Paris—United States (US) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump makes “you want to retch,” French leader Francois Hollande said Tuesday, as he added his voice to a barrage of scathing criticism of the White House hopeful.
In a searing and virtually unprecedented presidential rebuke, Barack Obama also declared embattled Republican White House nominee Donald Trump “unfit” to be president Tuesday and called on party leaders to disown him.
“His excesses make you want to retch, even in the United States, especially when—as was Donald Trump’s case—he speaks ill of a soldier, of the memory of a soldier,” Hollande told journalists in Paris.
The French leader was referring to a feud between Trump and the Muslim parents of a slain US soldier, which has shaken the presidential campaign just three months before the November vote.
Hollande criticized Trump’s “hurtful and humiliating comments.”
The Republican campaign to retake the White House is reeling from a series of self-inflicted scandals as Trump has in recent days criticized Muslims, babies, firefighters and the military, prompting his wincing Republican backers to issue awkward denunciations.
Obama piled on as Trump’s campaign reeled from multiple self-inflicted scandals, calling the 70-year-old mogul “woefully unprepared” and “unfit to serve as president.”
“He keeps proving it,” said Obama, standing alongside the prime minister of Singapore and casting aside any pretense of domestic unity.
In recent days, Trump has criticized Muslims, babies, firefighters and the military, prompting his wincing Republican backers to issue awkward denunciations.
Congressman Richard Hanna went one step further, becoming the first Republican lawmaker to say he will vote for Trump’s opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, in November.
“I find Trump deeply flawed in endless ways,” Hanna wrote in a newspaper editorial announcing his decision.
Obama turned up the heat on Republicans who appear increasingly ill at ease with Trump but have not withdrawn their endorsement.
“This isn’t a situation where you have an episodic gaffe,” Obama said. “This is daily and weekly where they are distancing themselves from statements he’s making.”
“There has to be a point in which you say: ‘This is not somebody I can support for president of the United States, even if he purports to be a member of my party.’”
“There has to come a point at which you say ‘enough,’” he said.
“The alternative is that the entire party, the Republican Party, effectively endorses and validates the positions that are being articulated by Mr Trump.”
