Just two months out from Election Day with the race between Clinton and Donald Trump tightening, the former secretary of state’s meeting on Friday with a bipartisan group of foreign policy experts and the press conference that followed demonstrated the increasing prominence of national security in the 2016 campaign. Now he says his rival Hillary Clinton could shoot someone in an arena in front of 20,000 people and not be prosecuted.
Advertisement
Trump, speaking on Friday at the conservative Value Voters summit in Washington, painted Clinton as a “massive failure” while she was America’s top diplomat from 2009 to early 2013, blaming her for the current turmoil in the Middle East. “She helped destabilise Egypt by supporting the ouster of President (Hosni) Mubarak in exchange for the Muslim Brotherhood”.
The White House said it had no comment on Mr Trump’s remarks. That tightening has frustrated many Clinton allies and operatives, who are astonished that she isn’t running away with this race given Trump’s deep unpopularity and never-ending stream of controversial comments.
He also labeled her as “unstable” and “trigger-happy”. Clinton leads Trump by a mere three percentage points, having fallen from her high of nine points in August, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average. She gave up missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic in exchange for nothing in return.
For several moments Clinton stood still, shaking her head – then returned to the podium. “Let’s not forget, Russian Federation went into Crimea on President (Barack) Obama’s watch”.
“We’re going to put us in a position of leadership of the world again so we can negotiate from a position of great, great strength”.
“Generally, I’m concerned, frankly”, said former Democratic Senate leader Thomas Daschle (South Dakota).
He said any nation that wants to join the United States against IS is welcome.
Trump this week laid out a plan to spend many billions of dollars on bolstering the USA military, including more ships, planes and troops. “I will end this legacy of failure and strongly defend the interests of the USA”, he said.
“And it’s a war that, when we got out, we got out the wrong way”.
Advertisement
“I think [Trump] ought to begin every statement about Russian Federation by saying Putin is an evil man”, Hewitt said Friday on MSNBC. He said Clinton’s policies have produced only death and destruction, not diplomacy. “She’s just too quick to intervene, invade, or to push for regime change”, he said at the summit.
