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Hillary Clinton Warns Donald Trump’s ‘Thin Skin’ Would Set Off War or Economic Crisis Hillary Clinton Warns That Donald Trump’s ‘Thin Skin’ Would Set off War or Economic Crisis
(about 4 hours later)
Ridiculing her likely opponent for the White House as ignorant, erratic and emotionally childlike, Hillary Clinton unleashed a caustic attack on Donald J. Trump on Thursday, presenting a dark vision of a potential Trump presidency that would lead America and the world into an unnecessary military conflict or economic crisis. Hillary Clinton delivered a lacerating rebuke on Thursday of her likely Republican opponent, Donald J. Trump, declaring that he was hopelessly unprepared and temperamentally unfit to be commander in chief. Electing him, she said, would be a “historic mistake.”
“This is not someone who should ever have the nuclear codes,” Mrs. Clinton said in a speech in San Diego that featured her most forceful condemnation yet of the presumptive Republican nominee. “It’s not hard to imagine Donald Trump leading us into a war just because somebody got under his very thin skin.” Speaking in a steady, modulated tone but lobbing some of the most fiery lines of her presidential campaign, Mrs. Clinton painted Mr. Trump as a reckless, childish and uninformed amateur who was playing at the game of global statecraft.
Mrs. Clinton, whose campaign had grappled for weeks over how to contend with Mr. Trump, seemed to find her footing as she addressed an audience that howled and cheered as she deconstructed Mr. Trump’s foreign policy pronouncements, calling them “not even really ideas, just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds and outright lies.” “This is not someone who should ever have the nuclear codes,” she said, “because it’s not hard to imagine Donald Trump leading us into a war just because somebody got under his very thin skin.”
The speech, which interlaced biting sarcasm and somber assessments of foreign crises, unveiled what is likely to be the core argument Mrs. Clinton will carry into the general election. Mrs. Clinton, whose campaign had grappled for weeks over how to handle Mr. Trump, seemed to find her footing as she addressed an audience in San Diego that laughed and cheered as she deconstructed Mr. Trump’s foreign policy pronouncements. They were, she said, “not even really ideas, just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds and outright lies.”
Calling Mr. Trump “Donald” throughout, Mrs. Clinton sought to portray her likely rival as a petulant youngster whose temperament and penchant for combat would “take our country down a truly dangerous path.” The speech, which mixed biting sarcasm and somber assessments of the foreign crises of the Obama years, unfurled what is likely to be the core argument that Mrs. Clinton will carry into the general election.
To an extent, the speech was the result of weeks of study by Clinton aides of what attacks by Mr. Trump’s Republican rivals had not worked. It was billed as a major foreign policy address, but was devoid of new proposals. Instead, it was studded with punch lines: Mr. Trump “doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about,” she said at one point. “Donald doesn’t see the complexity,” she said at another. Her remarks were billed as a major foreign policy address, and she was flanked by a row of 19 American flags as majestic as those that often back Mr. Trump at his public events. Yet the speech was devoid of new policy prescriptions, and she skipped over difficult episodes during her tenure as secretary of state, including the NATO intervention in Libya and its bloody aftermath in Benghazi.
At her most pointed, and humorous, Mrs. Clinton delivered an acid assessment of Mr. Trump’s temperament that even questioned his psychological state. Instead she borrowed a tactic from President Obama, reeling off zingers that are catnip to cable-news channels. It won her the kind of sustained live coverage that Mr. Trump has enjoyed routinely but Mrs. Clinton has not, though the announcement by Speaker Paul D. Ryan that he planned to vote for Mr. Trump stole her thunder in the opening moments of the 30-minute address.
“I don’t understand Donald’s bizarre fascination with dictators and strong men who have no love for America,” Mrs. Clinton said, pointing to the praise for Mr. Trump from President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and the North Korean government of Kim Jong-un. “I will leave it to the psychiatrists to explain his affection for tyrants,” she said. She said she imagined Mr. Trump was “composing nasty tweets” about her even as she spoke. And indeed he was: “Bad performance by Crooked Hillary Clinton!” Mr. Trump wrote. “Reading poorly from the teleprompter! She doesn’t even look presidential.”
With such acerbic political jabs lacing its more policy-laden sections, the speech ensured the kind of sustained live coverage on cable news stations that Mr. Trump has enjoyed routinely but Mrs. Clinton has seldom received. But Mrs. Clinton sought to turn Mr. Trump’s prolific Twitter habit into an additional bullet point demonstrating that he was “unfit” for the presidency, as she put it. She twice referred to the scene in the White House Situation Room where as secretary of state, she advised Mr. Obama on the raid on a compound in Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden.
She said she imagined Mr. Trump “composing nasty tweets” about her as she spoke. And, indeed, Mr. Trump was: “Bad performance by Crooked Hillary Clinton! Reading poorly from teleprompter! She doesn’t even look presidential,” he wrote. “Imagine Donald Trump sitting in the Situation Room, making life-or-death decisions on behalf of the United States,” Mrs. Clinton said, eliciting cries of “No!” from her audience. “Imagine if he had not just his Twitter account at his disposal when he’s angry, but America’s entire arsenal.”
But Mrs. Clinton sought to turn Mr. Trump’s prolific Twitter habit into an additional bullet point showing that he was unfit for the presidency, as she put it. She twice referred to the scene in which, as secretary of state, she advised President Obama on the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. In an interview with The New York Times during Mrs. Clinton’s speech, Mr. Trump said that Mrs. Clinton’s performance was “terrible” and “pathetic.” He added: “I’m not thin-skinned at all. I’m the opposite of thin-skinned.”
“Imagine Donald Trump sitting in the situation room, making life or death decisions on behalf of the United States,” Mrs. Clinton said, eliciting cries of “No!” from her audience. “Imagine if he had more than his Twitter account at his disposal when he’s angry, but America’s entire arsenal.” For Mrs. Clinton, whose formal speeches tend to be earnest and laden with policy prescriptions, it was a striking departure — a rollicking political indictment that doubled as Mrs. Clinton’s first full-blooded response to Mr. Trump’s drumbeat of criticism about her ethics and judgment during a quarter-century in public life.
(In an interview during Mrs. Clinton’s speech, Mr. Trump called her performance “terrible” and “pathetic.” He added: “I’m not thin-skinned at all. I’m the opposite of thin-skinned.”) The speech came after weeks of study by Clinton aides to determine which attacks by Mr. Trump’s Republican rivals had not worked. It was studded with punch lines: Mr. Trump “doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about,” Mrs. Clinton said at one point. “Donald doesn’t see the complexity,” she said at another. “This isn’t reality television,” she said of a Trump presidency. “This is actual reality.”
The speech was written by Mrs. Clinton’s speechwriters, Dan Schwerin and Megan Rooney, and her top policy aide, Jake Sullivan, with assistance from advisers including Mr. Obama’s former speechwriter Jon Favreau. And it came as a meaty rebuttal to Democrats who have expressed concern lately that her campaign seemed to lack gumption in going after Mr. Trump. After her campaign had initially issued a tepid response to Mr. Trump’s proposal of defaulting on the national debt, calling the idea “risky,” Mrs. Clinton said Thursday that such action would lead to “an economic catastrophe.”
She wasted no time declaring at the top of her speech that not only was Mr. Trump unfit to be commander in chief, but that his very position as a leading presidential candidate threatened the foundation of American optimism. “He believes we can treat the U.S. economy like one of his casinos,” she said.
Striking a bipartisan note, Mrs. Clinton recalled an advertisement Mr. Trump took out in newspapers in 1987, during the Reagan administration, “saying that America lacked a backbone and that the world was, you guessed it, laughing at us.” The speech was roughly 10 days in the making and written by Mrs. Clinton’s speechwriters, Dan Schwerin and Megan Rooney, and top policy aide, Jake Sullivan, with outside advisers including Mr. Obama’s former chief speechwriter, Jon Favreau, reviewing a late draft. Ms. Rooney, a former State Department speechwriter, was perched on the arm of Mrs. Clinton’s chair on a flight from Boston to San Diego on Wednesday night, making revisions on her laptop and making sure the lines echoed Mrs. Clinton’s sardonic humor.
“You’ve got to wonder why somebody who fundamentally has so little confidence in America, and has felt that way for at least 30 years, wants to be our president,” she said. The address was a meaty rebuttal to Democrats who had expressed concern that Mrs. Clinton’s campaign lacked gumption in going after Mr. Trump, particularly because Mr. Obama and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have relished opportunities to skewer him.
But even that sober assessment paled in comparison to Mrs. Clinton’s belittling portrayal of Mr. Trump as a kind of pathetic Richie Rich, both sinister and sad, whose experience running beauty pageants and golf courses, and bankrupting casinos, had left him wholly unprepared for the job he wants. By turns mocking and stern, Mrs. Clinton derided Mr. Trump for suggesting that Japan should acquire nuclear weapons to deter North Korea, that the United States should have walked away from the nuclear deal with Iran, and that “maybe Syria should be a free zone for ISIS.”
Evoking her experience representing the United States as first lady, a senator and then secretary of state, she heaped disdain on Mr. Trump’s background. “He says he has foreign policy experience because he ran the Miss Universe pageant in Russia,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And to top it off, he believes America is weak. An embarrassment. He called our military a disaster. He said we are, and I quote, a ‘third-world country.’”
“He says he has foreign policy experience because he ran the Miss Universe pageant in Russia,” Mrs. Clinton said. “There’s no risk of people losing their lives if you blow up a golf course deal.” In vivid strokes, Mrs. Clinton framed not just her case against Mr. Trump but the broader foreign-policy debate in the election: She cast herself as the defender of an American-led world order against an insurgent who did not understand, let alone respect, the network of alliances the United States constructed after World War II to safeguard its interests.
Mrs. Clinton presented herself as a sure-footed commander in chief, a fervent believer in America as an exceptional country, tested by her time in the Situation Room. She highlighted her ability to go “toe to toe” with leaders in Beijing and Moscow, contrasting that with what she said was Mr. Trump’s “bizarre fascination with dictators and strongmen who have no love for America.”
“I’ll leave it to the psychiatrists to explain his affection for tyrants,” she said, smiling, to applause. “I just wonder how anyone could be so wrong about who America’s real friends are.”
Even as she excoriated Mr. Trump, Mrs. Clinton kept a close eye on domestic politics. She noted, for example, that she understood the deep qualms that voters had with trade deals. Still, Mr. Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on Chinese imports, Mrs. Clinton said, would set off a trade war of the kind that deepened the Great Depression in the 1930s.
Mrs. Clinton recited a handful of highlights from her time at the State Department, including her role in brokering a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in 2012 and rallying the world to impose sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program. But she failed to flesh out her proposals for dealing with the Islamic State or the civil war in Syria.
To Mrs. Clinton, such policy details were not as important as the black-and-white differences between her and Mr. Trump.
“He has said that he would order our military to carry out torture and the murder of civilians who are related to suspected terrorists, even though those are war crimes,” Mrs. Clinton said. “He says he doesn’t have to listen to our generals or our admirals, our ambassadors and other high officials, because he has, quote, ‘a very good brain.’”
“He also said, ‘I know more about ISIS than the generals do, believe me.’ You know what?” she continued. “I don’t believe him.”
Mrs. Clinton ended her remarks on a more solemn note, arguing that Mr. Trump’s proposals, like barring Muslims from entering the United States, “could fuel an ugly narrative about who we are.”
Mr. Trump, she said, would undo decades of statecraft by Republicans and Democrats. Striking a bipartisan note, Mrs. Clinton recalled an advertisement Mr. Trump took out in newspapers in 1987, during the Reagan administration, “saying that America lacked a backbone and that the world was, you guessed it, laughing at us.”
“You’ve got to wonder why somebody who fundamentally has so little confidence in America and has felt that way for at least 30 years wants to be our president,” she said.