Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton sketched dueling visions Wednesday night of the USA role on the global stage, with the two leading presidential candidates both arguing that their experience better prepared them to make the life- or-death decisions required of the commander in chief.
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With just two months until the election, the candidates made their bid to convince traditionally Republican-leaning troops and veterans – as well as the many distrustful general election voters – that they would be better at keeping the country safe, employing troops overseas and caring for those who served.
All in all, the Commander-in-Chief forum was a slight advantage for Clinton because she seemed more comfortable with the issues, minus the ongoing email server controversy. You have reported and – the gentleman can tell you, you have the report of rape and nobody gets prosecuted. “It certainly appears that he is conducting state-sponsored cyber-attacks on what appears to be our political system. That is not acting in our interests”. In one, in 2002, media personality Howard Stern asked him if he favored the pending invasion, Trump answered: “Yeah, I guess so”.
The discussion followed a Wednesday night national security forum in which the presidential candidates made back-to-back appearances.
Trump remained persistently vague about his plans for defeating the Islamic State group, insisting that he privately has a blueprint for taking on the terror group but wanted to remain “unpredictable”.
Trump was on the attack, using his campaign trail strategy of hammering the former secretary of state for getting the country mired in the Middle East.
Asked to square his request for military options with his harsh criticism of the current crop of generals, Trump said simply: “They’ll probably be different generals”.
“I think under the leadership of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, the generals have been reduced to rubble”, Mr. Trump said. “And we’re not putting ground troops into Syria”, said Clinton.
An Associated Press Fact Check of Donald Trump’s immigration speech shows that the Republican Presidentian nominee repeated many of his campaign themes and left out key details.
“I had a very short window of time to convey the seriousness with which I would approach the issues that face our country”, she said. I am proud to have the support of warfighting generals, active duty military, and the top experts who know both how to win and how to avoid the endless wars? we are caught in now.
The appearances mark an intense, two-day focus on national security by Trump, who has offered tough rhetoric _ but few details _ on America’s challenges overseas. She argued that Trump’s inability to offer a clear plan to beat ISIS, along with his comments denigrating American armed forces and praising Russian President Vladimir Putin, offered more proof that he was “temperamentally unfit and totally unqualified to be commander in chief”.
Clinton has spent much of the summer trying to paint Trump as ill-prepared to be commander in chief and too unpredictable to make decisions that put USA service members in harm’s way. Those attending the event include Michael Chertoff, who served as Homeland Security secretary under President George W. Bush.
Trump at Wednesday night’s candidate forum. The forum could serve as a warm-up to their highly anticipated first presidential debate, scheduled for September 26 in NY.
By virtue of a coin flip, Clinton took the stage first.
“He’s on record extensively supporting intervention in Libya”, she said.
Asked about Republican criticisms on her somber demeanor Wednesday night, Clinton said: “I don’t take any advice, anything seriously that comes from the RNC”.
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Speaking at a military forum, Mr. Trump said so-called Dreamers – the young adult illegal immigrants who came to the U.S.as children – could, with proper vetting, be allowed to join the military. “I could see myself working that”. Basically, she’s going with the implied message, “He’s a whole lot worse than me”. The Huffington Post reports Trump hosted a fundraiser for her in 2014 at his Palm Beach mansion.
