A GOP speechwriter said he can't back Republican nominee Donald Trump Donald John TrumpBiden leads Trump by 36 points nationally among Latinos: poll Trump dismisses climate change role in fires, says Newsom needs to manage forest better Jimmy Kimmel hits Trump for rallies while hosting Emmy Awards MORE for president and may cast his vote for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonBiden leads Trump by 36 points nationally among Latinos: poll Democratic super PAC to hit Trump in battleground states over coronavirus deaths Battle lines drawn on precedent in Supreme Court fight MORE instead.

ADVERTISEMENT

"The reality is, I cannot vote for Donald Trump. I could never vote for Donald Trump," Richard J. Cross III, who worked on the speechwriting staff for the Republican National Convention in Cleveland last month, wrote in an op-ed published Wednesday in The Baltimore Sun.

"So instead, I am confronted by two painful choices: Vote for the most divisive political figure in the past 25 years or throw away my vote on a kooky Libertarian ticket."

In the piece, Cross described himself as a political moderate who has "always been GOP to the core."

Cross drafted the GOP convention speech given by Patricia Smith, the mother of an American killed in the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya. The speech Smith gave included the line, "If Hillary Clinton can't give us the truth, why should we give her the presidency?"

"But weeks after the end of the 2016 GOP convention, I am confronted by an inconvenient fact," Cross wrote in his op-ed.

"Despite what I wrote in that nationally televised speech about Hillary Clinton, I may yet have to vote for her because of the epic deficiencies of my own party's nominee."

He slammed Trump's proposal to implement a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country. He said Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan — whom he called his icons growing up — would never have proposed such an idea.

"Donald Trump has betrayed and perverted their legacies. Consequently, I no longer recognize my party," Cross wrote.