By David Martosko, U.s. Political Editor For Dailymail.com
- Rumsfeld tells DailyMail.com that he will vote for the Republicans' presumptive nominee because he's a 'known unknown' and Hillary Clinton is a 'known known'
- 9/11-era defense secretary is one of the most senior Republican figures to come out publicly for Trump
- He says Hillary Clinton isn't qualified to sit in the Oval Office, and 'would probably be indicted' over her emails if she were a junior military grunt
- Trump launched an all-out attack on Hillary Clinton on Wednesday at a speech in New York in which he lambasted her as a 'world-class liar'
- Rumsfeld spoke in an interview while promoting his Android 'Churchill Solitaire' app, which recreates Winston Churchill's favorite card game
Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Wednesday that he will support Donald Trump with his vote in November.
The declaration, which Rumsfeld made in an interview with DailyMail.com, makes him the highest-ranking member of the George W. Bush administration to back the Republican Party's presumptive nominee.
It's 'not a close call,' he said in a 25-minute phone interview.
Rumsfeld said he agrees in principle with Trump's position on reforming the NATO alliance, keeping Syrian refugees at bay over fears of terrorist infiltration, and other issues.
And besides, he added, 'I'm a Republican, and there's not any doubt in my mind how I'll vote,' and 'I don't believe Hillary Clinton is qualified to be President of the United States.'
KNOWN UNKNOWN: Donald Rumsfeld tells DailyMail.com that he will be voting for Donald Trump in November because the questions marks about his potential presidency are far more acceptable than what Americans already know about Hillary Clinton
'I am incredibly grateful for the support of Secretary Rumsfeld, and I am very honored he supports my stances on NATO, the need to defeat ISIS and stop immigration of Syrian refugees,' Trump told DailyMail.com in a statement.
Bush, the 43rd president, has given no indication that he will back Trump, who bounced his younger brother Jeb from a vicious GOP primary process this year.
The former president has indicated that he won't attend July's Republican National Convention in Cleveland, an event already being talked about as 'The Trump Show' inside party circles.
Colin Powell, the Bush-era secretary of state, has been openly hostile to Trump over his immigration positions.
'Let's tell all the immigrants working in Trump hotels to stay home tomorrow. See what happens,' he told the Washington Ideas Forum last October.
Rumsfeld said Powell's opposition to his party's standard bearer is unsurprising.
'He supported Obama, Colin did! That's nothing new,' he said.
Rumsfeld spoke with DailyMail.com as part of a media tour aimed at promoting the release of his 'Churchill Solitaire' app on the Android platform.
The iPhone version has been downloaded more than 650,000 times and represents Winston Churchill's favorite version of the play-alone card game.
Rumsfeld said he learned the game in 1973 from André de Staercke, a Belgian NATO diplomat, who learned it 30 years earlier from Churchill himself.
'I was afraid it would be lost to the ages,' he said Wednesday, while admitting the technology mystified him at first.
'I didn't even know what an app was!' he marveled. 'Don't tell anyone.'
TOUGH TALKER: Donald Rumsfeld is seen in Kuwait in June 2002, shortly after the fall of Saddam Hussein
READ MORE
No comments:
Post a Comment