Jon Huntsman’s love letters to President Obama and former President Bill Clinton highlight just how “disloyal” Huntsman is to turn on his boss and run for president as a Republican, real estate mogul Donald Trump told The Daily Caller in an interview.
“It’s a tough situation he’s put himself in,” Trump said. “He worked for somebody and it seems awfully disloyal when you work for somebody and then run against them, especially in light of letters. It’s not as if he went out angry. He went out happy.”
As reported by TheDC, Huntsman told Obama in a handwritten letter from August 2009 he is a “remarkable leader,” underlying the word “remarkable,” adding that “it has been a great honor getting to know you.”
And in an earlier note to former Democratic President Bill Clinton, Huntsman admired Clinton’s “brilliant analysis of world events” and implausibly claimed Hillary Clinton has “even more charisma” than Bill, punctuating the thought with an exclamation point.
The issue has highlighted Huntsman’s political vulnerabilities heading into a GOP primary — namely, that he could be too moderate to appeal to GOP voters. Some political experts say the letters imperil Huntsman’s very candidacy.
Trump, who has rocketed to the top tier of potential Republican nominees by questioning Obama’s birthplace, offered another reason the letters will hurt Huntsman — by putting the spotlight on his record as the American ambassador in Beijing.
“China has been pillaging the United States for years and if you’re the ambassador to China well they’ve been pillaging the United States, that’s pretty tough,” said Trump.
The television star and maybe-candidate staked a hard line on foreign affairs when he headlined a Boca Raton, Fla., Tea Party rally this past weekend.
“If I run and win, our country will be respected again,” said Trump at the Rally.. “And China and OPEC and all of the many nation that are ripping off this great country of ours will be dealt with very, very differently.”
At the rally, Trump said he wanted business leaders negotiating with foreign countries because they were “vicious, ruthless, horrible human beings in person.”
“A diplomat is a person that studies hard,” said Trump before the crowd of thousands. “You know what they learn? How to be nice to be people. I don’t want nice people.”
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