US President Barack Obama on Tuesday called on Republicans to reject Donald Trump in the November presidential election, saying he is ‘woefully unprepared’ and ‘unfit’ to be America’s President.
The strong rebuke came after Trump's criticism of the family of a slain Muslim US soldier, along with comments that displayed apparent confusion related to the Russian incursion into Ukraine.
"The Republican nominee is unfit to serve as President," Obama said at a White House news conference with the Prime Minister of Singapore. "He keeps on proving it."
The Trump campaign responded by going after the Democratic nominee as well as the President.
"Hillary Clinton has proven herself unfit to serve in any government office," a Trump statement said, listing a number of policy concerns. "Obama-Clinton have single-handedly destabilised the Middle East, handed Iraq, Libya and Syria to ISIS, and allowed our personnel to be slaughtered at Benghazi."
Obama on Tuesday described his feelings about Trump as unprecedented, recalling disagreements with previous GOP presidential nominees Senator John McCain and Mitt Romney -- but never an outright sense they were unfit to serve.
"The notion that he would attack a Gold Star family that made such extraordinary sacrifices on behalf of our country, the fact that he doesn't appear to have basic knowledge of critical issues in Europe, the Middle East, in Asia, means that he's woefully unprepared to do this job," Obama said.
Speaking alongside Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in the White House East Room, Obama said there are now weekly episodes in which even Republican Party leaders distance themselves from Trump.
"There has to be a point at which you say, 'Enough'," Obama said.
Obama placed responsibility for Trump's statements squarely on his fellow Republicans, many of whom denounced his statements on the slain soldier's family but didn't withdraw their support.
Obama asked of GOP leaders, "What does this say about your party that this is your standard-bearer?"
"This isn't a situation where you have an episodic gaffe. This is daily and weekly where they are distancing themselves from statements he's making. There has to be a point at 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'."
Obama said that denunciations from Republicans of Trump's remarks "ring hollow" without an accompanying withdrawal of support.
"I don't doubt their sincerity. I don't doubt they were outraged by some of the statements that Mr. Trump and his supporters made about the Khan family," Obama said.
"But there has to come a point in which you say, 'Somebody who makes those kinds of statements doesn't have the judgment, the temperament, the understanding to occupy the most powerful position in the world'," Obama said.
Trump and the family of the slain soldier have been locked in an increasingly bitter dispute over Muslims in America and the nature of patriotic sacrifice.
After Khizir Khan, who lost his son in a suicide bombing in Iraq, declared at last week's Democratic National Convention that Trump had "sacrificed nothing", the Republican nominee claimed he'd been "viciously attacked" and questioned why Khan's wife, Ghazala, didn't make her own remarks.
Trump has also taken flak for appearing unaware that Russian forces had annexed Crimea in early 2014, saying on ABC's "This Week" Sunday that President Vladimir Putin is "not going into Ukraine". Later, he argued that the people of Crimea "would rather be with Russia than where they were" -- an argument that Putin himself has made in justifying his annexation of the disputed Ukrainian territory.
With IANS Inputs
