Former Reagan Adviser Denounces Trump, Will Vote Clinton

A former adviser to President Ronald Reagan said he is so uncomfortable by the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency that he will vote for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

“I will do something that I have not done in 40 years of voting: I will vote for the Democratic nominee for president,” Frank Lavin, who now works as CEO of a firm that promotes U.S. brands in China, wrote in a CNN op-ed. “The depressing truth of the Republican nominee is that Donald Trump talks a great game but he is the emperor who wears no clothes.”

Lavin, who served as Reagan’s White House political director from 1987 to 1989, went on to criticize Trump for having characteristics that are not president material.

“Trump is a bigot, a bully, and devoid of grace or magnanimity,” Lavin wrote. “His thin-skinned belligerence toward every challenge, rebuke, or criticism would promise the nation a series of a high-voltage quarrels.”

Lavin, a long-time Republican Party operative who worked as Ambassador and Undersecretary for George W. Bush, as well as Commerce Department official for George H. W. Bush, in addition to his services to Reagan, said the decision to break party loyalty and vote for Clinton was “not an easy one.”

“A president needs the thick skin to ignore criticism and the management discipline to stay fixed on goals,” Lavin wrote. “Trump, on the other hand, manages to pick fights that are unrelated to his goals.”

Lavin also said he had issues with Trump’s foreign policy ideas. Trump has been critical of the Iraq War, and criticized former President George W. Bush in front of former Republican candidate Jeb Bush, the ex-president’s brother, during a live debate.

“Obviously the war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake,” Trump said, according to The Hill. “George Bush made a mistake. Obviously we can make mistakes, but that one was a beauty. … We should have never been in Iraq. They lied; they said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none, and they knew that there were none.”

When it comes to foreign policy, Lavin said he prefers Clinton, who voted for the Iraq War, over Trump.

“There are many issues on which Hillary Clinton and I are not in agreement,” Lavin wrote. “However on the core foreign policy issues our country faces — alliance relationships, security commitments, and international engagement — she comes closer to Republican views than does Trump.”

Sources: CNN, The Hill / Photo Credit: Export Now