Thread: Bill Clinton: Donald Trump is 'fact-free'

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/29/politi...ump-fact-free/

Bill Clinton: Donald Trump is 'fact-free'

By Eric Bradner, CNN

Updated 7:06 PM ET, Tue September 29, 2015

Washington (CNN)Bill Clinton hit Republican presidential contender Donald Trump for running a "fact-free" campaign, defending his wife Hillary Clinton in an interview Tuesday.

The former president touted his wife's accomplishments as President Barack Obama's first secretary of state -- starting with sanctions against Iran -- as he lashed out at Trump for calling his wife's four-year tenure a failure in an interview with CNN's Erin Burnett.

"Well the thing about branding is, you don't have to be -- you can be fact-free," Clinton said with a smile, drawing laughs from a crowd of dozens that watched the interview.

It was a rebuttal to comments Trump made in a Monday interview with Burnett about Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential front-runner.

"When we look at the job that Hillary did as secretary of state, she goes down as perhaps the worst secretary of state in history," Trump said then.

Bill Clinton pointed to his wife's efforts to impose sanctions -- getting Russia and China on board -- that precipitated negotiations over the Iran nuclear deal. He said that while that deal has proven controversial, the sanctions were roundly considered a success.

"Even the Republicans admit that the sanctions on Iran were well done," he said.

"And that was a major achievement, to get Russia and China to agree to sign off on these sanctions and enforce them," he said. "She did that. That's what made the talks possible, so even the people who don't like the Iran deal, like the sanctions."

He also highlighted her work on the new START treaty with Russia, saying that "having these two sides still committed to reducing the number of nuclear warheads and missiles, I think, is a good thing."

He said Hillary Clinton's efforts to expand the number of beneficiaries from the George W. Bush-era anti-AIDS program known as the "President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief," or PEPFAR, from 1.7 million people to 5.1 million by using more generic medicines.

"These are all facts, so they're not common to the diatribe here," Bill Clinton said.

And he said Trump's criticisms of Hillary Clinton would be ripped apart in the context of a general election.

"You know, if he becomes the nominee, he'll have to sort of hone his criticisms a little more finely because the facts will be easy to marshal," he said. "But you know, he's good at this, that's what he does. And the people that he is telling it to now basically have only heard that story, so they believe it and it's probably good politics for him."

That point was part of Clinton's broader criticism of political media. He blamed his wife's struggles in polls -- where voters have increasingly questioned her trustworthiness -- on a press that has picked up on Republican criticism over issues like her use of a private email server.

He said to Burnett: "If I were sitting in your chair and you were sitting here, and you wanted to run for office, and I had four or five months to make sure nothing but the opposition's negative claims on you were run, and I presume your guilt with every question, and I beat up on you, do you think I could run your favorables down?"

In another jab at Trump, Clinton said the GOP front-runner "told me what a good job (Hillary Clinton) did in the Senate for New York after 9/11."

He also said Trump will eventually need to offer more policy proposals of his own.

"You have to be able to brand yourself. You have to be able to be identified," Clinton said as he acknowledged he believes Trump has a chance to win the Republican nomination. "But at some point you also have to say what are you going to do. You can't just spend all your time saying everything everybody else did was wrong and they were all doofuses."

He also indicated -- without offering specifics, beyond that he'll likely participate in more fundraisers -- that his own role in the campaign might pick up now that the Clinton Global Initiative event in New York has wrapped up.

He said he'll "go talk to her supporters and tell them what I think they should know, and answer their questions, and free her up to campaign more. I have no idea what else I'll do."

Oh boy, Bill, you've gone and done it now!

To defend someone's performance is to defend the result. The result is total chaos in the Middle East. Dangerous chaos with ISIS invading every country it can barge into. The outcome is total failure so bad that now Russia is taking over, and thank God for that. They know the Middle East, they know Assad is better than chaos, war, massive emigration, massive invasions of our allies by ISIS posing as "refugees".

The US involvement in the Middle East is the same disaster as Vietnam.

This will be the last engagement in countries where we don't know the people, don't know who they are, or what they want or what the hell we're even fighting and dying for.

That's it. No More. No More. No More.

There's a reason Muslim countries have always been run by dictators, even dictators who like Assad and Hussein tried to bring in secularism and some semblance of openness and liberty. It fails because that isn't what the people want.

The people of these countries are social conservatives who want their own version of Muslimism Religious Tyranny. So let them duke it out on their own. After all, isn't that religious liberty's finest hour?

Originally Posted by Judy

Oh boy, Bill, you've gone and done it now!

To defend someone's performance is to defend the result. The result is total chaos in the Middle East. Dangerous chaos with ISIS invading every country it can barge into. The outcome is total failure so bad that now Russia is taking over, and thank God for that. They know the Middle East, they know Assad is better than chaos, war, massive emigration, massive invasions of our allies by ISIS posing as "refugees".

The US involvement in the Middle East is the same disaster as Vietnam.

This will be the last engagement in countries where we don't know the people, don't know who they are, or what they want or what the hell we're even fighting and dying for.

That's it. No More. No More. No More.

There's a reason Muslim countries have always been run by dictators, even dictators who like Assad and Hussein tried to bring in secularism and some semblance of openness and liberty. It fails because that isn't what the people want.

The people of these countries are social conservatives who want their own version of Muslimism Religious Tyranny. So let them duke it out on their own. After all, isn't that religious liberty's finest hour?

You are contradicting yourself, Judy. First you say it's a good thing Russia is involved in Syria, then you turn around and say let the countries duke it out on their own (Russia is not part of the Middle East). Furthermore, has it occurred to you that Assad could be the reason there is currently chaos and war in Syria?

Originally Posted by MW

You are contradicting yourself, Judy. First you say it's a good thing Russia is involved in Syria, then you turn around and say let the countries duke it out on their own (Russia is not part of the Middle East). Furthermore, has it occurred to you that Assad could be the reason there is currently chaos and war in Syria?

"On their own" means without the United States. If the Assad government wants Russia's help to end the chaos, that is their right and none of our business.

Well the George HW Bush Desert Storm was a good move. ( I did try to go to work over there; I had friend who was in the AF Reserve who got called up; pretty worried. Then two weeks later he was headed home and got cheered on the airliner!) There were two million foreign workers in Kuwait who were in danger, and Bush went to the UN to lead the charge.

I met some high ranking people from the UN in 2000 in New York--and saw that they were not anti-US crazies, just passionate about their job. We shoulda, oughta just let the UN keep handling it, and maybe cut them some billion dollar checks for supplies. Instead GWB had some Texas, crazy, anti-UN religious nuts advising him, along with the Jewish Neocons---so pretty soon they are barging in like a sheriff into the saloon who shoots the civilians instead.

Whenever I hear conservatives discussing the "new world order" I cringe. A big conspiracy theory is not what George HW Bush was talking about. Although I would agree that the globalists are basically a conspiratorial group now.

Originally Posted by Captainron

Well the George HW Bush Desert Storm was a good move. ( I did try to go to work over there; I had friend who was in the AF Reserve who got called up; pretty worried. Then two weeks later he was headed home and got cheered on the airliner!) There were two million foreign workers in Kuwait who were in danger, and Bush went to the UN to lead the charge.

I met some high ranking people from the UN in 2000 in New York--and saw that they were not anti-US crazies, just passionate about their job. We shoulda, oughta just let the UN keep handling it, and maybe cut them some billion dollar checks for supplies. Instead GWB had some Texas, crazy, anti-UN religious nuts advising him, along with the Jewish Neocons---so pretty soon they are barging in like a sheriff into the saloon who shoots the civilians instead.

Whenever I hear conservatives discussing the "new world order" I cringe. A big conspiracy theory is not what George HW Bush was talking about. Although I would agree that the globalists are basically a conspiratorial group now.

I agree.