Former Prime Minister John Howard says he could never vote for Donald Trump.
Howard, 85, said the former US president’s refusal to accept the results of the 2020 US election effectively made him unfit to lead the country again.
The former Australian prime minister said he was “glad” not to have to choose a candidate in the US election, but reserved his harshest words for Trump.
He said Trump’s behavior after the 2020 election had not been “compatible with democracy.”
“I think Donald Trump should have left the field when the referee raised his finger,” Howard said. 9Newsusing a cricket analogy.
The former prime minister said Trump’s refusal to accept the result of the last election and his subsequent attempts to overturn it were not compatible with a democratic system.
Mr Howard said he did not envy those who voted in the US election on 5 November and that he considered the choice to be a difficult one.
“Under normal circumstances I would be in favor of a Republican victory without hesitation, but there are reasons why I cannot do so on this occasion,” Howard said.
John Howard believes Donald Trump is “not compatible with democracy” after the 2020 elections
Mr Howard said he was not particularly impressed by Kamala Harris either.
He doesn’t think she has a good idea of how to run the American economy.
The former Liberal leader said he was concerned that the Harris administration was spending too much and too irresponsibly.
He expressed his view that the flaws of the American democratic system had been exposed in the campaigns and said that the American political system was far inferior to that of Australia.
“In a parliamentary system, Donald Trump would never have risen to the leadership of the Republicans, and I don’t think Kamala Harris would ever have risen to the leadership of the Democrats,” he said.
Trump was criticized for his behavior after the 2020 election and his role in the January 6 riots, but Howard also disliked Kamala Harris.
Trump, 78, claimed a “fraudulent” election in 2020 handed the presidency to Joe Biden.
He declared he had won the election long before a consensus was reached on the recount and took legal action in several states to get the votes recounted.
He further claimed he had won the election after the Electoral College formally voted Biden into office, skipped Biden’s inauguration and gave a speech in Washington DC urging his supporters that the election had been stolen before about 2,000 people stormed the Capitol.