Ahead of Donald Trump being formally nominated for president next week, the New York Times editorial board has issued a scathing rebuke of the presumptive Republican nominee, saying he is unfit to serve a second term as president.
“Mr. Trump has demonstrated a character unworthy of the responsibilities of the presidency and a utter lack of respect for the Constitution, the rule of law and the American people,” wrote The New York Times editorial board, which is separate from the editorial board. “Rather than a compelling vision for the country’s future, Mr. Trump is driven by a thirst for political power: using the instruments of government to advance his own interests, satisfy his own impulses and exact revenge on those he believes have wronged him.”
“He is, simply put, unfit to lead.”
The opinion piece, published Thursday morning, four days before the Republican National Convention begins, criticizes the Republican Party and its support for Trump.
A once great political party now serves the interests of one man, a man more patently unqualified to run for the presidency than anyone else in the long history of our republic, whose values, temperament, ideas and language are in direct conflict with much of what has made this nation great.
The committee noted the extraordinary divisions currently occurring within the Democratic Party over President Joe Biden’s reelection and lamented that Republicans are not having such a debate within their party “about the obvious moral and temperamental unfitness of their standard-bearer.”
The editorial also urged voters to “pay attention to what he has done as president and truly understand the promises he has made if he returns to the White House.”
The paper’s criticism of Trump is unlikely to sway his most ardent supporters, but it could have an impact in a likely close election. The Times is often accused of bias from both the right and the left, but whether that’s true or not, it’s generally considered a liberal-leaning newspaper. And it can influence public opinion, as the impact of its near-obsessive coverage of Hillary Clinton’s emails in 2016 proved.
