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Republican
presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Cincinnati,
Ohio, on October 13, 2016 ©David Kohl (AFP)
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Some of the Republican
Party's biggest financial donors urged its national committee on Thursday to
drop Donald Trump following accusations he sexually assaulted women, The New York Times reported.
In
a further sign the Republican presidential candidate's free-falling campaign is
sowing deep divisions within a party in crisis, the paper quoted some of those
who have given millions of dollars to Republicans as saying the scandal
surrounding the real estate billionaire threatens the party with lasting damage
unless it repudiates him.
"At
some point, you have to look in the mirror and recognize that you cannot
possibly justify support for Trump to your children -- especially your
daughters," Missouri businessman David Humphreys told The New York Times, which said he contributed more than US$2.5
million (€2.3 million) in the past four years.
"He
is a dangerous demagogue completely unsuited to the responsibilities of a
United States president," New York investor Bruce Kovner said in an email
to the daily.
"Even
for loyalists, there is a line beyond which the obvious moral failings of a
candidate are impossible to disregard," he wrote. "That line has been
clearly breached."
- Deepening rifts -
The
criticism extends to Republican leaders who continue to stick by Trump,
including Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus.
"Reince
should be fired and replaced with someone who has the competence and leadership
skills to rebuild the RNC," California investor William Oberndorf told the
paper.
However,
the party's major donors have little leverage over a candidate who is relying
largely on his own money and many small donations from his far-right electoral
base.
The
party's rift deepened on Monday, when House Speaker Paul Ryan -- the party's
top elected official -- told hundreds of fellow House Republicans that he would
no longer "defend" Trump.
Ryan
said he would instead spend the remainder of the campaign focusing on
protecting the Republican congressional majorities ahead of the November 8
election.
Since
then, at least six women have accused Trump of making unwanted physical
advances, most of them after Trump asserted in Sunday's debate with Democratic
rival Hillary Clinton that he had never sexually assaulted a woman.
The
accusations surfaced after a video emerged of Trump boasting in 2005 of groping
women with impunity because he was famous, sending the White House race into
unprecedented levels of vulgarity.
But
the 70-year-old Trump remains defiant, castigating his accusers as
"horrible liars" on Thursday and accusing Clinton of conspiring in a
coordinated media attempt to sabotage his campaign.
Speaking to The New York Times, former RNC finance chairman Al Hoffman summed up the feeling among dissenting donors: "We're headed for destruction."
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