INDIANAPOLIS -- He isn't saying he won't support him, but former Senator Richard Lugar says Donald Trump needs to take national security more seriously during the presidential campaign.
“His experience is very limited in national security. This worries a number of us, including myself," Lugar said during an interview on Indianapolis This Week. "We have very complex relationships, keeping our NATO allies alive at this point, trying to pivot to Asia – huge dilemmas obviously in the middle east and northern Africa. Maybe Mr. Trump will speak to those problems in due course of the campaign. Thus far, that has not been the case."
Lugar was well known for his foreign policy prowess during his six terms in the Senate, and he says the Republican candidate must do more than talk about building walls on the border with Mexico or keeping illegal immigrants or some Muslims out of the country. "It’s almost totally irrelevant to the dangers we face leaving aside such technical problems as cyber security. Plus terrorism, the nuclear material in 24 nations, some of it not as well guarded as it should be," Lugar said, though he would not go so far as to describe Trump's campaign rhetoric as dangerous. "I will always believe there are possibilities for education, for study, for coming to grips with really what the world it, but this is really what he still needs to do.”
The former Republican Senator also would not say whether he would vote for Trump in November. “I’m not going to make any comment about the fall. I’m going to wait to see how this campaign shapes up.”
