Ronald Reagan’s Daughter Shares What Her Dad Would Have Thought Of Trump
Patti Davis, daughter of former United States President and conservative icon Ronald Regan, didn’t mince words when she said what her father would think of the current state of the Republican Party in general and Donald Trump in particular, as Yahoo! News reports.
“There’s no resemblance to the Republican Party of my father’s time,” Davis said, referring to the modern-era GOP which has been all but redefined by Trump’s ascendency to the presidency.
The remarks came during an installment of Through Her Eyes, which is a weekly interview program hosted by human rights activist Zainab Salbi. The show explores modern issues from a woman’s perspective.
Davis criticized the Republican Party for failing to stand up to Trump’s more authoritarian tendencies, including what she characterized as the president’s frequent disregard for the Constitution. She referred to “crickets” heard from Republicans when Trump’s actions undermine and erode long-cherished constitutional protections.
“I mean, they don’t say anything. They don’t stand up to him.” she said.
Davis is largely critical of how the Republican Party has failed to keep their unprecedented president in check but reserves plenty of ire for Trump himself, who she characterizes as a danger to democracy.
“He talks like an autocrat,” she said at one point in the interview.
“He befriends autocrats. He supports autocrats. He believes them. He wants to be one.”
Patti Davis, Reagan's daughter:
"How about the crickets when Trump keeps assaulting the constitution. I mean, they don't say anything. They don’t stand up to him."
"He befriends autocrats. He supports autocrats. He believes them. He wants to be one."https://t.co/KadNxXwoNV
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 20, 2019
The wide-ranging interview touches on a number of hot-button Trump-related staples, including immigration, political discourse, and national divisions deepened by partisan rhetoric. Davis says that all of those issues have changed dramatically since her father was in office.
But what about the big question on the mind of so many viewers? What would President Reagan himself think about the Trump era?
“I think he would be horrified,” she said.
“I think he would be heartbroken, because he loved this country a lot and he believed in this country.”
She admitted that she and her father had disagreed politically during his lifetime, but remained confident in her assessment of how the former president would have felt about the current state of the party for which he was once an indisputable figurehead.
Davis was also asked about recent comments by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in which the congresswoman described what she saw as a strong racial component to Reagan’s political philosophy in general.
“One perfect example – a perfect example – of how special interests and the powerful have pitted white working-class Americans against brown and black working Americans in order to just screw over all working-class Americans is Reaganism in the ’80s,” Ocasio-Cortez said during a widely-publicized interview at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas.
Davis did not have any comment on the statement or the heated political discussion it immediately kicked off.
