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NBC’s Commander-in-Chief Forum Put Clinton, Trump on the Firing Line
Wednesday night, NBC News held their Commander-in-Chief Forum, a chance for voters to spend an hour assessing the capabilities of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Focused on the most important facet of the presidency, our nation’s defense, it was hard not to feel queasy by the end of it. I’m sure I wasn’t the only viewer muttering, “In 135 days, one of these people is going to be the President of the United States.” (Full disclosure: I might not have used the word “people.”)
Matt Lauer first welcomed Hillary Clinton for her 30-minute shift in front of the small audience of veterans aboard the USS Intrepid in New York. If there was any question if Lauer — a Clinton Foundation “Notable Member” — would take it easy on the Democrat, it was answered with a resounding “no.”
Lauer laid into the former Secretary of State about her use of personal e-mail and a server to discuss obviously classified issues, even when she was overseas. “Why wasn’t it disqualifying,” he asked, “if you want to be commander-in-chief?” Predictably Clinton hedged on the issue, noting her vast experience in handling classified material yet insisting that “none of the e-mails sent or received by me” bore a classified header. Left unmentioned was the fact that the FBI refutes this claim.
When Lauer noted that FBI Director James Comey said it’s possible that hostile actors gained access to her e-mail, Clinton replied, “There is no evidence,” but added, “of course anything is possible.” Hardly a comfort to America’s 1.3 million active service members or her 21.8 million veterans.
Questions from the audience were equally tough. Retired Air Force Lt. Jon Lester asked “Secretary Clinton, how can you expect those such as myself who were and are entrusted with America’s most sensitive information to have any confidence in your leadership as president when you clearly corrupted our national security?”
Former Army Captain Ernie Young asked how Clinton “will determine when and where to deploy troops directly into harm’s way.” Clinton then laid out her policy toward ISIS which was an uninspiring as one might imagine. She basically reiterated the Obama administration’s strategy of air power and support for the Arabs and the Kurds fighting the terror group. But then Clinton claimed, “they are not going to get ground troops. We are not putting ground troops into Iraq ever again. And we’re not putting ground troops into Syria. We’re going to defeat ISIS without committing American ground troops.”
There are currently ground troops in both Iraq and Syria.
After a commercial break, Lauer welcomed Trump to the stage, in which the GOP nominee tried to play out the clock with the greatest hits from his rallies. When the host asked what Trump thinks prepares him for the role of commander-in-chief, he answered, “Well, I’ve built a great company. I’ve been all over the world. I’ve dealt with foreign countries. I’ve done very well, as an example, tremendously well dealing with China and dealing with so many of the countries that are just ripping this country.”
He continued: “I think the main thing is I have great judgment. I have good judgment. I know what’s going on. I’ve called so many of the shots.” Trump also countered Clinton’s accurate claim that he supported the Iraq War, recommending that Lauer read a 2004 issue of Esquire magazine.
He then bragged about his primary victory, saying, “I beat 16 people and here I am… and that was a lot of people. That was a record, Matt. That was a record in the history of Republican politics. I was able to get more votes than anybody ever has gotten in the history of Republican politics.”
Lauer moved on to Trump’s claim that he will always tell the truth, noting another of his claims: “I know more about ISIS than the generals do. Believe me.” Trump replied that “the generals have been reduced to rubble. They have been reduced to a point where it’s embarrassing for our country. You have a force of 30,000 or so people. Nobody really knows.”
Phillip Clay, a former public affairs officer in the Marine Corps, asked the candidate, “you’ve claimed to have a secret plan to defeat ISIS. But you’re hardly the first politician to promise a quick victory and a speedy homecoming. So assuming we do defeat ISIS, what next? What is your plan for the region to ensure that a group like them doesn’t just come back?”
Trump replied that “Iran is going to be taking over Iraq,” and then outlined his “secret plan.” Kinda:
The — and I think you know — because you’ve been watching me I think for a long time — I’ve always said, shouldn’t be there, but if we’re going to get out, take the oil. If we would have taken the oil, you wouldn’t have ISIS, because ISIS formed with the power and the wealth of that oil.
Just we would leave a certain group behind and you would take various sections where they have the oil. They have — people don’t know this about Iraq, but they have among the largest oil reserves in the world, in the entire world.
And we’re the only ones, we go in, we spend $3 trillion, we lose thousands and thousands of lives, and then, Matt, what happens is, we get nothing. You know, it used to be to the victor belong the spoils. Now, there was no victor there, believe me. There was no victor. But I always said: Take the oil.
One of the benefits we would have had if we took the oil is ISIS would not have been able to take oil and use that oil to fuel themselves.
Of course, Trump’s main issue hasn’t been national defense, but immigration. When an audience member asked him if an undocumented person who wants to serve in the armed forces deserves to stay in this country, he responded positively. “I think that when you serve in the armed forces,” Trump said, “that’s a very special situation, and I could see myself working that out, absolutely.”
Trump was also asked about his praise for Vladimir Putin, which he said was fine because the Russian autocrat has “an 82 percent approval rating.” Lauer countered, “He’s also a guy who annexed Crimea, invaded Ukraine, supports Assad in Syria, supports Iran, is trying to undermine our influence in key regions of the world, and according to our intelligence community, probably is the main suspect for the hacking of the DNC computers.”
Trump was skeptical. “Well, nobody knows that for a fact. But do you want me to start naming some of the things that President Obama does at the same time? …I think when he calls me brilliant, I’ll take the compliment, OK? …The fact that he calls me brilliant or whatever he calls me is going to have zero impact.” Trump then praised Putin for his leadership because “the man has very strong control over a country.”
In a few months, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump will have strong control over our country. To current service members and my fellow veterans, I can offer only condolences.
Published in Military
Oh No! So the Trump Pivot did not include Putin? This report is the most depressing thing I’ve read in a while. I also can’t believe he is still going on about taking the oil. What does he think the oil is? How can you take it without occupation? And he really said “to the victor go the spoils”? I wonder what he thinks of WWII? Madness!
As for Clinton, she just keeps digging herself further into a hole it is kind of amazing to watch. Is there anyone who even believes her on this? I certainly know none of my Democratic friends do. So utterly contemptible.
Hillary’s first question was from a veteran who used to be charged with protecting classified information. (HT: Gateway Pundit) The question from John Lester:
Hillary’s answer is so full of lies, it would boggle the mind. But it’s Hillary, so it’s SOP. Let’s break it down. SPOILER ALERT: Everything she said in response to this legitimate question from an honorable public servant was a lie.
(1) Hillary says all classified material is “marked,” implying nothing that she received or sent on the private email server — which she vainly and illegally hoped to keep secret forever — was marked classified. That’s false. James Comey said so, and the FBI interview notes released on Friday revealed that agents showed her print outs of emails marked with a “C” for classified. She absurdly played dumb and said she thought “C” separated paragraphs alphabetically — even though there was no “Paragraph A” or “Paragraph B” before “Paragraph C.” Besides, classified material does not come with a cartoon “TOP SECRET” stamp on it in red in the digital age. Sheesh. Plus: She is on record in the emails we’ve been able to recover asking people using the proper, secure government system — which prevents the transmission of classified material to unsecure servers – to un-mark the documents and send them to her.
(2) Classified material doesn’t have to be marked. A person in her position (a) should know that something is secret, and (b) can designate anything she feels should be classified as classified. She was the Secretary of State of the United States. She is responsible, but pretends she was just a cork pushed around by the currents of the ocean of her own bureaucracy — a bureaucracy that she was instructing to ignore protocols to protect the nation’s secrets.
(3) Hillary says: “What we have here is an unclassified system used by hundreds of people in our government to send information …” For crying out loud! It was HER unclassified system, one she was told to not use. “Hundreds of people in our government” used it because it was the only way to communicate with her. Hillary specifically rejected using the secure .gov system — and told her top underlings to tell everyone else to stop bringing it up as “a thing.” Yet she frames it in the passive voice, as if she had nothing to do with the system — and in the process blames everyone else in the State Department, or anyone who ever emailed her, as the real wrong-doers. Unreal … for anyone but a Clinton.
(4) Hillary says: “I communicated about classified material on a wholly separate system.” No she didn’t. To the MSM that is always looking for “something new” from the candidates, this is a BRAND NEW LIE! Hillary’s first excuse about this whole debacle was she wanted one system in which t0 communicate digitally — with government employees about public and classified state business; her daughter about her wedding plans; her yoga instructor about their stretching progress; and donors and employees of the Clinton Foundation about how the State Department could be put to their service … for the right price. That system was her private and ridiculously insecure email server housed at her home and backed up by an insecure company in Colorado.
The sycophants in the MSM have zero credibility, but they can gain some of it back if they hammer Hillary on this until we get some answers that are not total, bald-faced, intellect-insulting lies.
Evil or incompetence. It’s really come to this?
Either Clinton was very aware of all the possible questions or she was handed them. If you look how rapidly she responded to Matt’s question about suicide it seems she had her answer memorized yet the question was a bit of a peripheral one.
I love her answer to the defective VA system was more government being involved. That’s going to work just fine I’m sure.
So we can choose between Trump and double-plus Trump. This is going to be difficult.
Trump 2016: Vote for the Fool, not the Felon — It’s Important.
This line she keeps using about “not marked classified” is so disingenuous it amounts to a bald-faced lie. It matters not one iota what the header said. Classified material is classified regardless of whether it is mislabeled. Users are obligated to protect it, to report any mislabeled data, and especially to report the illicit introduction of classified data into an unclassified environment. She knows all this and yet she keeps repeating this same non-answer because she knows average people are ignorant of classification protocol. My anger about this is incandescent.
She doesn’t care so much what average people think as that her supporters can tell each other this nonsense and it will get them through the night, and they might even spread it around a little.
It is simply unbelievable that one of these two people is going to be the next President of the United States. The two parties should immediately be disbanded for hoisting these two old, insane, fraudulent, statist buffoons on our country. God help us.
My feelings exactly.
I fully agree with both Keith Keystone and M in MT. Yet, doesn’t this show that primaries in their current form do not work? Too much people passion can be stoked up by media who just want drama to sell news. Where are the founding ideas of moderating popular passion?
I have been trying to encourage a discussion around the Cost/Anderson proposal 5-6 times on Ricochet with almost no response so I am not going to try that again.
But, witnessing from most comments on Ricochet, the majority agrees with Z in MT about “God help us”. Jay Nordlinger repeats his “I blame the people”. All true. What do we do about it? 2016 is over. We will lose no matter what. What do we do for 2020?
And mine. It’s an utter disgrace, and a tragedy both for America and a world that needed more than ever for America to be sane.
Which candidate came out on top at the NBC News Forum?
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2016/09/05/NBC%20outcome_0.jpg
We have a choice between the 2nd Coming of PT Barnum or an unindicted felonious traitor.
Jon – My thanks for reporting on the broadcast. I could not bear to watch it. If your job requires you to watch this stuff for the rest of us, they are not paying you enough.
I watched a show on Amazon recently titled “Murder of a President” about James Garfield. From Wiki and the show:
“At the 1880 Republican National Convention, Senator-elect Garfield attended as campaign manager for Secretary of the Treasury John Sherman, and gave the presidential nomination speech for him. When neither Sherman nor his rivals –Ulysses S. Grant and James G. Blaine – could get enough votes to secure the nomination, delegates chose Garfield as a compromise on the 36th ballot. In the 1880 presidential election, Garfield conducted a low-key front porch campaign, and narrowly defeated Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock.”
Maybe try getting rid of the primaries.
I am surprised that Trump still does not have decent prepared answers for eminently predictable softball questions like “why do you think you can or should be President?” Even a second-tier pol can hit that one outta the park with boilerplate goal recitals and personal anecdotes.
I am surprised that Hillary has not changed her absurd story on the emails. Making old lies inoperative in favor of new lies was a hallmark of the Bill Clinton years. She is free to get creative since the DOJ did their job (as defined by the Democratic Party and Barrack Obama) and removed all legal accountability. Do we think she is starting to believe her own BS? That’s scary. Or scarier.
I wonder if her people will go all gangster on Lauer for asking about the emails like the Ted Kennedy people went after Roger Mudd for daring to ask Ted about Chappaquiddick in the famous 1980 interview. Like Hillary, Ted assumed that he was entitled to have the media in the tank and deeply resented any mention of his obvious malfeasance.
No it’s worse. In the electoral college we are currently leaning towards evil and incompetence.
It is possible that this whole process might educate people to just how corrupt a government or party or system can be when it is not constrained or somehow held accountable. The general populace has almost completely rejected the media establishment and now higher education as they descend into the absurd. They only exist as monopolies but slowly they are fading as real alternatives present themselves. The parties may be next? These are strange times but also very interesting times. The stage is set for change and that change could yet be positive.
Yes, why choose the lesser of two evils when we can have both.
Can you imagine Bill Buckley interviewing these two? He’d of eaten them alive, well trying to be polite the whole time.
It’s worse than you think: As horrible as Hillary was, it looks as though she was wearing an earpiece:
https://twitter.com/hashtag/HillarysEarPiece?src=hash
Wonder who was in the back room feeding her her lines?
It’s reached a point where our presidential election is no longer a choice between a lesser of two evils. It’s now a choice of an evil of two lessers.
As usual, The Instapundit has the answer:
“Lt, thank you for your service. I don’t expect you to have confidence in my leadership, but I am not after your vote either. The people who will vote for me are confident enough.”
“If we would have taken the oil…”
I just love it when imbecilic ideas are expressed in ungrammatical language.
I’m glad he’s not alive to see this.
That’s a stretch. I’d be surprised if he truly understands the concept of separation of powers and the reasoning behind it, let alone believes in its value and intends to abide by it.
I think Glenn Reynolds’ point is that Democrat presidents can get away with stuff that Republicans can’t.