'I’ve thrown up my hands in despair at the state of the GOP': Here are people who left the Republican Party in 2018 because of Trump

President Donald Trump has been highly scrutinized since he took office about two years ago. He has drawn bipartisan criticism.

Trump has had an unprecedented term that has been filled with corruption and scandals. His family separation policy, mass dislike for the media, and failing to act with class and respect has caused life-long Republicans to leave the GOP.

Here are five people who cite Trump as their reason for leaving the Republican party.

1. Veteran GOP strategist Steve Schmidt

“The American people are fed a daily diet of nonsense-talk and lies in the form of what is effectively state media on Fox News and nobody should underestimate the threat posed by a political party where conservatism is now defined by absolute obedience to a leader with autocratic tendencies who fetishizes dictators and autocrats all over the world,” told the Daily Beast.

2. Susan Bevan and Susan Cullman leaders of Republican Majority for Choice

"We don’t have the space to outline President Trump’s transgressions, but it is important to understand that his rise is an inevitable result of the hostility to women within the Republican culture," they wrote in an article for The New York Times.

3. Ohio Republican Party Chairman Chris Gagin

"I resigned as a county GOP chairman after Donald Trump surrendered to Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. My fellow Republicans have abandoned their principles," he told USA Today.

4. Conservative columnist Max Boot

"Personally, I’ve thrown up my hands in despair at the debased state of the GOP. I don’t want to be identified with the party of the child-snatchers" he wrote in The Washington Post.

5. Tom Nichols a professor at the U.S. Naval War College

"Politics is about the exercise of power. But the new Trumpist GOP is not exercising power in the pursuit of anything resembling principles, and certainly not for conservative or Republican principles," wrote in The Atlantic.