Charles Krauthammer, the conservative columnist for the Washington Post, is appalled that Republicans nominated Donald Trump. And as Trump’s campaign gets closer to November, he isn’t letting up, calling Trump’s first month as the presumptive nominee “disastrous.”
Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer attacks Trump’s “disastrous,” “unseemly” campaign
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Libby Nelson was Vox’s editorial director, politics and policy, leading coverage of how government action and inaction shape American life. Libby has more than a decade of policy journalism experience, including at Inside Higher Ed and Politico. She joined Vox in 2014.
In Friday’s Washington Post, Krauthammer mocked the idea — propagated by Trump — that the impulsive, reckless, improvisational candidate could suddenly turn presidential, saying that Trump’s response to the shootings proves this is dead wrong:
Trump made himself the (political) story. First, he offered himself unseemly congratulations for his prescience about terrorism. (He’d predicted more would be coming. What a visionary.) Then he went beyond blaming the president for lack of will or wisdom in fighting terrorism, and darkly implied presidential sympathy for the enemy. “There’s something going on,” he charged. He then reiterated his ban on Muslim immigration. Why? Because that’s what Trump does.
Krauthammer also ran through some of the other lowlights of Trump’s campaign: “His two-week expedition into racism in attacking the Indiana-born “Mexican” judge. His dabbling in conspiracy… All of which suggests, and cements, the image of a man who shoots from the hip and is prone to both wild theories and extreme policies.”
Krauthammer has been hammering Trump for months now, deploring his “breathtaking, bigotry-tinged cynicism,” calling him a “conspiracy theorist” and a “fabulist,” and criticizing his refusal to condemn violence against protesters.
But plenty of anti-Trump voices, including Paul Ryan and Marco Rubio, have moderated as November approaches. It’s notable that in a week of news that provided other fodder for right-leaning pundits like Krauthammer, he’s still not writing about his views on gun control, filibusters, or ISIS. Trump, it seems, has been deemed the bigger threat.
