They are approaches that widely diverge from generations of presidential behavior on the world stage. But that factor has yet to sway this year’s campaign, as Trump makes the audacious gamble that voters – disenchanted with the political establishment and wearied by 15 years of war overseas – will throw out the status quo in favor of something radically different.
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Clinton faces her own challenges.
Trump has not outlined his ISIS plan, she claimed, because “the truth is, he doesn’t have one”. That dynamic was on display Wednesday and will play out to an even greater degree during the presidential debates.
Foreign policy rarely decides U.S. elections, but Wednesday’s showdown suggested that this election has the potential to set the United States and the world on an uncharted course come January.
While experts look at the average of many polls to determine which candidate is in the lead, some individual polls have Trump leading Clinton by a small margin.
“Mr. Trump, with his Houdini-like ability to squirm out of direct answers, is a particularly tough subject for interviewers, who will be forced to determine on the fly when to interrupt with a prime-time fact check”, wrote The New York Times’ Michael M. Grynbaum.
“And we’re not putting ground troops into Syria”. “And I opposed the reckless way Hillary Clinton took us out”.
“[Those] popularity polls were produced by Russian state-controlled media”, he said. But certainly, in that system, he’s been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader.
The exchange could well be the first time in living memory that a candidate appeared to side with an American global adversary over a sitting president. But she defended her support for USA military intervention to help oust a dictator in Libya, despite the chaotic aftermath. He both insisted he has a private blueprint for defeating the extremist group and that he would demand a plan from military leaders within 30 days of taking office.
She and her campaign advisers have spent the summer and early fall aggressively courting endorsements from across the aisle, launching a so-called “Together For America” initiative last month aimed at Republican and Independent voters.
Trump also renewed his praise of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his disdain for President Barack Obama, saying that the Russian enjoyed an 82 percent approval rating. “They have been reduced to a point where it’s embarrassing for our country”.
Lauer did, however, ask Trump if he had “learned new things” in the intelligence briefings he’s received since becoming the Republican party’s nominee for president. You hear me? She had a press conference! . “Our leaders did not follow what they were recommending”.
Trump additionally courted controversy by repeating his assertions that the United States should have kept Iraq’s oil after the invasion in 2003 to ensure that to the victor go the spoils. And that has motivated Clinton to strike hard at Trump.
But less than a week after the FBI released notes from its interview with Clinton – part of the agency’s yearlong investigation of her use of a private email setup when she was secretary of State – no reporter asked her about the issue. Instead she showed that even a typically softball interviewer like Matt Lauer could put her on the defensive about her emails and foreign-policy record.
She described herself as offering “steadiness”. Only about 4 in 10 say they are sure of their candidate choice and certain to vote, according to the Daybreak poll, which asks people to estimate on a zero-to-100 scale what their chance is of voting for Clinton, Trump or some other candidate and, separately, the chance that they’ll cast a ballot.
During today’s press conference, Clinton also reaffirmed her commitment to defeating ISIS and said she would make it a top priority to hunt down the terrorist group’s leader and bring him to justice as the US did with Osama bin Laden. “We’ve gotta do it with much more support from the Arabs and the Kurds who will fight on the ground against ISIS”, she said.
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Clinton had begun the day on the offensive, by convening a press conference with reporters on the tarmac of Westchester County Airport before she and her traveling press corps were set to take off to North Carolina. But any resulting controversy, like the comment he made previous year about John McCain not being a war hero, will fade.
