Share

Trump and Clinton talk national defense at forum

NPR’s national security team produced a separate fact check of the forum.

Advertisement

Case in point: Lauer did not query the Republican candidate on his suggestion that Ghazala Khan, the mother of a Muslim American soldier who was killed in Iraq, stood silently by her husband as he spoke at the DNC because she was not allowed to speak. According to notes released from Clinton’s interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, she said she relied on others with knowledge about handling classified files. But her judgment has been called into question regarding that email server, and a veteran in the crowd told her she had “clearly corrupted our national security”, and that if he had mishandled classified information similarly, “I would have been prosecuted and imprisoned”. “If I win, I don’t want to broadcast to the enemy exactly what my plan is”. “There were no headers”. He also said that, if elected, he would give military leaders 30 days to formulate a multi-pronged plan to defeat Islamic State. “Trump got mostly softballs”. “We’re going to rebuild it with the finest technology in the world”, he promised.

But that wouldn’t include committing more forces to the effort.

Clinton said Republicans holding or seeking office across the country should be pressed on whether they agree with Trump’s comments, including his views on Putin and USA generals that surfaced during the forum. When it comes to defeating ISIS, Clinton declared: “We are not putting ground troops into Iraq ever again“.

The former governor of New Mexico added that Syria is “a mess” and “the only way we deal with Syria is to join hands with Russian Federation to diplomatically bring that (to) an end”. Trump attacked Barack Obama for withdrawing American troops from Iraq, even though Trump backed troop withdrawal as well.

During the forum, NBC host Matt Lauer noted that Trump said he’d always tell people the truth and repeated some of his past statements, including Trump’s assertion that he knows “more about ISIS than the generals do”.

Clinton argued that terrorists would only be encouraged by a president who has made statements as controversial as Trump’s – particularly, she said, his proposal late past year to ban Muslims entering the country and his attack this summer on the Gold Star family of the late Captain Capt. Humayun Khan.

TRUMP: “I happen to hear Hillary Clinton say that I was not against the war in Iraq”.

During the NBC News Commander-in-Chief forum, a father in the audience asked Trump what he thought about his daughter’s decision not to join the military after studying up on the risk of sexual assault.

When asked by the shock jock if he was in favor of invading Iraq, he said: “Yeah, I guess so”. “We have had the worst, and you could even say the dumbest, foreign policy”.

Trump also renewed his praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin for having “great control over his country”. Mitt Romney, the last Republican nominee, called Trump’s refusal “disqualifying” and speculated that the returns could contain a “bombshell”.

“I think that when you serve in the armed forces, that’s a very special situation”, Trump said. “I’ve already said he is really very much of a leader”.

“And the best thing we can do is set up a court system within the military”.

“What did these geniuses expect when they put men and women together?”

“Well, it is a correct tweet”, Trump responded.

Advertisement

Trump, who has never held elected office, has criticized Clinton’s judgment for backing the 2003 Iraq war and her support for the USA intervention in Libya in 2011.

Hillary Clinton at NBC forum