Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and her Republican opponent Donald Trump answered questions on national security and foreign policy September 7 during a “commander-in-chief forum” on NBC News.
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“And I was very, very surprised”. I could tell, pretty good with the body language, they were not happy. But a number of USA intelligence officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to express opinions, have voiced concern over several of Trump’s positions, including his advocacy of using banned torture methods against terrorism suspects and his expression of hope that Russian intelligence had hacked Clinton’s email account when she was secretary of state and would make the results public. An anonymous source told the network that officials are even trained not to allow their body language to betray their personal opinions, as Trump claimed at the forum.
Former Defense Intelligence Agency director and retired general Mike Flynn reportedly peppered the briefers with questions during the August 17 meeting, according to three sources.
The interruptions were enough to prompt the New Jersey governor, who also attended the briefing as a Trump adviser, to touch Flynn’s arm in an effort to calm the general down, one source said.
Requests for comment from Flynn and Christie were not immediately returned.
Trump, who has assailed his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, for mishandling classified information over her private email server, discussed the briefing with NBC News’ Matt Lauer.
The intelligence briefing is given to the presidential nominee from each party. The names of the briefers have not been made public.
Both presidential candidates have received classified intelligence briefings in recent weeks.
“First of all, I have great respect for the people who gave us the briefings”.
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“To me this is just the most recent example that underscores that this guy is unfit to be commander in chief”, Morell continued. Intelligence officers do not make policy recommendations. And as NBC News has reported, senior intelligence officials in 2012 proposed a covert operation to oust Bashar Assad in Syria, but Obama decided not to move forward with it.
