The USA Today editorial board told readers not to vote for Republican nominee Donald Trump on Sept. 30. The first time in its 34-year history the outlet has taken a side in a presidential race.
“This year, the choice isn’t between two capable major party nominees who happen to have significant ideological differences,” the editorial board wrote. “This year, one of the candidates—Republican nominee Donald Trump—is, by unanimous consensus of the Editorial Board, unfit for the presidency.”
The board went on to criticize Trump saying he “lacks the temperament, knowledge, steadiness and honesty that America needs from its presidents.”
The editorial board also said the Republican candidate is “erratic” and “ill-equipped” to be president.
The board also accused Trump of being a “serial liar,” and said that Clinton—despite her lower trustworthy ratings in polls—is more trustworthy than Trump.
“Trump is in a league of his own when it comes to the quality and quantity of his misstatements. When confronted with a falsehood, such as his assertion that he was always against the Iraq War, Trump’s reaction is to use the Big Lie technique of repeating it so often that people begin to believe it,” wrote the board.
However, the editorial board did not endorse the Democratic nominee.
“Stay true to your convictions. That might mean a vote for Clinton, the most plausible alternative to keep Trump out of the White House. Or it might mean a third-party candidate. Or a write-in,” the board wrote to readers. “By all means vote, just not for Donald Trump.”
Meanwhile, a member of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, Dorothy Rabinowitz, endorsed Clinton on Sept. 29.
“Her election alone is what stands between the American nation and the reign of the most unstable, proudly uninformed, psychologically unfit president ever to enter the White House,” Rabinowitz wrote.
The recent editorials come after various conservative papers backed away from Trump.
The Arizona Republic, which had never endorsed a Democrat over a Republican for president since it launched in 1890, announced it was backing Clinton on Sept. 27.
