Hillary Clinton on Wednesday urged veterans at an American Legion conference to reject Donald Trump’s view of the world, arguing that the Republican nominee doesn’t have what it takes to build and maintain alliances.
Though Clinton was subtler in her attacks on Trump in front of the audience of veterans, the former secretary of state did blast the businessman-turned-politician — sometimes not by name — for what she said were his insults toward the military, attacking the family of a soldier killed in action and being too cozy with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Clinton did not directly mention Trump’s last-minute visit to Mexico, but her comments nodded to the Republican nominee’s trip he made Wednesday.
Building alliances and trust with other nations, Clinton said, takes “more than a photo op, it takes consistency and reliability.”
“You don’t build a coalition by insulting our friends or acting like a loose cannon. You do it by putting in the slow, hard work of building relationships. Getting countries working together was my job every day as secretary of state,” Clinton said. “It’s just like building personal relationships — people have got to know they can count on you — that you won’t say one thing one day and something totally different the next.”
Clinton then added that building those relationships “certainly takes more than making up for a year of insults by dropping in on our neighbors for a few hours and flying home again.”
Clinton’s campaign also dismissed Trump’s trip to Mexico on Tuesday night, arguing that what he says on the foreign trip doesn’t matter as much as what he says to voters in the United States.
Clinton’s event in Ohio is the first she has had in six days and comes after three days of frenetic fundraising in the Hamptons. The Democratic nominee has largely used August to raise money, pulling in close to $70 million, according to average ticket prices and attendance figures provided by the Clinton campaign.
The former secretary of state pledged on Wednesday that, as president, she would “never, ever disrespect Gold Star families who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation or prisoners of war who endured so much in our name.”
Trump blasted the Khan family after they spoke at the Democratic National Convention this summer. Khizr Khan, a Pakistani-American lawyer and the father of the late Humayun Khan, powerfully hit Trump during his speech and Trump responded by questioning his family’s motives. Earlier in the campaign, Trump also downplayed the heroism of Arizona Sen. John McCain, a POW, citing his capture during the Vietnam War.
“To insult them is just so wrong,” Clinton said. “And it says a lot about the person doing the insulting.”
Clinton continued her outreach to Republican voters as well Wednesday, pledging before a somewhat muted crowd to “be a president for Democrats, Republicans, independents, for people who vote for me, for people who don’t, for all Americans.”
Trump’s campaign responded to the speech by saying that Clinton has proven that she is “fundamentally unequipped to further the national security interests of the United States and stand up for our veterans.”
“Those who have served and wear the uniform today deserve to have a commander in chief who is looking out for them rather than donors and corrupt bureaucrats,” said Matt Miller, director of Veterans for Trump. “Only Donald Trump and Mike Pence have a detailed plan to fundamentally improve both the (Department of Veterans Affairs) and the way veterans are treated in this country.”
