Fmr. NDGOP Executive Director: Donald Trump “patently unqualified for office”
(BISMARCK, ND) – Donald Trump is “patently unqualified for office” according to the former executive director of the North Dakota Republican Party, Matthew Becker, who also managed Rep. Kevin Cramer’s 2012 congressional campaign and worked as Cramer’s communications director.
Trump “has no interest in facts, he’s an infomercial huckster, he’s a reality TV star, he traffics in conspiracy theories, and most concerning for Republicans should be the fact that he is ignorant of, and seems to be indifferent to, the U.S. Constitution,” Becker told radio host Joel Heitkamp Thursday on KFGO’s “News & Views.”
Pointing to Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns, and the likelihood that Trump has exploited loopholes in the tax code to avoid paying income taxes for many years, possibly even decades, Becker said that Trump “clearly has no compass morally, no compass politically.”
“This is a guy who’s only interested in himself, and I think that everything we know about Donald Trump is telling us that this is a guy who is completely self-obsessed and has no interest in helping the country,” said Becker.
Earlier this week, Becker penned an op-ed in The Forum and Grand Forks Herald in which he called on “North Dakota Republicans — especially my former bosses, Rep. Kevin Cramer and Sen. John Hoeven, both R-N.D. — to put national security over political party by rejecting Trump.”
Becker joins an extensive list of former Republican officeholders and officials who have refused to support their party’s presidential nominee, or have outright declared their support for Hillary Clinton. The list includes both living former Republican presidents, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush, General Collin Powell, former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, and Michael Reagan, son of President Ronald Reagan. President George H. W. Bush has announced his support for Clinton, and Michael Reagan has said his father would not have supported Donald Trump and First Lady Nancy Reagan would have supported Hillary Clinton.
On Thursday, 30 former Republican members of Congress published a scathing open letter warning that Donald Trump lacks the competence, intelligence, judgment and temperament to serve as president, and urging members of their party to reject Trump at the polls.
“Given the enormous power of the office, every candidate for president must be judged rigorously in assessing whether he or she has the competence, intelligence, knowledge, understanding, empathy, judgment, and temperament necessary to keep America on a safe and steady course,” the lawmakers wrote. “Donald Trump fails on each of those measures, and he has proven himself manifestly unqualified to be president,” wrote the group of 30 former Republican lawmakers.
All of North Dakota’s elected statewide Republicans have refused to distance themselves from, or speak out on, Donald Trump’s “patent” lack of fitness and temperament to serve as President of the United States.
-30-
