Donald Trump is not fit for office: John Howard

John Howard has described the former US president’s behaviour as ‘appalling’ and ‘atrocious’ for not accepting the outcome of the 2020 US election.

John Howard says ‘I am not any fan of Trump’. Picture: Nic Walker

John Howard has described ­Donald Trump’s behaviour as “appalling” and “atrocious” for not accepting the outcome of the 2020 US presidential election and seeking to overturn the result, and declared him utterly “unfit” to return to the White House.

Writing in a new book A Sense of Balance, the former prime minister savages the former president for not respecting democratic traditions and his ­serial trashing of political norms and conventions, and says the Republican Party should have repudiated him.

“Trump’s atrocious behaviour after losing the 2020 election … has surely made him unfit to return to the White House,” Mr Howard writes. “It was dumbfounding to me, and I am sure to many others, that the party should have chosen him as its candidate in 2016.

“He lacked public grace, a huge deficiency for an American president, who is both head of state and head of government.

“He had little respect for his party organisation, despite the support it gave him during the presidential campaign.”

 

Mr Howard expanded on his sharp criticisms of Mr Trump in an exclusive interview with The Australian, saying he hoped the Republican Party selected a different candidate to contest the 2024 presidential election.

“I am not any fan of Trump,” Mr Howard said. “His behaviour since losing the election has been disgraceful and I just hope, pray, that the Republicans will find somebody else to get behind because he has behaved terribly.”

While Mr Howard said he had “mixed feelings” about Mr Trump’s 2016 presidential bid, which he found as “uninspiring” as Hillary Clinton’s, he rebukes the “condescending view of the metropolitan elites” who believed somehow the voters had “got it wrong” by electing him.

These comments were made before the FBI raided Mr Trump’s palatial Mar-a-Lago residence this week, which was reportedly linked to classified national security documents that were illegally removed from the White House rather than handed over to the National Archives and Records Administration.

A Sense of Balance includes observations on a range of domestic and foreign policy issues, reflections on his time in politics and his long prime ministership (1996-2007), and offers thoughts on the recent federal election and the future of the ­Liberal Party.

Mr Howard writes that Boris Johnson is “a colourful and effective communicator” who was the driving force behind Brexit, which he personally supported, but is critical of his probity failures and told The Australian that he was not surprised by the cabinet revolt that forced his resignation.

“He failed to understand the feelings of ordinary people who voted strongly for him,” Mr Howard writes.

 

“Were he and his close coterie of advisers so out of touch that they imagined they could hold parties in Downing Street when, according to the rules they had imposed, parties were banned for the ordinary person in their homes or workplaces?”

Writing before the declaration by the Chinese ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, that using force to seize control of Taiwan was an option and China’s escalating intimidation of the embattled island, Mr Howard argues it is ­unlikely that China will directly attack Taiwan.

“I regard it as highly unlikely that China will launch a conventional attack on Taiwan, largely because it fears a retaliatory response from the US that could well prove embarrassing,” he writes.

“Military or other action short of a frontal strike is far more likely, particularly if it causes the US to agonise over how to respond.”

He insists that Australia does not have to choose between its security relationship with the US and its economic relationship with China. The former prime minister advocates a “self-­respecting pragmatism” to guide Australia’s approach to China, given the trade partnership is vital. And he doubts China will surpass the US as the world’s superpower.

Mr Howard also writes about the foreign policy decisions of his own government, especially the “most difficult” decision to commit forces to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq following the September 11, 2001, terrorist ­attacks in the US.

He is critical of the hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan, first announced by Mr Trump and implemented by Joe Biden, and notes that it was unwise for Barack Obama to nominate an earlier exit date when he was president.

“Trump made a big mistake in declaring that the US was leaving before he had struck a bargain with the Taliban,” Mr Howard writes. “Biden oversaw a clumsy end by not making the withdrawal conditional upon the extraction of locals whom America and its allies wanted to assist. A satisfactory evacuation of all of those deemed at risk should have governed the withdrawal date, not the reverse.”

John Howard’s A Sense of Balance (HarperCollins) is published on August 17. 

Read Troy Bramston’s extended interview with John Howard in The Weekend Australian tomorrow.