Former President Ronald Reagan’s daughter ripped Donald Trump’s second term and said her father “would be grieving” the way he has isolated the U.S. from key allies.
Patti Davis told CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 on Tuesday that the late 40th president, who is considered a significant figure in America’s conservative movement, would also “be heartbroken” by the current U.S. president’s actions.
“The America that I grew up in, that we all have known, is one that had alliances and was friends with other countries, and it would go to other countries who were in trouble, who were being tyrannized, or invaded, or, you know, otherwise suffering from famines, for example,” she said.
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Trump has severed ties with many of the country’s allies since he returned to the White House in January. He has initiated trade wars with neighbors Canada and Mexico, in addition to China. Trump also publicly humiliated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during peace negotiations, barely concealing his plausible alliance with Russia and instigating unease amongst European leaders.
Davis told Cooper that these actions go against the belief that her father had instilled in her that the U.S. should “cross oceans to help” countries in trouble.
She reflected on the 1985 “We Are the World” song, which featured pop stars supporting aid being sent to Africa in the early days of her father’s second term.
“That’s the America that we know, and that we have been bonded with, and suddenly that America is no longer that. Suddenly we’re hated in the world,” Davis, who goes by her mother’s maiden name, said.
The 72-year-old has long been an outspoken critic of the GOP, including sometimes of her own father’s policies. However, as she told Cooper: “This is beyond politics.”
The former first daughter published an op-ed in The New York Times detailing what her father told her the night of his 1981 inauguration. She recalled how he said he ran for president to “make this world a safer, more peaceful place.” In the piece, she emphasized Reagan’s choice to speak of the “world” instead of just America.
She added that while she often disagreed with her father, she never doubted his intentions: “I knew he wanted America to be a strong partner in the world, bonding with other countries to defeat tyranny and aggression,” she wrote.
