Yahoo News Trump a ‘danger to US security’, say generals ahead of Harris debate
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Retired military generals have described Donald Trump as a “danger” to America’s security as they endorsed Kamala Harris.
On the eve of a critical debate between Ms Harris and her Republican rival, 10 former top US military chiefs released a letter calling the vice-president the only candidate “who is fit to serve” in the country’s highest office.
While Ms Harris had “demonstrated her ability to take on the most difficult national security challenges in the Situation Room and on the international stage”, they wrote, Trump posed “a danger to our national security and democracy”.
The letter, signed by retired General Larry Ellis and retired Rear Admiral Michael Smith, among others, accused Trump of disparaging service members and putting them in “harm’s way”, including with his deal to free 5,000 Taliban fighters.
It coincided with a new Harris campaign advert placed in Palm Beach featuring Trump’s most senior former officials warning of the risks of his White House return.
The attack advert shows a montage of scathing comments about the Republican ex-president by some of his most senior former cabinet officials in what appears to be an effort to goad him ahead of their televised live showdown on Tuesday night.
“In 2016, Donald Trump said he would choose only the best people to work in his White House,” the attack advert’s narrator said. “Now those people have a warning for America: Trump is not fit to be president again.”
It featured a montage of clips from Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice-president, Mark Esper, his defence secretary, John Bolton, his national security adviser, and Gen Mark Milley, his chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who alluded to Trump as an autocrat.
“We don’t take an oath to a king or queen, or a tyrant or a dictator. And we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator,” Gen Milley says in one clip in an apparent reference to Trump’s claim he would be a “dictator... on day one” if re-elected.
The advert will air nationally on Tuesday on the conservative network Fox News and in West Palm Beach, Florida, in a bid to rile Trump in the home media market of his main residence, Mar-a-Lago.
It will also air in Philadelphia, where Ms Harris and Trump will face each other on stage for the first time on Tuesday night.
Quentin Fulks, a senior Harris campaign official, said the advert “will remind Fox News viewers, perhaps even a certain defeated former president himself” that “Trump’s own national security team can’t stomach him anymore”.
The live televised presidential debate marks the first time the two candidates will have met in person, and at a critical juncture before election day on Nov 5.
Ms Harris gained the Democrat nomination after Joe Biden stepped aside following a fumbling and halting performance in his own debate against Mr Trump, which raised concerns about his health and sparked criticism from voters and donors.
The vice-president, 59, has been intensively preparing for the encounter with traditional mock debate sessions.
A former adviser to Hillary Clinton has been playing the role of the 78-year-old Trump, even dressing in the Republican’s trademark attire of a navy blue suit and red tie.
Ms Harris has been sequestered in a Pennsylvania hotel since last Thursday to prepare detailed responses to policy questions, in contrast to Trump, whom advisers said was holding more informal briefing sessions.
The vice-president is also bracing for the possibility Trump could lose his cool and hurl insults at her. It was even possible “that he will mumble ‘this b---h’”, one source told NBC News.
Meanwhile, Ms Harris has finally outlined her policy agenda on her campaign website after weeks of evading questions on her shifting positions.
Titled “New Way Forward”, it details her economic and foreign policy agenda with a vow to cut taxes for “more than 100 million working and middle-class Americans” by expanding two tax credits and providing a $25,000 credit for first-time home buyers.
Her agenda includes a proposal to extend Mr Biden’s price cap on life-saving prescription drugs and the “first-ever federal ban on corporate price gouging on food and groceries”.
On immigration, Ms Harris promised to revive a bipartisan security bill that would allow the president to shut down the border when crossings from Mexico surged.
Her website also casts her as “a tireless and effective diplomat on the world stage” after four years in office who was working with Mr Biden “around the clock” to secure a hostage and a ceasefire deal in Gaza.
