Paul Manafort, 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’s campaign manager, lashed out against a group of Republican former foreign policy officials who have come out against Trump, the party’s presidential nominee.

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Fifty aides and Cabinet members of past GOP administrations penned a letter on Monday saying that Trump "would be the most reckless president in American history" and urging the Republican National Committee to focus its funds on down-ballot candidates instead.

In a radio interview with John Catsimatidis on Sunday, Manafort accused them of having ties to Democratic presidential 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 and claimed they are not true Republicans.

“A lot of them have connections to the Clinton Foundation and have gotten contracts over the last several years to do work for the Clinton Foundation or some of its subsidiaries,” Manafort said. “So it is far from an objective group; it is far from a Republican group; and it is part of the establishment that Donald Trump is running against.”

Some of the more prominent officials who signed the letter include former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden; Michael Chertoff, a former secretary of Homeland Security for George W. Bush and President Obama; John Negroponte, a former director of national intelligence under Bush; and Tom Ridge, a former Homeland Security director under Bush and a former governor of the battleground state of Pennsylvania.

“Mr. Trump lacks the character, values, and experience to be President,” the letter reads. “He weakens U.S. moral authority as the leader of the free world.

“He appears to lack basic knowledge about the belief in the U.S. Constitution, U.S. laws, and U.S. institutions, including religious tolerance, freedom of the press, and an independent judiciary.”

The letter proved to be the first in a series of setbacks for the Trump campaign last week, which also saw strong criticism over new controversial comments from the mogul and plummeting poll numbers.

Manafort on Sunday insisted that the campaign is on course and is unconcerned about the dipping poll numbers, though he did lash out at the media for “exploiting” Trump’s comments.

“We’re doing fine,” he said. “I mean, look, the campaign has got a plan; we’re working the plan. The media keeps trying to get us off it by taking things that Mr. Trump is saying and exploiting them in ways that even the wildest imagination couldn’t figure out.

“The important thing is that the voters in the states that he’s visiting are getting the unfiltered message,” Manafort added. “The kind of distortions that are happening at the national level by the national media really is not impacting the local community. So we wish we would get fairer treatment, but at the same time we are making our points to the voters directly, and that’s the most important thing.”