Damage to country worse than Nixon's

George Will: Trump's 'public and constant' damage to country worse than Nixon's

By Caroline Kelly

Conservative columnist and Republican Party ex-pat George Will slammed President Donald Trump on Thursday for causing more damage to the United States than former President Richard Nixon.

When asked by CNN's John Berman on "New Day" about his previous comments that Trump has done more lasting damage to the country than Nixon did, Will highlighted Trump's "public and constant" approach.

"Nixon's burglaries and other abuses of power were surreptitious -- they were secret and when exposed, they were tidied up, and we moved on," Will said.

"What Mr. Trump is doing that is damaging to the country is public and constant, it is a bell he's ringing that can't be unrung," he added. "He's putting into our civic discourse a level of conversation and of name-calling and of abuse that will now seem perfectly normal in the future."

Will, a longtime conservative columnist at the Washington Post, famously left the Republican Party in 2016 and changed his voter registration to "unaffiliated" because of Trump.

"After Trump went after the 'Mexican' judge from northern Indiana then (House Speaker) Paul Ryan endorsed him, I decided that in fact this was not my party anymore," Will said on "Fox News Sunday" at the time.

Will on Thursday also criticized Trump for echoing North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's jab at former Vice President Joe Biden as having a "low IQ" during a recent trip to Japan.

"Try to imagine any president prior to this one referring overseas to an opponent as he did to Mr. Biden," Will said, adding, "that's just not the way -- our children, if they were ten years old, we'd send them to their room without supper if they talked like that."