‘Trump denigrates our great country,’ more than 1,000 retired military and Republican leaders say

Former generals, admirals, and national security leaders signed open letters vowing to support Kamala Harris and calling Donald Trump a threat to democracy.

More than 1,000 retired generals, admirals, fighter pilots, Bush administration officials, US ambassadors, former Congressional Republicans, John McCain and Mitt Romney staffers, and national security leaders signed three separate open letters in recent weeks endorsing Kamala Harris for president and warning that Donald Trump is “unfit to be Commander-in-Chief.”

The letters, written by disparate groups, are a part of a growing number of bipartisan warnings about Trump from people who’ve spent their careers serving the United State and protecting it. The signatures reflect people who have fought in war zones, confronted dictators, and guarded allies: They know a threat when they see one, they said.

The letters detailed how Trump’s record during and after his first term made him unfit for a second. Their examples include:

• Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen, his incitement of the Jan. 6 riots, and his violation of the peaceful transfer of power.
• His celebration of dictators and adversaries like Vladimir Putin.
• Trump’s disparagement of military members as “suckers and losers,”
• His willingness to turn his back on NATO and other allies. 
• His often violent rhetoric against opponents.
• His rejection of Democratic norms.
• The priorities listed in Project 2025, a policy document written by more than 140 Trump associates that details what his second term could look like. 

“We are former public servants who swore an oath to the Constitution,” begins one letter, from the National Security Leaders for America (NSL4A).

“Many of us risked our lives for it.”

Trump, the letters said, is a danger to principles that oath is meant to protect.

“This election is a choice between serious leadership and vengeful impulsiveness. It is a choice between democracy and authoritarianism. Vice President Harris defends America’s democratic ideals, while former President Donald Trump endangers them,” NSL4A added.

‘We do not make such an assessment lightly’

The NSL4A represents the largest group of the letter writers, notching more than 700 signatures.

The other two letters were written by separate wings of a group called “Bush, McCain, and Romney Alumni for Harris,” one from military leaders in those administrations, featuring 111 signatures; and the other from the civilian staff, featuring 238 signatures. 

The number of signatures on each letter has grown since they were released, and members of the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations have added their names. 

There is some overlap among the signers of the three letters, but only a little. 

The new warnings add to those from Liz Cheney and several other high profile Republicans that Trump will make good on his pledge to act like “a dictator on day one.”

Trump says he was kidding, exaggerating, and taken out of context on that widely reported line.

But the 1,000+ signatories are not exaggerating, they said.

“Mr. Trump denigrates our great country and does not believe in the American ideal that our leaders should reflect the will of the people,” the NSL4A wrote.

“We do not make such an assessment lightly.”

An unrestrained Trump

The letters were all written in the last month, but the groups that wrote them have been pressing this message for much longer. 

Cardinal & Pine spoke with several members of the NSL4A in August during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. 

Michael Smith, a retired rear-admiral and the group’s president, said that a second Trump term would be worse than the first, in part, because Trump has vowed to replace the generals who stopped or redirected his worst impulses.

“In his first administration, he had very respectable … 4-star generals working for him who [acted as] guardrails to prevent him from doing what he really wanted to do,” Smith, who served in the US Navy for more than 20 years, said. 

Those guardrails, for example, included the military leaders who rejected Trump’s suggestion in 2020 that the military should just shoot Black Lives Matter protesters. 

No man who suggests pitting the military against civilians, should serve as president, Smith said. 

“Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy,” he said. 

Marine Corps Sergeant Major John L. Estrada agrees.

“My concern, and I think it is of most Americans, is dictatorship,” Estrada, also a member of NSL4A, said in an interview.

 “When you hear the talk of ‘dictator for a day’ or ‘once I’m elected, you don’t have to vote anymore,’ that should send alarms up in the air.”

As a young Marine, Estrada was stationed in the Philippines during the authoritarian rule of Ferdinand Marcos, who jailed political opponents, suppressed dissent among the public, and turned the military into his own personal enforcement machine.

Estrada sees the same threat in Trump, he said.

“I saw people living in that country. They were told everything they could do or could not do. No freedom of expression,” he said.

“This is the way it’s going to be [here],” he said, if Trump wins. 

A global threat

An unrestrained Trump would be just as much a threat to strategic alliances across the world, the leaders said.

In international relations, everything is complex, and the details are everything. But details, nuance, precedent, and diplomacy bored Trump, the leaders said, leading to an erratic foreign policy that caused allies to lose their trust in the United States.

Trump calls his approach good business. Military leaders call it negligence, like trying to disarm a bomb without knowing anything about wires, explosives, or detonators. 

Trump’s lack of study is not the only thing that made allies uneasy, the leaders said. 

He has praised Vladimir Putin of Russia and other authoritarian leaders, coveting their power. That makes him susceptible to their flattery, the leaders said.

Trump has said that Putin could essentially do “whatever the hell he wants” in Ukraine, and threatened to abandon the vital NATO alliance, the leaders say, a partnership that, since the aftermath of World War II, has helped prevent smaller wars from devolving into World War III.

That erratic leadership, Smith said, could lead to catastrophe.

“He will be the one president that takes us closest to World War III than anyone we’ve had,” Smith said.

‘Fundamentally broken and strange’

Mike Smith agrees with Admiral Michael Smith.

This Mike Smith, a former Navy fighter pilot and member of another anti-Trump group, Veterans for Responsible Leadership (VFRL), was not among the signers of the letters, but feels the same way they do.

He was part of a group of veterans that tried to deliver their own letter to North Carolina Republicans on Memorial Day, asking the state party to condemn threats of political violence and commit to a peaceful election, no matter the result. When the group tried to deliver the letter to the state party convention, they were kicked out.

Trump is a danger, but he is also an insult to the men and women who wear the uniform, Smith of the VFRL said. 

In just the last several weeks, Trump has denigrated the Medal of Honor, which is usually given to wounded service members or posthumously to those who’ve died in battle, and violated the sanctity of Arlington National Cemetery, posing for political photos amid the graves of service members killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is against the law. 

Trump also called wounded soldiers “suckers” and “losers” while president, The Atlantic reported, and refused to go to a World War I cemetery in Paris to honor the American soldiers buried there because it was raining and he didn’t want to get his hair wet

“Trump is a fundamentally broken and strange person,” Mike Smith said. “He appears to be unable to understand the needs of others.”

Trump’s violation of Arlington’s sanctity was especially infuriating, he added.

“The veteran community is a lot larger than just those who actually wore the uniform. And so try to imagine the person that you love most and their grave being used as a prop.”

‘We’re talking about thousands of voters.’

The alarm does not stop with senior command, Veterans for Responsible Leadership says. While Trump still has support of a slim majority of military members, a new poll from the group shows that he has far lower support than most other Republican candidates and presidents since Ronald Reagan.

And his support is slipping.

Trump’s support among veterans, active duty military members, and military families has fallen several percentage points since his run in 2016, the poll shows.

“The veteran community is larger than just those who served in states like North Carolina where … like 8% of the community are veterans,” Mike Smith said.

“There’s an equal or greater number that are veteran families. So we’re talking about thousands of voters that are going from Trump towards Democrats because of Trump’s behavior.”

He added: “If Donald Trump loses North Carolina, it will be because of how he treated veterans.”

‘Take a brave stand once more’

“Of course, we have plenty of honest, ideological disagreements with Vice President Harris and Gov. Walz,” the Bush, McCain, and Romney Alumni group wrote in their letter. “That’s to be expected. The alternative, however, is simply untenable.”

This fear of a Trump without restraints pushed many independents to support Joe Biden in 2020, a big part of his victory, the group said.

That took courage, the letter said. And courage is needed again.

“We’re heartfully calling on these friends, colleagues, neighbors, and family members to take a brave stand once more, to vote for leaders that will strive for consensus, not chaos; that will work to unite, not divide; that will make our country and our children proud.”

Melissa Bryant, an Army veteran and member of NSL4A, said in an interview that Trump soils those higher ideals.

“The United States is a world superpower”  because of “the strength and discipline of those who serve,” she said.

“Being able to raise your right hand and say ‘send me [into harm’s way]’ is one of the greatest privileges that you could have in your life.”

She added: “We just cannot allow this man, this unserious man to come back into office and ignore all the institutional norms that we have held so dear within this country.”