Washington Post editorial board calls on GOP to reject Trump as nominee
As clinching the Republican nomination may be within Donald Trump's grasp, the Washington Post editorial board published a blistering critique of the front-runner, calling on holdout Republicans to continue their opposition to him, even in the face of pressure to rally around him.
"He is a unique threat to the Republican Party and to the country. The party should reject him as a nominee, using any and all legitimate means to do so," wrote the editorial board in the post published online Wednesday. "Principled Republicans must make a concerted stand in Indiana and California, the two states left to vote that could keep Mr. Trump short of the 1,237 delegates he needs to clinch the nomination."
CBS News' latest Battleground Tracker polls show Trump leading the field in both Indiana and California.
The Post's reasoning is that "morally, there is no other option" but to oppose him, and it went on to list his offenses.
"Mr. Trump degrades people, serially insulting women, Latinos, Muslims, immigrants, Jews and others. He erodes the discourse, frequently and flagrantly lying about things such as whether "scores" of terrorists have recently entered the United States as migrants -- one of numerous false claims he made in a speech on foreign policy Wednesday," the Post editorial board wrote. "Where his policy agenda is not thin, it is scary, such as his call to ban Muslims from entering the United States. In short, he should inspire fear that someone so lacking in judgment and restraint could acquire the powers of the presidency."
And should he prevail and win the nomination anyway, the Post exhorts Republicans to vote for Hillary Clinton, run "a third-party conservative candidate," or decline to vote, because any of those options "would at least spare some Republicans the moral stain of association with Mr. Trump."