Brazile: GOP doesn’t have ‘guts’ to say Trump is unfit for office

Former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile on Sunday dug into the 2024 GOP presidential candidates, arguing they don’t have the “guts” to say former President Trump is “unfit” for office but lauded former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as one candidate who has “shown some courage” on the matter.

“Look, I’ve watched all of the Republican debates, I’m probably one of maybe two Americans that have found these debates to be very interesting because, on one hand … because Donald Trump has remained the front-runner and the reason why is because none of them have the guts or the gall to say what they are privately saying to each other and to their friends and maybe their family, that he is unfit for office,” Brazile said Sunday during ABC News’s “This Week.”

Brazile was asked by “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl about Republican presidential candidate and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley’s earlier comments on the show where she said she appeared to both criticize and praise Trump.

Brazile argued Chris Christie is the only GOP presidential candidate to have “shown some courage” in saying Trump is unfit to be president. Christie has made criticism of Trump a central focus of his presidential campaign, while encouraging other GOP candidates to follow suit.

“What [Haley] tried to do today was just, like, try to go down the middle and say, ‘Well, I like this, but I don’t like that,'” Brazile continued, adding later, “If you cannot point out your differences with the front-runner, then I don’t think you have a strategy to win.”

“After all, [Trump] controls the Republican Party. He controls the MAGA movement. He’s in charge, and if you are not willing to say that I disagree with him that immigrants poison the blood of the country, or I disagree with him on the election results,” Brazile continued.

Brazile further pointed to Haley’s previous comments where she argued she is more “electable” than Trump when up against President Biden in a hypothetical general election because she can beat Biden by a wider margin.

Pushing back against the argument of electability, Brazile said, “If you are not willing to disagree and point out your own vision, then I don’t think you are electable.”

Trump maintains a strong lead in the GOP primary polls. As of Sunday, polling from Decision Desk HQ and The Hill found Trump has about 63 percent of the GOP primary vote, while Haley trails behind at 11.5 percent.