Clinton's remarks were intended in part to show she would not be
cowed and that she could go toe-to-toe with him in scornful put-downs.
U.S.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton delivers a speech on
national security in San Diego, California, United States June 2, 2016.U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton lambasted Donald Trump's foreign policy platform as "dangerously incoherent" in a speech on Thursday that cast her Republican rival as both a frightening and laughable figure.
In
remarks that at times resembled a comedy roast, Clinton unleashed a
torrent of polished zingers and one-liners to attack Trump's policies
and character, suggesting Trump might start a nuclear war if elected to
the White House simply because "somebody got under his very thin skin."
"Donald
Trump's ideas are not just different, they are dangerously incoherent,"
she said to a room of supporters in San Diego, California. "They're not
even really ideas, just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds and
outright lies."
Clinton, the front-runner in the
race to become the Democratic presidential nominee, delivered her speech
as she seeks to shift her attention to the Nov. 8 election against
likely rival Trump and away from Bernie Sanders, a U.S. senator from
Vermont, who is continuing his long-shot bid for the nomination.
Clinton was speaking in San Diego ahead of California's June 7 primary election.
Democratic
Party leaders have fretted about how to best oppose Trump, who managed
to knock out all 16 rivals for the Republican nomination in part with
his uninhibited style of assailing them with personal insults. Trump
revels in referring to Clinton as "Crooked Hillary" and dredging up the
infidelities of her husband, Bill Clinton, the former president.
Clinton's
remarks were intended in part to show she would not be cowed and that
she could go toe-to-toe with him in scornful put-downs.
"He
says he has foreign policy experience because he ran the Miss Universe
pageant in Russia," she said as the crowd guffawed, and she suggested
Trump would run the U.S. economy "like one of his casinos."
During
her speech, Clinton predicted Trump, who has been deeply critical of
Clinton's foreign policy record, would take to his Twitter account to
insult her, and he did.
"Bad performance by
Crooked Hillary Clinton!" ran one posting during the speech, which
included a typo. "Reading poorly from the telepromter! She doesn't even
look presidential!"
Trump has said previously that Clinton is distorting his actual policies.
TWO VISIONS
Amid
the laugh lines, Clinton cited her own experience as secretary of
state, in particular her role advising President Barack Obama during the
mission to kill al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, to suggest her
approach to foreign policy was the more serious.
"He
praises dictators like Vladimir Putin and picks fights with our
friends, including the British prime minister, the mayor of London, the
German chancellor, the president of Mexico and the pope," Clinton said,
listing some of the allies with whom Trump has verbally sparred in the
last year.
Obama, who has also been repeatedly
mocked by Trump, has criticized Trump as being ignorant or cavalier
about world affairs and has said that Trump's rise has "rattled" foreign
leaders.
Trump has talked tough on foreign
policy. He has said he would bring back waterboarding and other brutal
interrogation techniques for terrorism suspects that are widely regarded
as torture and were discontinued by Obama.
Trump
has also vowed to renegotiate trade deals, called for a temporary ban on
Muslims entering the country, and said he would ask members of the
28-nation NATO alliance to "pay up" or "get out." He has said he would
sit down with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to try to stop Pyongyang's
nuclear program.
Clinton derided these and other
positions, promising she would do a better job keeping the United States
safe. Standing in front of a backdrop of 19 large U.S. flags, an
unusual abundance even by the standards of presidential campaign events,
Clinton painted the election as a choice between "two very different
visions."
"One that's angry, afraid and based on
the idea that America is fundamentally weak and in decline," she said,
summing up Trumpism. "The other is hopeful, generous and confident in
the knowledge that America is great, just like we always have been."
Trump
has criticized Clinton for her handling of foreign policy during her
2009-2013 stint as secretary of state, including the Sept. 11, 2012,
attack by Islamist militants on a U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi,
Libya, that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.
He
cites Clinton's support for the war in Iraq, launched by former
Republican President George W. Bush, as another example of her
shortcomings.
Democratic challenger Sanders echoed
Clinton's concerns about Trump after her speech, though he also
criticized Clinton's foreign policy. "I agree ... that Donald Trump's
foreign policy ideas are incredibly reckless and irresponsible," Sanders
said in a statement.
In criticizing Clinton,
Sanders cited her vote for the war in Iraq, calling it "the worst
foreign policy blunder in modern American history," and said "she has
been a proponent of regime change, as in Libya, without thinking through
the consequences."
In assailing each other's
suitability for the White House, Clinton and Trump are reflecting a
negative voter mood ahead of next month's party conventions that will
choose the presidential nominees.
Both Clinton
and Trump are facing record-low favourability ratings. A Reuters/Ipsos
poll taken Friday through Tuesday shows half of Trump supporters say the
primary reason they are going to vote for him is "I don't want Hillary
Clinton to win," while 41 percent of Clinton supporters cite their
primary reason as not wanting Trump to win.
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