Republican war on The Donald stepped up as John McCain and 60 national security experts say a Trump presidency would make America less safe

Sen. John McCain has joined 60-plus leaders in the Republican national security community to blast Donald Trump's foreign policy prowess.

McCain, in statements made today knocked Trump's 'uninformed and indeed dangerous statements on national security issues.'  

The GOP experts penned an open letter warning that a Trump presidency would make 'America less safe' and would 'diminish our standing in the world.' 

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Sen. John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, put his weight behind Mitt Romney and 60-plus national security experts who warned against a Donald Trump presidency 

When Donald Trump was asked about the warnings coming from national security experts he said 'give me a break' and pointed to the United States' failed policies in the Middle East 

McCain came out and said he was supportive of another former GOP nominee, Mitt Romney, in his condemnation of Trump today at a speech delivered in Utah, according to the Associated Press. 

'I share the concerns about Donald Trump that my friend and former Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, described in his speech today,' McCain said in a statement. 

'I would also echo the many concerns about Mr. Trump's uninformed and indeed dangerous statements on national security issues that have been raised by 65 Republican defense and foreign policy leaders,' McCain continued.

'I want Republican voters to pay close attention to what our party's most respected and knowledgeable leaders and national security experts are saying about Mr. Trump,' McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, added. 

Former State Department official Eliot Cohen and former Romney adviser Bryan McGrath were the brainchildren behind the letter, released a day after Trump's seven Super Tuesday wins.

The letter notes that the signees 'represent a broad spectrum of opinion' in the GOP national security community and in the past the members have disagreed on the Iraq War and intervention in Syria.

'But we are united in our opposition to a Donald Trump presidency,' it said. 

The letter, which includes the signature of former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, than articulated nine points in which the experts felt Trump's foreign policy talk was objectionable. 

First the group found Trump's foreign policy positions 'wildly inconsistent' and 'unmoored in principle.' 

'He swings from isolationism to military adventurism within the space of one sentence,' the letter, published on the national security news website WarOnTheRocks.com, said.  

The experts pointed out that Trump calling for global trade wars, as he has against China, Japan and Mexico, would be a 'recipe for economic disaster in a globally connected world.' 

Torture, and Trump's embrace of waterboarding and more, was also 'inexcusable,' said the experts.

A month ago, at the GOP debate in Manchester, New Hampshire, Trump doubled down on his threat to use waterboarding to combat terrorism originating from the Middle East.

'I would bring back waterboarding. And I would bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding,' Trump announced on the debate stage, reminding the audience how groups like the Islamic State were 'chopping off the heads of people.' 

The letter also condemned Trump for his announcement last December that he, as president, would enforce a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States.  

'His hateful, anti-Muslim rhetoric undercuts the seriousness of combating Islamic radicalism by alienating partners in the Islamic world making significant contributions to the effort,' the letter said. 'Furthermore, it endangers the safety and Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of American Muslims.' 

While the national experts agreed that controlling the Southern border between the United States and Mexico was an important and serious issue, they believed that Trump was going about it all wrong. 

Trump's rhetoric – he's labeled Mexicans who've illegally come into the country criminals and 'rapists' – 'inflames unhelpful passions,' the signees argued. 

The billionaire suggesting that Japan pay for American protection, the experts agreed, was also unhelpful, as Japan has been a partner to the country since post-World War II. 

Moving onto Russia, the GOP national security experts criticized Trump's bromance with Vladimir Putin, saying admiration for the dictator was 'unacceptable for the leader of the world's greatest democracy.' 

The last two qualms the group had with Trump were regarding his basic character traits and his biography. 

First they called Trump 'fundamentally dishonest' as he's not been forthcoming about past positions on important issues like his stance on the Iraq War in 2003. The letter suggests that Trump was for the war, while today he says he was against it from the start. 

And old interview with Howard Stern discredits that, with Trump giving the plan to invade Iraq a tepid endorsement. 

Finally, the experts said that Trump's 'business acumen' cannot stand in for real foreign policy experience.

'Not all lethal conflicts can be resolved as a real estate deal might,' they wrote. 'And there is no recourse to bankruptcy court in international affairs.' 

Trump was asked to respond to the letter and to comments former CIA Director Michael Hayden made suggesting that the CIA could ignore Trump's torture order because it violated international law.

The Donald stood his ground.  

'I'll tell you how good our military is doing under Michael Hayden and people such as this,' Trump said. 'We've been fighting wars in the Middle East for 15 years, 18 years, we wree in for four or five trillion dollars, we don't know what we're doing, we don't know who we're fighting, we're arming people that we want on our side, we don't know who they are,' Trump began. 

'When they take over a country they're worse than people they depose,' he continued. 

'Give me a break,' Trump said. 

The billionaire frontrunner had yet to catch wind of McCain's renewed criticism, but in the past he labeled the senator and veteran, who was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, 'not a war hero.' 

'I like people who weren't captured,' Trump said, a month into his campaign. 

Those comments were expected to derail the billionaire's longshot bid for the White House.

They didn't.