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Donald Trump on Foreign Policy
Straw men.
He doesn’t need to know every detail. Who does? But he needs to have a framework of knowledge on which to hang the further knowledge that must be attained in order to do the job.
Keep in mind we are trying to decide if he should be the president. A president can’t, as you say, be the world’s foremost expert on all (or any) topics. But if he wants the job he should know enough to show us that he’s interested in the central responsibilities of that job. He’s going into a job interview saying, in effect, ” I don’t know who your competitors are. I don’t know who your target market is. Heck, I don’t know what business your are in. But if you hire me to run your company, I will hire good people to do everything that needs to be done.”
I’d prefer someone who cared enough about foreign affairs to know a little bit about it. Not the John Bolton level of knowledge, but a bit more than Al Sharpton.
Alright I’ll also admit something about myself that gives me a bias here.
Middle Eastern names hit my ears like a hard rain on a tin roof. Nothing but lots of noise.
I have trouble getting familiar with them. They make no sense to me. It’s a cultural thing.
I know I’m supposed to be sensitive to other cultures, but I’m usually too busy to concentrate, what with having to spend so much time pressing 1 for English in my own culture.
I keep reading that the United States is a rich and powerful nation, the last surviving superpower, with a robust military to be feared.
We’re awesome, or so I’m told.
Yet despite our supreme awesomeness any potential president is expected to remember the name of every foreign who’s-it, like a peasant-boy required to recall the name of every poisonous berry in the forest.
Which is it?
Are we the last surviving superpower fearing nothing? Or are we peasants in a village, fearing the berries amongst the trees?
Yep. See my comment above. Same spirit
I agree that Trump needs to know a lot less about foreign policy than Hewitt or Bolton. The problem is that if he knows too little he won’t know who to hire who’s got the right answer.
Bush knew his shortcomings, and asked Cheney to be his VP. I’m pretty sure Cheney knew who Musharraf was… I suspect Bush would have been a far worse foreign-policy President w/out Cheney.
This is the same problem that Cain had, and Carson had, and most non-political junkies, regardless of how smart and successful they were in their specialty. They’ll make a lot of rookie mistakes.
Let’s not pretend that Trump has a firm grasp on international issues except for that he doesn’t know the names of some of the players.
It’s not enough to want to make America great again. Some depth of understanding of great power relations, of history, of the limits of American power, would all be helpful if a president is going to make things better instead of worse.
Fixed that for you.
Still not buying him as a serious candidate. He could rattle off the names of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen from memory and I’d still think he’s a train wreck.
A self-interested and self-serving train wreck. Again, I ask: Why do we need Trump if anyone can come in and hire the best people? You know who else can do that kind of a bang-up job?
Hillary.
Well, just you wait! We’ll see:
“I will be so good at the military your head will spin.”
“The day after the election, I’ll know more about it than you will ever know.”
“I will know far more than you know within 24 hours after I get the job.”
Look, Trump is a windbag and a bully and a braggart.
But this interview does not prove any of this (except for the braggart) – I don’t think the CiC needs to know these details. He could just pledge to take out all the bad guy leaders as they pop up.
Watch him ask Bolton to be his VP – and Bolton accepts out of sheer desperation for the country.
Let me get this straight. We are giving Iran the entire cookie jar with the cheers and acquiescence of the Establishment GOP and Hugh Hewitt thinks Trump needs some foreign policy chops?
Sometimes the plebes are right, America needs to win , what do we have to do to win…first, get rid of politicians and pundits who are okay with losing….
Foreign policy starts with a grounding in what side you are on. Ethnic cultures experience is much farther down the list. That is why Putin and the Mullahs can beat John Kerry and his boss any day of the week without drawing a sweat.
If you think that Trump will actually follow through on his threats to deport people and build a wall than I have a yuuuuge bridge to sell you at a bargain price.
Don’t you realize that Trump is just telling you what you want to hear? Why do you believe his very recent conversion on this issue? Wake up, man!
@Xennady — I remember when Bush flubbed Musharraf’s name. Here’s the difference — he flubbed the name. He was able to give a pretty decent basic outline of what was actually going on in the country. When 9/11 happened, he had a starting knowledge.
Isn’t the difference that you know Walker takes it seriously and wants to know as much as reasonably possible? I don’t expect a presidential candidate to be an expert on every issue, but I don’t want a sense that he is incurious on issues where he’d be responsible for life and death for thousands.
I take issue with this statement. The interview also proves that Trump is a windbag.
And then Carly Fiorina agreed to answer the same questions without knowing what they were: http://www.hughhewitt.com/carly-fiorina-on-gotcha-questions-and-the-rise-of-islamist-terrorism/
Trump’s biggest flaw isn’t his ignorance of the issues per se (although that is a problem) but the extreme self-confidence he exudes on issues he doesn’t really understand, particularly free trade.
“But believe me, it won’t matter. I will know far more than you know within 24 hours after I get the job.”
I do not consider myself in any way whatsoever specially knowledgeable about foreign policy, and still less military policy. But… remember “known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns?” I do know enough to know that anyone who says that to Hugh Hewitt — and yes, I know he exaggerates for effect, and I know he’s referring to the security briefings he’d get — has far too many unknown unknowns. He has no clue what he does not know.
I suppose so. And if Hewitt’s questions serve to make that distinction than I am for it. I just want to say that I don’t think that not being able to answer Hewitt’s questions are a disqualifier per se. As such they may qualify as ‘gotcha’ questions, which aren’t necessarily out of bounds.
As far as the names go, I’d agree, though I don’t think Hewitt’s intent is to trip candidates up on them. The bigger problem is all the stuff Trump threw in for free, like the idea that it’ll all change in a year anyway so there’s no need to pay attention now.
Hewitt’s tipped his hand in a big way about what he wants to discuss at the debate — so bu this point, nobody has any excuse to be caught off-guard by the question. He might as well have assigned homework.
LOL. That is a fantastic point. God help us.
Note that Fiorina, in Caroline’s link above, admitted she didn’t know the names either. The difference was that she was humble about it and conceded that it was something the President should know.
Also: Prepare for three weeks of “Hugh Hewitt is stupid/a loser.”
Oh come on now. You’re not playing the game. You’re supposed to pretend that knowing these minor chieftain names is important stuff, instead of having a defense policy that covers any threat.
Wake me up when someone asks him a non-gotcha defense question, like “how many carriers can we afford?”.
I couldn’t watch the whole thing. I wasn’t as concerned about Trump’s lack of knowledge as I was about his response to Hewitt’s illustrating it. I can only imagine how Trump might respond to an adviser bringing bad news, or an adviser asking for a decision regarding an issue about which Trump is uninformed. His response to anything uncomfortable is to bully the people around him. This simply guarantees major policy disasters.
I keep wanting to like Trump but he just grates on me.
The answer I want my president to say: I don’t need to know their names. When I finish with them, you won’t be able to recognize whatever pieces are left of them.
When is the debate again?
Maybe because Hewitt considers it a horrible moment to elect someone who is not serious about foreign policy?
Umbra Fractus: “Note that Fiorina, in Caroline’s link above, admitted she didn’t know the names either. The difference was that she was humble about it and conceded that it was something the President should know.”
Matty Van: Yes, she was humble. But she only admitted that she didn’t know ALL the names there are to know. She went on to explain that she knew every single one of the names in the “gotcha question” and which groups they headed. And much more. She was humble, knowledgeable, intelligent, detailed, and patriotic in her answers. Trump is miles behind her on all of those things except the last. And the last is the only easy one.
It doesn’t bother me that Trump didn’t know or recognize the names. They do all kind of sound alike. I don’t think he grasps any of the subtleties of middle east foreign policy, or cares to. He tried to cover his ignorance with bluster and failed. If foreign policy (other than Mexico) is your issue, Trump is not your best candidate.
Once Trump moves beyond the concept of the fence with Mexico, he gets lost.
Cruz could handle this question. Or Rubio. Or Fiorinia. Or Jindal.
Maybe not Pataki……
We are losing sight of the bottom line: GOP candidates have proven themselves, for the most part, knowledgeable on most of the subjects regarding the presidency, yet for over 25 years they haven’t proven themselves capable of doing the most important job, opposing the leftward drift of the formerly greatest nation in the world.
It matters not who wins the primary if none are able to loosen the grip of the GOPe on the Republican party. If Donald Trump can shake the vermin out of the tree, then it might be possible to build an actual opposition party. Who is the other guy with the cojones for the job?