Press. voanews.com.
President Barack
Obama denounced Donald Trump as unfit to be the American commander-in-chief,
after the Republican presidential candidate said Russian President Vladimir
Putin has been more of a leader than Obama.
"I do not
think the guy's qualified to be president of the United States and every time
he speaks, that opinion is confirmed," Obama said in what was an unusually
caustic comment about the U.S. presidential contest while he was traveling
overseas.
Late Wednesday,
Trump said at a nationally televised candidate forum that Putin was "far
more than our president has been a leader" and that U.S. military generals
have been "reduced to rubble" under Obama.
Obama, at the
end of his last presidential trip to Asia, said as president, "You
actually have to know what you are talking about and you actually have to have
done your homework. When you speak, it should actually reflect thought out
policy you can implement."
Obama, who
staunchly supports Trump's Democratic candidate, former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton, said, "The most important thing for the public and the
press is to just listen to what he says and follow up and ask questions to what
appear to be either contradictory or uninformed or outright wacky ideas."
'Very good
relationship' with Putin
During an NBC News
forum Wednesday in which Trump was interviewed separately from Clinton, Trump
said he thinks if he is elected and succeeds Obama as president, he would have
a "very good relationship with Putin." He said Russia and the United
States have a joint interest in defeating Islamic State
"Russia
wants to defeat ISIS as badly as we do," he said. "If we had a
relationship with Russia, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could work on it
together and knock the hell out of ISIS?"
He further
criticized U.S. military action in Iraq under Obama, saying generals "have
not been successful." Trump repeated his assertion the United States
should have seized oil from Iraq.
"If we
would have taken the oil, you wouldn't have ISIS, because ISIS formed with the
power and wealth of that oil," Trump contended.
Intelligence
briefing
As a major party
candidate, Trump has received confidential intelligence briefings meant to
ensure that the next leader is knowledgeable about U.S. foreign policies when
their term begins. When asked if he was shocked by anything he heard, Trump
said Obama, Clinton and Secretary of State John Kerry did the opposite of what
intelligence experts told them.
"I am very
good with body language. I could tell they were not happy our leaders did not
follow what they were recommending," he said.
Trump said he
was qualified to be commander-in-chief because “I built a great company; I’ve
been all over the world; I’ve dealt with foreign countries... I have great
judgment; I know what’s going on.”
Iraq war
Trump also said
he was "totally against the war in Iraq," a claim that is
contradicted by his initial support for the 2003 U.S. invasion. Clinton said
that her vote for the Iraq war when she was a U.S. senator was a mistake, but
that it was important to learn from mistakes. She also pushed back against
Trump's repeated assertions during the campaign that he opposed the U.S. attack
on Iraq.
"He
supported it before it happened, he supported it as it was happening, and he is
on the record as supporting it after it happened," Clinton said. "I
have taken responsibility for my decision. He refuses to take responsibility
for his support. That is a judgment issue."
Trump has called
Clinton “totally trigger-happy,” adding, “In Iraq, my judgment was right, hers
was wrong.”
Clinton said the
most important quality in a president is steadiness and the strength to make
hard decisions.
"What you
want in a president, a commander-in-chief, is someone who listens, who
evaluates what is being told to him or her, who is able to sort out the very
difficult options being presented, and then makes the decision," she said.
Emails,
counterterrorism
She has faced
criticism and investigations for her use of an unsecured private email server
while serving as the country's top diplomat during Obama's first term, from
2009 to 2013. Investigators said she was "extremely careless," but
criminal charges were not warranted.
"It was
something that should not have been done," she said, adding that there was
no evidence her system was hacked. Clinton called the fight against Islamic
State the top counterterrorism goal, advocating using air power and getting
more support from Arabs and Kurds fighting IS militants, while also supporting
the Iraqi military. She said no U.S. ground combat troops would go to Iraq or
Syria.
"I view
force as a last resort, not a first choice," she said.
Trump and
Clinton will square off directly in their first presidential debate on
September 26, with two more scheduled in October in the weeks before the
November 8 election.
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