From Newt to Trump

In 2007 Newt Gingrich was thinking of running for president. In 2011 he ran. Both times I reluctantly argued that he was the wrong man for the job, despite my agreement with lots of his policy proposals, as well as the good personal relations we had during the 1990s. (See “Mr. Right, Mr. Wrong” and “Has Newt Gingrich changed?”)

The reason: Gingrich had dumped a wife not just once but twice, and recklessly committed adultery from 1995 to 1998 at a time when he was leading the Republican Revolution. Based on what legislators, from Dick Armey to Barney Frank, told me, he left himself open for blackmail.

This concern was consistent with the historical research on private actions and public policy that had led to my book The American Leadership Tradition (1999). I didn’t argue that good husbands necessarily make good presidents—that’s demonstrably untrue. I did argue that bad husbands generally made bad presidents, because a man unfaithful to his wife is likely to be unfaithful to his country. Again, exceptions occur, but character counts.

What, then, of Donald Trump? Time is often inaccurate but it does try to avoid libel, so I suspect its reporting in 2011 was accurate: “The real estate magnate married his first wife, Ivana, in 1977, but … Trump left her with a reported $25 million settlement and married his mistress.” That second marriage to Marla Maples in 1993 didn’t last long, ending in 1999. Trump in 2005 married Slovenian supermodel Melania Knauss.

John Stemberger, president and general counsel of Florida Family Action, writes on CNN’s website that Trump, if elected, “would be the first president to: be married three times to different women, leaving each for the next woman” and “be proud of his sexual liberalities, openly stating in his book Think Big: Make It Happen in Business and Life that he has had sex with some of the ‘top women in the world.’”

Our current president is self-gratifying ideologically but apparently faithful in marriage, which is a great plus. For our next president to be great, he or she should be self-sacrificing and faithful. Donald Trump is far from that.