Hours after Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump delivered high praise for Vladimir Putin, House Speaker Paul Ryan had only harsh criticism for the Russian president and not a whole lot of praise for his own nominee. Both candidates believe they have the upper hand, with Clinton contrasting her experience with Trump’s unpredictability and the Republican arguing that Americans anxious about their safety will be left with more of the same if they elect Obama’s former secretary of state.
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“Well, I think you heard what Mike Pence said, that Vladimir Putin has had a stronger influence on his country than Barack Obama has had here”.
According to Suffolk, 41% of North Carolina voters said they have a favorable opinion of Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, while 49% said they have an unfavorable opinion.
“Last night was yet another test and Donald Trump failed yet again”.
Pence, for his part, had previously been able to distance himself from many, if not most, of Trump’s most controversial and most weird statements. But in this instance, he doubled down.
Lauer was also accused of not thoroughly challenging Trump to explain why the candidate is ready to be commander in chief, for not following up where appropriate, and for asking tough questions of Clinton while throwing softies to Trump.
The event, which you can view in its entirety here, led Twitter users to say that Lauer, the host of the Today show, did not treat the two USA presidential candidates equally.
Trump responded Thursday during an event in Cleveland.
“If we would have taken the oil, you wouldn’t have ISIS, because ISIS formed with the power and wealth of that oil”, Trump contended.
Trump also unveiled his “plan” to defeat ISIS which amounts to giving the military 30 days to come up with… a plan.
In fact, Lauer might have explored that question for, say, ten minutes, given its implications for the future of America’s national security. I make no excuses for it. Trump said he didn’t “want to broadcast to the enemy what my plan is”.
Also that month, following Trump’s nasty criticism of the Muslim-American parents of a fallen USA soldier, Pence issued a statement thanking them for the sacrifice their son made. He was at the presidential library to give a speech on the comparison between the two men.
“Bringing Islam into the definition of our enemy actually serves the objective of the radical jihadists and there’s a lot of evidence of that”, she said, citing a Time magazine op-Ed by Matt Olsen, formerly a director of the National Counterterrorism Center under President Barack Obama.
He added that comparison applies to one of his favorite adjectives to describe Reagan: “Humble”.
The last question was from NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who brought up a recent article by a former government official who said that IS had effectively endorsed Trump. “I could tell, they were not happy our leaders did not follow what they were recommending”, he said. “Donald Trump is always the first person to say, when we say enormous crowds turn out for rallies. he’s always the first one to say, ‘This is a movement”. Tim Kaine, this fall.
“My running mate is a masterful debater”, Pence said. “That is not my job and I’m not going to be the election year pundit”.
“We’re really taking some time to brush up”, Pence said. “I want to defeat them, I want to end their reign of terror, I don’t want them to feel as though they can be getting more recruits because of our politics”.
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And he confirmed that his camp has a stand-in for Kaine for mock debates. “You have a fan”, Carvey, as Putin, said. It also became painfully clear that the moderator of the event, NBC’s Matt Lauer, is clearly more comfortable doing cooking segments with Giada than he is grappling with the minutiae of United States foreign policy.
