The Democrats’ Secret Weapon

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.

The Democrats have a secret weapon in their effort to defeat Donald Trump. At least 26 former top Trump administration officials — including Cabinet members and his Vice President — have said that Trump is unfit to be president. They’ve expressed their concerns about his character, his leadership, his impulsiveness, and his narcissism, among other traits. The opposition from so many former close aides is unprecedented in the annals of American politics.

As the campaign moves into its crucial final months after a tumultuous and history-making summer, the Democrats should keep these statements in heavy rotation, resurfacing video clips and newspaper headlines about the critiques these one-time Trump allies have made of their former boss. These insiders are as well positioned as anyone to remind voters about Trump’s personal and political flaws.

An even more dramatic scenario — perhaps outside of Democrats’ ability to effectuate — would see some of these one-time Trump allies come together to issue a joint statement, or even hold a joint press conference, affirming their opposition to the former president. They don’t even have to say they’ll vote for Kamala Harris. They simply have to remind American voters about their serious concerns about the Republican candidate for president.

Vice President Mike Pence

In an interview with the Washington Post in March, former vice president Pence, once one of Trump’s most loyal defenders, said that he would not endorse Trump. Referring to Trump’s approach to Russia, China, and other issues, Pence told Fox News that “Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years, and that is why I cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump in this campaign.”

Trump pressured Pence to prevent Biden from becoming president as Congress affirmed the Electoral College ballots. Pence insisted that he had no power to do so. At that point, during the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol building, Trump remained silent while rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence.” Pence had to flee the Senate chamber.  

“The American people deserve to know that President Trump asked me to put him over my oath to the Constitution,” Pence said in his interview with Fox News. “Anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States.”

James Mattis, Defense Secretary

In December 2018, Mattis wrote a scathing resignation letter, noting that he did not support Trump’s views, including the president’s plans to withdraw troops from Syria. Mattis said he resigned after “concrete solutions and strategic advice, especially keeping faith with our allies, no longer resonated.”

In June 2020, Mattis expressed even harsher criticism, focusing on Trump’s handling of demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

He called Trump “the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people.”

“The words ‘Equal Justice Under Law’ are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court,” Mattis wrote. “This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind.”

“We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership,” Mattis continued. “We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children,” he wrote.

“We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution,” Mattis said.

After the January 6, 2021 insurrection, Mattis accused Trump of using his position to “destroy trust in our election and to poison our respect for fellow citizens.”

Mark Esper, Defense Secretary

In July 2023, Esper, another former Trump Defense Secretary, told CNN that Trump is not “fit for office because he puts himself first, and I think anybody running for office should put the country first.”

That was not the first time that he expressed criticisms of his former boss. In May 2022, Esper told MSNBC that the Republican Party had to find a different leader.

“Any elected official needs to meet some basic criteria: They need to be able to put country over self. They need to have a certain level of integrity and principle,” Esper said. “They need to be able to reach across the aisle and bring people together and unite the country.” He observed: “Donald Trump doesn’t meet those marks for me.”

In his 2022 memoir “A Sacred Oath,” Esper called Trump’s decision to skip Biden’s swearing-in “a final act of petulance” that “tarnished our democracy.” He wrote that Trump is “unprincipled,” “petty,” “dangerous,” and prone to “outright fabrications.”

In March of this year, he told HBO’s Bill Maher that “there’s no way” he would support Trump in November because he believes the former president “is a threat to democracy.”

“I think he’s unfit for office,” he said in another interview. “He puts himself before country. His actions are all about him and not about the country. And then, of course, I believe he has integrity and character issues as well.”

While serving as Defense Secretary, Esper clashed with Trump over several matters, including Trump’s eagerness to deploy military troops to respond to civil unrest after the murder of George Floyd. Trump fired Esper shortly after the 2020 election.

Mark Milley, chair, Joint Chiefs of Staff

Milley, a retired Army general, served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from October 1, 2019, to September 30, 2023. “We don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator,” Milley warned in his farewell speech, clearly referring to Trump. “We take an oath to the Constitution and we take an oath to the idea that is America — and we’re willing to die to protect it.”

Milley’s speech occurred days after Trump suggested that Milley, the nation’s top military officer, should be put to death over reports that, while Trump was in office, Milley had contacted his Chinese counterpart to assure him that the U.S. was not preparing to attack. On social media, Trump wrote that, “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”

Milley had long been concerned that Trump had inappropriately used the military for his own political ends.

On June 1, 2020, amid nationwide protests over the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, Trump summoned Milley and other top administration officials to walk with him from the White House to St. John’s Episcopal Church, where Trump held up a Bible and posed for a photo in front of the church’s parish house, which had been damaged by a fire set during the protests the night before.

Milley was still wearing combat fatigues from a previous event. Once he realized that Trump was using him as a political pawn, Milley quickly left before they reached the church. He told Defense Secretary Mike Esper, who had also been summoned to accompany Trump, that he felt “sick” and was “fucking done with this shit.”

Milley considered resigning over the incident, even drafting a very critical resignation letter to Trump, noting that “You are using the military to create fear in the minds of the people” and that the president was “doing irreparable harm to the nation.” Although Milley decided not to send it, he publicly apologized for his presence on the walk which could have created a perception of military involvement in domestic politics. The letter was later published in 2022. 

After Trump lost the 2020 election, Milley held informal talks with his deputies about his fears that Trump would try to unlawfully remain in office. He told them, “They may try, but they’re not going to fucking succeed. You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with the guns.”

According to reports, Milley called Trump’s efforts to overturn the election a “Reichstag moment,” referring to the Nazis’ suspension of civil liberties in Germany. Milley called Trump’s false statements about election fraud “the gospel of the Fuhrer.” Prior to Joe Biden’s inauguration, Milley met with police and military officials, warning, “Everyone in this room, whether you’re a cop, whether you’re a soldier, we’re going to stop these guys to make sure we have a peaceful transfer of power. We’re going to put a ring of steel around this city and the Nazis aren’t getting in.”

On January 12, 2021, Milley and the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a statement condemning the insurrection at the Capitol carried out by Trump’s supporters, observing that members of the military have an obligation to defend the Constitution and reject extremism.

John Kelly, White House chief of staff

Kelly, who served as chief of staff from 2017 to 2019, has been one of Trump’s most vocal detractors. He advocated against a second Trump term.

“What’s going on in the country that a single person thinks this guy would still be a good president when he’s said the things he’s said and done the things he’s done?” Kelly, a retired Marine Corps four-star general, told the Washington Post. “It’s beyond my comprehension he has the support he has.”

Kelly told CNN that Trump “admires autocrats and murderous dictators” and “has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.”

Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State

Almost from the time he joined the Trump administration as its first Secretary of State, Tillerson clashed with the president, and within a year he was on the verge of resigning. In July 2017, news stories reported that Tillerson had referred to Trump as a “moron.” He did not deny using that term, simply saying, “I’m not going to deal with petty stuff like that.”

Trump fired Tillerson in March 2018 and replaced him with then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo. 

In an interview with Foreign Affairs magazine, Tillerson recounted that Trump’s “understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of U.S. history was really limited.” He said, “It’s really hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t even understand the concept for why we’re talking about this.”

In 2018, Tillerson also called Trump “undisciplined” and said that Trump would ask him to do things he didn’t understand were a violation of the law.

“When the President would say, ‘Here’s what I want to do and here’s how I want to do it.’ And I’d have to say to him, ‘Well Mr. President, I understand what you want to do, but you can’t do it that way. It violates the law. It violates treaty,’” Tillerson said.

Tillerson added: “He got really frustrated … I think he grew tired of me being the guy every day that told him you can’t do that and let’s talk about what we can do.”

Tillerson also publicly criticized Trump for trying to get Ukraine’s president to undertake an investigation of Joe Biden’s son Hunter as a condition of getting U.S. military aid. Tillerson said that “clearly asking for personal favors and using United States assets as collateral is wrong.”

John Bolton, National Security Adviser

In a 2022 interview, Bolton observed that “the central point that is clear throughout his tenure as president is that it was always all about Donald Trump, and, for him, the only norm that matters is, ‘Does this benefit me?’”

In January, Bolton, a fixture in Republican foreign policy circles who was Trump’s national security adviser from 2018 to 2019 after serving as UN Ambassador, told CNN: “I think they think — Xi Jinping, and Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and others — they think he’s a laughing fool. And they’re fully prepared to take advantage of him. Trump’s self-absorption makes it impossible for him to understand that.”

In his 2020 book, The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, Bolton described Trump’s “inconsistent, scattershot decision-making” driven by “reelection calculations” rather than national security. He wrote that Trump directed him to help pressure Ukraine to dig up dirt on Democrats. He claimed that Trump also directed him to set up a meeting between Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky, and Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.

Trump fired Bolton in September 2019.

Bolton has repeatedly said that he won’t vote for Trump but will work to secure a Republican Senate.

H. R. McMaster, National Security Adviser

In October 2019, as Trump faced impeachment over his actions in Ukraine, a reporter asked his former national security advisor if it is appropriate for a president to solicit foreign interference in the U.S. political process.

“No, it’s absolutely not,” McMaster said.

Soon after the January 6, 2021 insurrection, McMaster told CNN’s Jake Tapper that Trump had incited the riot through “sustained disinformation… spreading these unfounded conspiracy theories.” He accused Trump of “anti-leadership” and “undermining rule of law.”

“We saw the absence of leadership, really anti-leadership, and what that can do to our country.”

Tom Bossert, Homeland Security adviser

Trump’s first Homeland Security advisor, Bossert, told ABC’s “This Week” that he was “deeply disturbed” by Trump’s call with the Ukrainian President. Bossert said that he had told Trump there was no basis for the idea that Ukraine intervened to help Democrats in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a conspiracy theory that Trump embraced.  

Bossert also criticized Trump for not wearing a face mask in public amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“Do as I say, not as I do isn’t very useful,” Bossert told “This Week.”

Bossert agreed with other former Trump officials who condemned the former president’s role in inciting the insurrection.

“This is beyond wrong and illegal. It’s un-American,” Bossert tweeted. “The President undermined American democracy baselessly for months. As a result, he’s culpable for this siege, and an utter disgrace.”

Richard Spencer, Secretary of the Navy

Spencer harshly criticized Trump’s intervention in a war crimes case, calling his actions “shocking and unprecedented.”

The controversy involved Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher, who was charged with multiple war crimes, including premeditated murder, before being convicted of a single lesser charge after posing next to a dead ISIS fighter’s body, which is against regulations. In November 2019, Trump reversed Gallagher’s demotion and pardoned two other service members also accused of war crimes. He also tweeted that he wouldn’t let the Navy kick Gallagher out of the Seals. These actions angered military leaders, who had warned Trump that his decisions could undermine military order and discipline, damage the integrity of the military justice system, and erode the confidence of American allies who host U.S. troops.  

Spencer was fired for trying to resolve the disagreement over Gallagher’s fate between the Pentagon and the White House.

In a Washington Post op-ed, Spencer wrote that Trump’s interference in the Gallagher case was “a reminder that the president has very little understanding of what it means to be in the military, to fight ethically or to be governed by a uniform set of rules and practices.”

Mick Mulvaney, White House Chief of Staff

Mulvaney resigned as Trump’s special envoy to Ireland after January 6, 2021 because “I think he failed at being the president when we needed him to be that.”

Mulvaney, a former congressman from South Carolina, had earlier served of Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and chief of staff.

Last year, he told NBC News that he didn’t want Trump to win the GOP nomination again. “I’m working hard to make sure that someone else is the nominee,” he said.

Matthew Pottinger, Deputy National Security Advisor 

Like Mulvaney and other Trump administration officials, Pottinger resigned after the January 6 insurrection, leaving the White House the next morning.

A former Marine Corps officer, Pottinger was one of Trump’s longest-serving senior aides, joining the administration in 2017 as Asia director on the National Security Council before taking the deputy security advisor position.

In testimony before Congress, Pottinger said that on the afternoon of January 6 he urged chief of staff Mark Meadows to persuade Trump to ask the rioters to leave. Pottinger testified that he decided to resign when he saw Trump’s 2:24 p.m. tweet deriding Pence.

“I simply didn’t want to be associated with the events that were unfolding at the Capitol,” he said, noting that Trump’s tweet added “fuel to the fire.”

In March 2023 he told the Washington Post that he wouldn’t support Trump’s bid for a second term. He said “I’m likely to support other candidates this time around.” 

Gary Cohn, director, National Economic Council

Cohn served as Trump’s chief economic advisor and director of the National Economic Council from 2017 to 2018. Before joining Trump’s team, he worked for 25 years at Goldman Sachs, rising to become its president and chief operations officer.

Cohn considered resigning over Trump’s response to the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. He was appalled when Trump said that there were “good people” on “both sides” of the protests. Cohn publicly said “this administration can and must do better in consistently and unequivocally condemning” white nationalists, noting “Citizens standing up for equality and freedom can never be equated with white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the KKK.”

The following March, Cohn did resign, after Trump announced a plan to impose import tariffs on steel and aluminum against his advice.

After he resigned, Cohn told CNN that he was “concerned” there was no one left in Trump’s staff to stand up to him and tell him what he didn’t want to hear.

“We had an interesting nucleus of people when I was in the White House — the initial team. We were not bashful. It was a group that was willing to tell the President what he needed to know, whether he wanted to hear it or not,” Cohn said. “None of us are there any more. So I am concerned that the atmosphere in the White House is no longer conducive, or no one has the personality to stand up and tell the President what he doesn’t want to hear,” he said.

Sarah Matthews, deputy White House press secretary

Matthews supported Nikki Haley in the Republican primaries. In February, she told the Washington Post that if her choice was between Trump and Joe Biden, she’d vote for Biden.

“We can survive bad policy from a second Biden administration,” Matthews said, “but I don’t think we can survive a second Trump term, in terms of our democracy.”

Matthews witnessed Trump staffers trying, without success, to get the president to condemn the January 6 violence.

“In my eyes, it was a complete dereliction of duty that he did not uphold his oath of office,” she told USA TODAY. “I lost all faith in him that day.”

She resigned from her job and later testified before the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack. 

Trump’s “continuation of pushing this lie that the election is stolen has made him wholly unfit to hold office every again,” Matthews said.

“We saw he didn’t go along with the peaceful transfer of power the first time,” she told Congress. “What makes you think he would go along with it if he were elected to a second term and he would be willing to leave office?”

Stephanie Grisham, White House press secretary

Grisham, who served as Trump’s press secretary and as Melania Trump’s chief of staff, said she’d be willing to help prepare Biden for a debate with her one-time boss.

“I am terrified of him running in 2024,” she told ABC News in 2021.

Grisham, who resigned after the January 6 riot, said that Trump isn’t “fit for the job,” observing: “I think that he is erratic. I think that he can be delusional. I think that he is a narcissist and cares about himself first and foremost. And I do not want him to be our president again.”

Alyssa Farah Griffin, director of strategic communications

Griffin, who served as Trump’s White House communication director, told The Post earlier this year that Trump “is a threat to democracy, and I will never support him.”

“Fundamentally, a second Trump term could mean the end of American democracy as we know it, and I don’t say that lightly,” Griffin told ABC in December.

Anthony Scaramucci, White House communications director

Scaramucci called Trump “the domestic terrorist of the 21st century.”

He lasted less than two weeks in his White House job, fired for a number of gaffes that embarrassed Trump. After he was let go, Scaramucci continued to defend Trump until the president visited El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, following two mass shootings. He called Trump’s remarks a “catastrophe,” and said they “divide the country in a way that is unacceptable.” He later called Trump’s attacks on four congresswomen of color “racist and unacceptable.” He has refused to support Trump for re-election.

Cassidy Hutchinson, White House aide

“I will say my door is completely shut to voting for Donald Trump,”  said Hutchinson, a top aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, in an interview with MSNBC.

“I think that Donald Trump is the most grave threat we will face to our democracy in our lifetime, and potentially in American history,” she told CNN’s Jake Tapper last year.

Ty Cobb, White House attorney

Trump “has never cared about America, its citizens, its future or anything but himself,” wrote Cobb, Trump’s White House counsel, in an email to The Washington Post last year. “In fact, as history well shows from his divisive lies, as well as from his unrestrained contempt for the rule of law and his related crimes, his conduct and mere existence have hastened the demise of democracy and of the nation.”

If Trump is re-elected, “the consequences will extinguish what, if anything, remains of the American Dream,” Cobb wrote. He told the Post that he would vote for Biden.

Omarosa Manigault Newman, director of communications for the White House Office of Public Liaison

Newman claimed she was fired because she knew too much about a possible audio recording of Trump saying a racial epithet.

In her book, “Unhinged: An Insider Account of the Trump White House,” Newman added other harsh criticisms of her former boss. “Donald Trump, who would attack civil rights icons and professional athletes, who would go after grieving black widows, who would say there were good people on both sides, who endorsed an accused child molester; Donald Trump, and his decisions and his behavior, was harming the country. I could no longer be a part of this madness,” she wrote in her book.

Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation

Chao, a wealthy businesswoman who served in George W. Bush’s cabinet and then was Trump’s transportation secretary for his entire term, resigned after the January 6 insurrection: “At a particular point the events were such that it was impossible for me to continue, given my personal values and my philosophy.

Chao, who is married to Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, said the violent attack on the Capitol “has deeply troubled me in a way that I simply cannot set aside.”

Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education.

DeVos, a major donor to conservative causes and politicians who Trump tapped to be his Secretary of Education, also resigned after the January 6 insurrection.

“When I saw what was happening on January 6 and didn’t see the president step in and do what he could have done to turn it back or slow it down or really address the situation,” she said in an interview with USA Today, “it was just obvious to me that I couldn’t continue.”

Chris Christie, Vice Chair, Trump transition team

The former New Jersey governor, who was vice chair of Trump’s transition team in 2016 and then ran against him in the 2024 GOP primaries, called Trump a “coward” and a “puppet of Putin.” Trump is “just out for himself,” Christie told CNN last September.

Trump is “the cheapest S.O.B. I’ve ever met in my life,” Christie told Politico in June 2023. “This is a billionaire who refused to pay his lawyers with his own personal money, and instead, men and women out there who believe in him and wanted [him] to be elected president are donating money to try to forward his candidacy … and he’s diverting that money to pay his own legal fees.”

Jeff Sessions, Attorney General

Several of Trump’s one-time harshest critics — including Senators Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Lindsey Graham, and the GOP’s current Vice Presidential candidate JD Vance — flip-flopped and fell in line with the MAGA movement. Three of Trump’s most high-profile Cabinet members — Attorneys General Jeff Sessions and William Barr, along with UN Ambassador Nikki Haley — followed the same path, lambasting Trump after they left the administration, then crawled back to kiss Trump’s ring when it was clear that he’d be the GOP’s nominee for president this year.

Alabama’s Sessions was the first U.S. Senator to endorse Trump in 2016. Trump appointed him Attorney General and on almost every issue, Sessions was a loyal servant, doing Trump’s bidding. But in 2017, Trump asked Sessions to stop the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s interference on behalf of Trump in the 2016 election.

Sessions refused to do so, recusing himself from any involvement in the investigation, in part because he had met with Russian officials on Trump’s behalf during the election.

That triggered months of public and private conflict between Trump and Sessions. On November 7, 2018, Sessions resigned at Trump’s request.

Sessions ran in the 2020 Senate election in Alabama to reclaim his former seat. During that race, Trump continued to slam Sessions for recusing himself and endorsed his Republican primary opponent, Tommy Tuberville, who won the primary and the general election.

“Look, I know your anger, but recusal was required by law. I did my duty & you’re damn fortunate I did. It protected the rule of law & resulted in your exoneration,” Sessions tweeted during the Senate race. “Your personal feelings don’t dictate who Alabama picks as their senator, the people of Alabama do.”

In July, Sessions told the Post he would again support his former boss.  “I do plan to support President Trump,” he said when contacted by a reporter.

William Barr, Attorney General

In June 2023, in a CBS interview, Barr called Trump a “consummate narcissist” who “constantly engages in reckless conduct that puts his political followers at risk and the conservative and Republican agenda at risk.” Two months later he told CNN, “I don’t think he should be near the Oval Office.” He also said “Voting for Trump is playing Russian roulette with the country,” according to Axios’s Mike Allen. Barr told NBC News that, “I have made clear that I strongly oppose Trump for the nomination and will not endorse Trump,” but he later said that “it’s inconceivable to me that I wouldn’t vote for the Republican nominee.”

While serving as AG, Barr defended Trump’s actions as president while, he said, privately and repeatedly telling his boss that he had lost and that election fraud was not a serious problem. After he left the administration, he said that Trump’s indictment over the January 6, 2021 insurrection was fair and said that the Justice Department had a “legitimate case” against Trump.

Nikki Haley, U.N. ambassador

Haley, who served as Trump’s U.N. ambassador, was very critical of him before and as she ran against him in the GOP primaries this year. She was Trump’s last major challenger before she dropped out of the race in early March.

In January, while campaigning in Iowa, Haley said the United States would not “survive” another four years of Trump. “The reality is, rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him, and we all know that’s true,” she said. “We can’t have a country in disarray and a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos. We won’t survive it.”

During her campaign for the GOP nomination, Haley called Trump “toxic,” “unhinged” and lacking “moral clarity.” Criticizing Trump’s lack of military service, Haley said, “The closest he’s come to harm’s way is a golf ball hitting him on a golf cart.”

“Someone who continually disrespects the sacrifices of military families has no business being commander in chief,” said Haley after Trump mocked Haley’s husband, who was overseas on a military deployment.

Soon after the January 6 riot, Haley said that “A terrible thing happened on January 6 and he [Trump] called it a beautiful day.” Haley said that Trump’s “actions since Election Day will be judged harshly by history.” She told Politico, “he went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again.” 

But in May, after suspending her campaign, Haley said she would vote for Trump, and then spoke at the Republican convention enthusiastically supporting him.