Barry Goldwater’s widow says ‘yuck’ to Trump fundraiser at their old Arizona home
Jun 18, 2016, 10:06 AM
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a rally at the Fox Theater, Wednesday, June 15, 2016, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
(AP Photo/John Bazemore)
PHOENIX — One of Barry Goldwater’s family members is again speaking out against Donald Trump and anything that evenly remotely puts the two together.
Goldwater’s widow, Susan Goldwater Levine, told the Washington Post that her late husband, a conservative icon, would be disgusted both by Trump’s rhetoric and the fact that he will be in Goldwater’s Paradise Valley home Saturday to raise money for his campaign.
“Ugh or yuck is my response,” Levine told the Post. “I think Barry would be appalled that his home was being used for that purpose. Barry would be appalled by Mr. Trump’s behavior — the unintelligent and unfiltered and crude communications style. And he’s shallow — so, so shallow.”
The house, where Goldwater first started his own presidential campaign, is no longer in the possession of the Goldwater family so although they might express their distaste for the fundraiser, they cannot stop it.
In 1998, two years after Goldwater passed away, the family sold the home to Karen and Robert Hobbs.
Robert Hobbs told the Post that he was approached by Trump’s team and asked to host the fundraiser. Although Hobbs doesn’t know Trump and he isn’t sure that Trump is conservative, “he’s who our nominee is.”
Hobbs also implied that Levine’s opinion about Trump and the fundraiser are less important because she was his second wife.
“She was his second wife; she’s not his first wife,” he said to the Post. “So she came along later in life…. She’s entitled to her opinion, but Barry was a Republican and Donald Trump’s a Republican, and we’re going to support whoever the Republican nominee is.”
The other Goldwater to express dislike for Trump in the past is Goldwater’s son, Barry Goldwater Jr., now a Republican congressman in California.
“I don’t think there’s any comparison at all with Barry Goldwater,” he told MSNBC in March.
“Donald Trump is an authoritarian. Barry Goldwater had principles, and he was a gentleman. Donald Trump is a cowboy.”
