Mark Weinberg

Opinion contributor

As a longtime spokesman, speechwriter and adviser to President Ronald Reagan during his 1980 campaign, all eight years in the White House and afterward, I often wonder about what the president I loved and served would think about the times in which we are living.

Simply put, he would be surprised, disappointed, even angry, at how our political discourse has degenerated into little more than a playground fight. And there is no doubt he would be deeply troubled by how his current successor conducts himself. Indeed, after reading the redacted Mueller report, I suspect that in order to save the party he led and the country he loved, this might have been one time Ronald Reagan broke his own “11th commandment” to never criticize a fellow Republican.

Indeed, all Republicans who care about longtime conservative values — including the rule of law, telling it like it is on national security and speaking the truth — owe it to Ronald Reagan to express outrage at the behavior of this president — and insist our party’s leaders in Congress step up to express their anger and, more important, do what is necessary to ensure that never can this happen again.

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To do that, Congress and the American people need to see the full Mueller report, investigations by Congress need to hold people accountable, and President Donald Trump needs to prove that he gets the message.

To be clear, no one on the Reagan campaign would have even considered working with our adversaries or doing anything that cheered them on. They worked 24/7 to see Reagan elected in 1980, but they'd never have done anything improper or immoral — let alone illegal — to achieve that. No one from the Reagan campaign would have met with Russians seeking dirt, would have worked with WikiLeaks (or whatever the 1980 equivalent was) or lied to anyone about what they did.

Reagan gave the speech Trump should give

What would Reagan do? He would clean house — now. He would instruct Attorney General William Barr to release the full report. He would make it clear that no one is above the law, not even the president. This is not a matter of speculation. We know this because of Reagan's actions when he and his aides were embroiled in the Iran-Contra affair, trading arms for hostages held by Iran to finance anti-communist rebels in Nicaragua.

Reagan cooperated with investigative authorities and answered written questions from the independent counsel, and he told his attorney general to discover the truth about what happened. He also appointed a bipartisan commission to find out how things went so wrong, and to recommend concrete steps to make sure there would never be a repetition. He took every step the board suggested.

And he made an extraordinary address to the public that touched on what he knew and didn't know, the shortcomings of his management style, and his determination to consult with Congress and "make the congressional oversight process work."

"I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration," Reagan said. The findings of the commission, he said, "are honest, convincing and highly critical — and I accept them."

If he is smart enough to follow the Reagan example, President Trump should work with Congress to make sure no foreign power can do this again to our country. And he should seek to strengthen, rather than destroy, public confidence in the institutions that are fundamental pillars of our democracy: the justice system, a free press, and the electoral process.

Inaction on Russia would disturb Reagan most

As bothered as he would be by how Trump conducted himself, what would upset Reagan most about the Mueller report is its indisputable conclusion that we were attacked by our single most dangerous adversary, and that the president is not only unwilling — or unable — to acknowledge that, but also is doing nothing to prevent it from happening again.

As much as anything else, Reagan’s presidency was defined by a new relationship between the United States and the then-Soviet Union, now Russia. He worked hard to find common ground with his counterpart, Mikhail Gorbachev, so that they could reach agreements on reducing the planet-threatening cache of nuclear weapons each country had. They did, and even though Reagan would joke about the new relationship with the Soviets being based on a “trust but verify” basis, he never lost sight of the fact that the Russians did not wish us well — and ultimately wanted to rule the world. On his watch, at least, Reagan would not allow that to happen.

Were he here, Reagan would make it clear that some things are bigger than a party or a president. I suspect he would challenge Republicans to stand up to a president who thought a very bad day for America and the rule of law was “a very good day” for Donald Trump.

Republicans, let’s set one straight for The Gipper.

Mark Weinberg, author of "Movie Nights with the Reagans: A Memoir," served as special assistant to the president and assistant press secretary in the Reagan White House, and as director of public affairs in former President Ronald Reagan’s office. Follow him on Twitter: @MarkWeinberg40