Top Bush aide to GOP: ‘It’s time to panic’

A former aide to President George W. Bush and opinion writer for The Washington Post wrote Thursday night that it’s time for the GOP to “panic” about President Trump’s fitness for office.

Michael Gerson, who served as a deputy assistant and director of speechwriting in the Bush administration, writes that Trump’s personal conflicts with his advisers, aides and lawmakers in his own party should concern leaders that Trump’s “unfitness” to serve as president could do permanent damage to the country.

“It is no longer possible to safely ignore the leaked cries for help coming from within the administration,” Gerson writes. “They reveal a president raging against enemies, obsessed by slights, deeply uninformed and incurious, unable to focus, and subject to destructive whims.”

{mosads}The president’s feud with Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) has made headlines this month, as have reports that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called Trump a “moron,” that chief of staff John Kelly is frustrated to the point of wanting to leave his post and that Trump “hates everyone in the White House.”

In the op-ed, Gerson railed against the GOP and accused Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) of “bland complacency” in Trump’s antics, warning that it is time for elected Republicans to voice their concerns about the president as Corker has.

“The time for whispered criticisms and quiet snickering is over,” Gerson writes. “The time for panic and decision is upon us.”