More than 200 former Bush, McCain and Romney staffers endorse Harris
More than 200 Republicans who worked for both Bush presidents, the late Sen. John McCain and Sen. Mitt Romney declared their endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign in an open letter released Monday.
The letter comes after several Republicans who are openly critical of former President Donald Trump delivered remarks at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago last week.
In their letter, which was first reported by USA Today, the former staff members noted that they had come out against Trump during the 2020 election cycle and said they "jointly declare that we’re voting for Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz this November."
"Of course, we have plenty of honest, ideological disagreements with Vice President Harris and Gov. Walz. That’s to be expected," they wrote. "The alternative, however, is simply untenable.”
The group condemned Trump's policies and Project 2025, a proposed blueprint by the Heritage Foundation for a second Trump term that the former president has sought to distance himself from, saying those proposals "will hurt real, everyday people and weaken our sacred institutions."
They argued that Trump's approach to foreign policy also poses threats to democratic movements abroad and concluded their letter by imploring moderate Republicans and conservative independents 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" by voting for Harris and Walz.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement that the letter is "hilarious because nobody knows who these people are. They would rather see the country burn down than to see President Trump successfully return to the White House to Make America Great Again."
The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
McCain's former chief of staff Mark Salter and Olivia Troye, a former aide to Vice President Mike Pence, signed the letter. Troye spoke out against Trump at the Democratic National Convention last week.
The group joins more than two dozen Republicans — former governors, members of Congress and Trump administration officials who are vocal critics of Trump — who pledged support for Harris' presidential campaign this month.
A similar group of anti-Trump Republicans, including several hundred former aides to George W. Bush and McCain, endorsed Biden’s 2020 presidential election campaign.
Bush, McCain and Romney spoke out against Trump for his inflammatory remarks and were targets of the former president’s attacks. (McCain, of Arizona, died in 2018, a decade after being the GOP presidential nominee; Romney, of Utah, was the party's nominee in 2012.)
Bush, whose brother Jeb Bush ran against Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primary, did not attend the Republican National Convention last month. He has not publicly criticized Trump, but he did hold a 2021 fundraiser for then-Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., a vocal Trump critic who served as vice chair of the House Jan. 6 committee.
McCain said in 2016 that he couldn’t back Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton, citing Trump’s inflammatory comments about women. His wife, Cindy McCain, later endorsed Biden in the 2020 election.
Romney, who voted twice to convict Trump at his impeachment trials, has repeatedly denounced the former president and said he is putting the country’s future in peril.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com