CNN’s Fareed Zakaria Sunday called out Republican Sen. John McCain on Sunday for backing Donald Trump, suggesting the senator’s “honor” is at stake if he does not recant.
“McCain has lived a life of service, with acts of courage that are beyond my comprehension,” Zakaria said on the show he hosts called GPS. “When the North Vietnamese offered to release him in advance of other prisoners of war, because his father was an admiral, he refused, preferring more captivity and torture to losing his honor. Years later, when he learned that Henry Kissinger had also refused to allow any special treatment for him, he thanked Kissinger ‘for saving my reputation, my honor, my life, really.'”
“Today, all John McCain needs to do to preserve his honor is to say two words, ‘Never Trump,'” Zakaria said.
The CNN commentator used McCain to reinforce his broader point that not enough former high-ranking Republican officials have come out against Trump for his inflammatory rhetoric.
“Not one former secretary of state, defense or treasury has signed on or publicly announced that he or she will not vote for the man,” Zakaria said. “Where are George Shultz, James Baker, Condoleezza Rice and Hank Paulson? Can their reputations survive their silence?”
He also criticized Republicans for appearing to believe they can convert Trump into a conservative.
After using Twitter a week ago to “congratulate himself” after the massive attack that killed 49 in Orlando, Fla., Zakaria said it is clear “who Donald Trump is.”
“But what is the Republican Party? Most Republican leaders still hold out hope that despite the fact that Trump is, in George Will’s accurate description, the most anti-conservative presidential aspirant in their party’s history, he will suddenly get religion and embrace their agenda,” Zakaria said.
