By Dan Merica
Hillary Clinton blasted Donald Trump’s foreign policy views on Thursday in a fiery address casting the presumptive Republican nominee as an unstable lightweight “temperamentally unfit” to be president.
She called his national security ideas a series of “incoherent rants, personal attacks and outright lies.”
“This is not someone who should ever have the nuclear codes,” she declared, claiming Trump could start a war just because somebody “got under his very thin skin.”
In her opening her remarks, she said the election in November “is a choice between a fearful America that is less secure and less engaged with the world, and a strong America that leads to keep us safe and our economy going.”
The speech kicks off five days of campaigning ahead of California’s June 7 primary and is taking place in San Diego, in part, because of the many military personnel in the city. The address offers a preview of the type of heated rhetoric and lines of attack that sure to be on display in the fall campaign.
Since Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, Clinton has directly challenged his ability to handle foreign policy issues and has taken to labeling him a “loose cannon” who will make it more difficult for the United States to operate on the global arena.
“I have to tell you, I think that Donald Trump has disqualified himself completely,” Clinton said in regard to foreign policy on Wednesday in New Jersey. “He has attacked out closest ally, said we should pull out of NATO, he has praised the dictator of North Korea, he has advocated more countries get nuclear weapons … he has advocated a return to torture and he has said he wants to ban all Muslims from entering the United States.”
She added, “This is not just divisive rhetoric, my friends. This is dangerous. It is dangerous. It will make us more vulnerable.”
Clinton’s campaign feels, because of her experience as a senator and secretary of state, Clinton will be able to use her experience to effectively hit Trump on national security.
Trump, on the other hand, has questioned her judgment about interventions in Iraq and Libya — two conflicts Clinton backed — but has left out the fact that he previously supported them, too.
“She doesn’t have the temperament to be president. She’s got bad judgment. She’s got horribly bad judgment,” Trump said last week. “If you look at the war in Iraq, if you look at what she did with Libya, which was a total catastrophe.”
Clinton, then a senator, voted in 2002 to authorize the use of military force in Iraq. And as secretary of state in 2011, she forcefully argued in favor of military intervention to overthrow Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
Before Clinton’s address Thursday afternoon, President Barack Obama struck on some similar themes in his commencement address to the Air Force Academy.
While Obama did not mention Trump, he rebutted some of the foreign policy arguments Trump has put forward — proposals that lean toward reducing America’s role in global affairs.
“As we navigate this complex world, America cannot shirk the mantle of leadership,” Obama said. “We can’t be isolationist. It’s not possible in this globalized, interconnected world. In these uncertain times, it’s tempting sometimes to pull back and try to wash our hands of conflicts that seem intractable, let other countries fend for themselves. But history teaches us, from Pearl Harbor to 9/11, that oceans alone cannot protect us. We cannot turn inward.”
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