Members of the audience listen to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, displayed on television screens as she speaks with “Today” show co-anchor Matt Lauer at the NBC Commander-In-Chief Forum held at the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space museum aboard the decommissioned aircraft carrier Intrepid, New York, Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2016. But at the outset of the event, co-hosted by NBC and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, moderator Matt Lauer asked both candidates to “not use this as an opportunity” to attack the other.
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“I would certainly not do it again; there are no excuses for it”, she said.
“There were no discussions about any of the covert actions in process being determined about whether or not to go forward”, she said. “Always have, always will”.
“What was really scary was he keeps talking about the secret plan that he has to defeat ISIS”, Mook said.
That largely gave Clinton and Trump the chance to repeat talking points – Clinton touting her “rock steadiness” and Trump his deal-making.
Trump, who has never held elected office, has criticized Clinton’s judgment, attacking her vote in favor of the 2003 Iraq war and her support for the USA intervention in Libya in 2011.
“I think that when you serve in the armed forces, that’s a very special situation”, Trump said.
Trump, on the other hand, was lobbed softballs, and Lauer declined to challenge the candidate on his flat-out lies, including when he boasted that he was against the Iraq war in 2003 (he wasn’t).
“We are living in challenging times”, she said, “No one who wants to assume the responsibility of becoming president and commander in chief should be making the kind of reckless and unsafe statements and identifying with a regime that has some aggressive tendencies”. Tough questions were directed toward Trump in regards to his statement that he knew more about ISIS than the generals did. What I did learn is that our leadership, Barack Obama, did not follow what our experts and our truly – when they call it intelligence, it’s there for a reason – what our experts said to do. “If we don’t win this election, you’ll never see another Republican and you’ll have a whole different church structure”, said Donald Trump. Up until the final day, there were concerns that Trump might back out, one of the organizers said on condition of anonymity.
Much has been made about his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
CORDES: President Obama, traveling in Laos, said it shows Trump is unqualified.
Lauer’s role at the Wednesday night forum was to both moderate and conduct back-to-back live interviews with the two candidates about issues important to the American public.
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Trump says he was against invading Iraq from the very beginning, citing an Esquire article that was published the year after the war actually began. Clinton said the government would have to “remove the stigma” surrounding mental health issues faced by veterans.
