Trump: rejected

U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump has struggled for months to unify the fractured Republican Party whose nomination he accepted last month, and the cracks continue to grow.

A public letter released on Tuesday in Washington noted that, 50 high-ranking former national security and foreign policy officials, who served under Republican presidents in the last four decades stood together against Trump.

They wrote: “We know the personal qualities required of a president of the United States, none of us will vote for Donald Trump.

The letter writers included former homeland security secretaries Michael Chertoff and Tom Ridge, former CIA director Michael Hayden, former U.S. Trade Representatives Carla Hills.

Others are Robert Zoellick, former U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Chief Andrew Natsios, and former State Department officials Eliot Cohen, Jendayi Frazer, David Kramer and Philip Zelikow.

They said that the 70 year old Trump lacks the “character, values and experience to be president.

The officials also accused him of understanding neither vital U.S. interests and institutions nor world affairs.

“Unlike previous presidents who had limited experience in foreign affairs, Mr Trump has shown no interest in educating himself.

“He continues to display an alarming ignorance of basic facts of contemporary international politics,’’ the letter said.

The signatories said that “many of us” have “doubts” about Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Presidential nominee, a former U.S. secretary of state.

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

“We are convinced that in the Oval Office, he would be the most reckless president in American history.” (dpa/NAN)