Four years ago, Democratic Convention attendees booed Mitt Romney as he ran to unseat President Barack Obama. But on Wednesday, they cheered him for speaking out against Donald Trump in a video that used Republicans’ words to paint Trump as unfit to lead.
The video, entitled “Solemn Responsibility,” features past presidents including Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan to talk about what weighty responsibilities the president holds. It intercuts their statements with videos of modern-day Republicans like ex-New York Gov. George Pataki, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and Romney ripping into Trump.
Pataki earned some of the Democrats’ loudest cheers by flatly saying in the video that Trump isn’t fit to be president.
All of the footage appeared to be from previous interviews; none of the Republicans seems to have given a statement to help Democrats assemble their anti-Trump video. The video was played Wednesday as Democrats turned the focus of their convention to what they say is Trump’s foreign policy recklessness and ineptitude.
Among the moments they surfaced was Trump making fun of Sen. John McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential candidate, for being shot down in Vietnam. McCain was tortured for years, but refused a deal that would have allowed him to go home.
Retired Rear Admiral John Hutson, who said he used to vote Republican, told delegates from the stage that Trump was “not fit to polish John McCain’s boots.”
He noted that Trump has also praised dictators, including Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
“I taught national security law,” said Hutson. “Praising dictators is an automatic ‘F’ in my class.”