Trump will "get rid of ISIS big league"; "wipe them out."

[Liberal_in_LA]

This is pathetic. Trump acts like he's back in the Celebrity Apprentice boardroom playacting a tough guy for the cameras. He declares that he will get "unbelievable intelligence"; he will "get rid of ISIS big league"; and he will "wipe them out." But when Lesley Stahl repeatedly asks him about ground troops, he repeatedly says this isn't in the cards. Maybe NATO will do it. Maybe other Arab countries will do it. Maybe troops will magically appear from a genie's bottle. Even though Trump claims that we're at war and President Obama is too weak and stupid to get it, in the end he basically endorses what Obama is doing right now. Like all the other armchair generals, he doesn't have the backbone to risk taking an unpopular stand, even if it's the only thing that would actually make a significant difference.

And when he's done with this empty blather, what does Mike Pence say? "This is the kind of leadership America needs." Heaven help us.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/07/listen-donald-trumps-pathetic-fakery-isis

[avebury]

1. He is clueless.

Terrorism is like a cockroach. Get rid of one group and a new group emerges. They also lack geographic borders which make them fluid.

[BlueMTexpat]

2. Trump is terrifyingly clueless

about everything.

He is a disastrous buffoon!

[sinkingfeeling]

3. Does Trump have a private intelligence agency or will he be

using those of the USA? Maybe he has fairies.

[gratuitous]

4. But it sounded tough; that's all that matteres

I hear Trump has a guy who knows this guy who has dragon's teeth, see . . .

[Johonny]

5. More like poor people's children will fight in Syria while my kids have other priorities

and then the next president will inherit the mess...

[hamsterjill]

6. Just once, I'd like to see a journalist pin the SOB down.

He just keeps rambling and eventually the journalist who is interviewing the idiot gives up and moves on.

Just once, I'd like to see a journalist say "look, we've got 30 minutes here and I'm not moving on from this question until you give me an answer".

Won't happen.

[Dreamer Tatum]

7. Trump would sooner "cut a deal" with ISIS, and then try to brag about it.

He has no idea how to lead anything or how to do anything. He's a pathetic turd.

[IgelJames4]

8. Trump knows NOTHING about foreign policy

God, this guy is seriously dangerous. I'm 100% certain he'll start WW3 with his reckless policies.

[Dreamer Tatum]

9. Furthermore, he says "bigly" and thinks it's a word.

Tries to BS people into thinking he's saying "big league."

He's an inarticulate buffoon.

[ronnie624]

18. "Big league" doesn't sound any better.

He has the intellectual developement of a typical adolescent, and Americans, by and large, see nothing wrong with this in a national political leader.

[karynnj]

10. I wish Stahl had pointed out that Obama had a 66 nation coalition, including the NATO

countries and many countries in the area. (I doubt that Trump could have made that deal if he tried. )

[Proud Liberal Dem]

14. Exactly

Obama has already been pretty active (and quite successful) in terms of going after Al-Queda, ISIS, etc. There's no way, however, that what Obama is doing will prevent every.single.incident of terrorism but nothing that Trump, et. al might do is going to do that either. And, no, calling it "Radical Islamic Terrorism" isn't a solution either.

[0rganism]

11. looks like a decent play by Orange Foolius

this is actually winning rhetoric. when people vote for a president, they're voting top-level priorities.

policy detail is secondary, arguably for good reasons: situations change, congress gets hold of it, etc. when a president goes to the trouble of laying out detailed policies, it rarely turns out as promised. so voters are okay with a candidate who's willing to say "i'll demand this and that" and let it roll from there. vagueness is not necessarily a deal-killer.

so when Trump says "i'm going to kill them all" it doesn't matter that he won't say how he'll do it, or how he'll avoid civilian casualties, or how he'll handle whatever ugly phoenix rises from their ashes in 3 years. no, that doesn't make a lot of difference in this context. what he's doing is stating clearly a priority that a lot of voters find agreeable: destroy ISIS. this is one of the less controversial things he's done, and it's got Manafort written all over it: "Just talk about killing our enemies, Donald, and for fuck's sake stay on script."

Hillary's going to snow him on policy anyway, she is the ultimate policy wonk. but on issues of national security people vote for the appearance of strong leadership, not ultimate wonkiness, so that's where Trump can make a play based on attitude and flim flam.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

15. Obama (and by extension, Hillary)

got Osama Bin-Laden. Obama has also knocked off a bunch of other terrorists during his two terms. Don't know how Hillary looks weaker than Trump, especially considering how harsh her rhetoric can be. And we just got done being reminded during the past primary just how much of a "hawk" Hillary is.

[0rganism]

19. c'mon, we both know what their initial point of attack will be

and HRC knows it far better than either of us: it starts with a B, ends with an I, and has a whole bunch of republican bullshit artists in the middle

i hope she has a response planned that sticks and stings. she's capable of completely torching the entire GOP on this issue with the right rebuttal.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

21. Yeah, I suppose you're right

I believe that they've devoted an evening to Benghazi this week and, presumably, how evil and/or incompetent Hillary was and how she sent those four Americans to their doom in Benghazi and coldly refused their pleas for assistance while blaming a YouTube video for the attacks. Oh, and how Congress threw bucketfuls of money at her to help pay for diplomatic security but she deliberately kept the Libya mission woefully under protected. I'm actually surprised at this point, they haven't suggested that she either hired terrorists to kill Ambassador Stevens and the other people or was there doing the deed herself.


While what happened in Benghazi is a tragedy (Americans died, so it's definitely more of a tragedy whenever that happens- by default), why do Republicans keep getting away with over-scrutizing what happened in Benghazi when they BARELY wanted to investigate 3000 people being killed on 9/11/01 (and knowing that Bush sat on a "historical" PDB about a possible attack for almost a month beforehand) and didn't do any oversight AFAIK for the 60 or so people who died in embassy attacks during the Bush II (mis-)Administration. Yet, they're all over Benghazi and the four dead diplomats like flies on...........

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. It's the way he says he'll get "unbelievable intelligence" that gave me the facepalm moment

Apart from the problem with the literal interpretation of that, it's as if he sees it as a business decision - just purchase classier intelligence, and you can do anything. He just believes that someone out there will sell him intelligence with gold trimmings, like the fittings in his buildings that he thinks makes them 'classy' and 'unbelievable'. He thinks he can govern and solve international problems by describing them with superlatives.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

13. Heaven help us indeed

[womanofthehills]

16. The Trump-Pence 60 Minutes Interview Is the Epitome of ‘Sad!’

Have you ever wondered what Donald Trump's favorite Twitter exclamation — "Sad! — would look like if it became sentient, wasn't a huge fan of LGBT rights, and sold its soul for a very slim chance at assuming the presidency? We got to find out when the presumptive Republican nominee sat down with the guy he grudgingly chose as his running mate for a 60 Minutes interview. The result was even more bizarre than the speech introducing Governor Mike Pence on Saturday, in which Trump mainly talked about himself.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/07/trump-pence-60-minutes-interview-totally-sad.html

[sorefeet]

17. Actions speak louder than words?

Then why do people believe the lying bullshit that comes out of his mouth but ignore his bankruptcies, no taxes, non payment to contractors, three wives, daughter pervert comment and all of his corrupt actions?

[tenderfoot]

22. Like Cheney and Bush smoked Terrorists out of their holes?

eom

[redStateBlueHeart]

23. My money is on him using nukes

Or carpet bombing entire countries.