'Fools?' Conservative blasts Trump for being voice of 'old-world autocracy'

Conservative writer Bill Kristol harkened back to the "older and simpler days" of "republican virtue" in his latest piece for The Bulwark, which accuses President Donald Trump of carrying on the voice of "old-world autocracy."

"I’m old enough to remember when this was a republic. A proud republic," Kristol wrote. "We were proud to be different from the principalities and powers of the old world. We were confident of our superiority to the hereditary aristocracies and monarchies that had dominated political life everywhere on the globe, and that still did in many places."

To outline his point, Kristol cited passages from The Federalist Papers — written around 1787 by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay — that spoke out against nobility, emoluments, and taking gifts from kings.

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Exhibit number one was Trump's Sunday post to Truth Social justifying a $400 million jumbo jet "gift" from the Qatari royal family:

"So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane. Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!! MAGA"

"This is the voice of old-world autocracy," Kristol wrote. "Those who take seriously the constraints and requirements of republican government are fools. Those who care that our republican government not be dependent on foreign states, that our elected leaders not take favors from foreign princes, they are losers."

Kristol continued sarcastically, "But not to worry. Attorney General Pam Bondi—once a registered lobbyist for Qatar, as it happens—has concluded that the transaction is permissible under U.S. law and the Constitution."

Kristol called on Congress to debate the appropriateness of a president of the United States accepting a "present" or "emolument" from "a King, Prince, or foreign state," as outlined in The Federalist Papers. Kristol wrote that the Founding Fathers meant for Congress alone to determine whether a U.S. president should receive an exception to the ban on emoluments. By subverting Congress, Kristol posits, Trump is acting more like a king than the leader of the republic.

Read The Bulwark article here.