treason.

See more here.

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Former CIA Director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta during an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour

"You've got now a presidential candidate who is in fact asking the Russians to engage in American politics, and I just think that's beyond the pale. I have a lot of concerns of his qualities of leadership or lack thereof. That kind of statement only reflects the fact that he truly is not qualified to be president of the United States."

See the interview and story here.

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Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., a retired U.S. Marine, speaking during the DNC

“Donald praises dictators and insults our allies. His foreign policy would be based on false bravado and bluster.”

See text of Gallego's speech here.

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Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein on CNN

“Today, we have reached a tipping point in this election. This is a disqualifying event for a president of the United States.”

Bernstein, who famously helped uncover the Watergate scandal, said Democrats should capitalize on Trump’s remarks and keep the billionaire from reaching the White House.

“It ought to be apparent to all, and the Democrats should be able to make the case, that he is manifestly unsuited to be the president of the United States because of his recklessness with the national security,” Bernstein said.

See interview here.

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Llewellyn King, host and executive producer of the PBS show “White House Chronicles”

On the Acela Express from Washington to Boston, I am searching my hopper of words for one that describes the feeling of watching on television Donald Trump’s press conference in Florida. I am, as it were, dumbfounded by the braggart.

Watching Trump is like watching one of nature’s lethal creatures, say a mamba or a crocodile. One wonders at the deadly speed of the snake, coiled and ready to strike its victim: a thing of beauty in its lethality, mesmerizing; or the evil certainty of the croc, always ready to go from seeming lethargy to lighting assault, if the unwary should seek to share the river bank.

See full commentary here.

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House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif.

“The United States should not tolerate Russian meddling in November’s election Period.”

See more here.

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William Inboden, who served on the National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration

"Trump's appeal for a foreign government hostile to the United States to manipulate our electoral process is not an assault on Hillary Clinton, it is an assault on the Constitution.”

See more here.

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Carl Bildt, the former Swedish prime minister and foreign minister, in a tweet

“I never thought a serious candidate for US President could be a serious threat against the security of the West. But that’s where we are.”

See tweet here.

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New York Times

If Mr. Trump is serious in his call for Russian hacking or exposing Mrs. Clinton’s emails, he would be urging a power often hostile to the United States to violate American law by breaking into a private computer network. He would also be contradicting the Republican platform, adopted last week in Cleveland, saying that cyberespionage “will not be tolerated,” and promising to “respond in kind and in greater magnitude” to all Chinese and Russian cyberattacks.

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Almost as soon as Mr. Trump spoke, other Republicans raced in to try to reframe his remarks and argue that Russia should be punished. A spokesman for Speaker Paul D. Ryan termed Russia “a global menace led by a devious thug.” The spokesman, Brendan Buck, added: “Putin should stay out of this election.”

Even Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, Mr. Trump’s running mate, issued a statement, saying that “if it is Russia and they are interfering in our elections, I can assure you both parties and the United States government will ensure there are serious consequences.” Mr. Pence did not attend Wednesday’s news conference because he was giving local television interviews, and an aide to Mr. Pence said that his team had written his statement about Russia before Mr. Trump began speaking.

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“This has to be the first time that a major presidential candidate has actively encouraged a foreign power to conduct espionage against his political opponent,” said Jake Sullivan, Mrs. Clinton’s chief foreign policy adviser, whose emails from when he was a State Department aide were among those that were hacked. “This has gone from being a matter of curiosity, and a matter of politics, to being a national security issue,” he added.

See full story here.

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The Washington Post on Trump’s comment on Crimea

To Trump, "We'll be looking at that" is his go-to, throwaway answer when he's asked about something he hasn't thought about, as our own Philip Bump so ably catalogued earlier this month. He does this a lot.

But recognizing Crimea as Russian territory is not something that basically anybody inside the American foreign policy mainstream is "looking at." And were Trump to actually consider it, you can bet it would make Russia very happy indeed.

A little history: Back in March 2014, Russia annexed Crimea, an autonomous region of Ukraine. After the ouster of the Ukrainian president, Russian troops moved in and held an unauthorized referendum in which Crimeans voted to rejoin Russia, of which it had previously been a part.

See full article here.

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Newsweek

It’s hard to draw a straight line between Putin’s propaganda machine and Trump’s astonishing statement in a New York Times interview that he would come to the aid of NATO states threatened by Russia only if they have “fulfilled their obligations to us,” i.e., paid their full share of the alliance’s costs. Or that the United States should “fix our own mess” before demanding that Turkey and other authoritarian states honor the law and human rights. “How are we going to lecture when people are shooting policemen in cold blood?” he asked.

The Kremlin couldn’t have said it better itself. In the darkest days of the Cold War, Moscow was forever broadcasting news and film of cops beating up civil rights protesters and telling Washington to shut up about Soviet oppression in Eastern Europe. President John F. Kennedy’s response was to move from indifference to civil rights to embracing them, according to Stanford fellow Mary Dudziak, author of "Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy." Trump’s response has been to double down on the cops and exchange verbal air kisses with Putin.

See full commentary here.

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National Republican political strategist Rick Wilson on Twitter

Media question for Trump: "Do you, or any of your business units have outstanding loans with Russian banks or individuals? If so, how much?"

See tweet here.