thanks for joining us for the second hour of 360. if you thought you heard it all in this election, one candidate says vladimir putin is more of a leader than the sitting president of the united states. the head of the rnc is criticizing the first woman nominated by a major party because he thinks she didn t smile enough last night. there are still two months to go. the first debate just a few weeks away. we have reports from both camps. sara murray joins us now. trump spent a lot of today explaining what he said in the forum last night. reporter: that s right. he did go after hillary clinton. he took another opportunity to take a couple shots at her for her use of a private e-mail server but he launched into a very lengthy defense today of his view of the war in iraq. he again restated that he was opposed to the war before it began and this went on for quite awhile. i want to play just a portion of it for you. before the war, much closer to the war, i gave statements
promised there would be no ground troops used if iraq or syria. and she s gotten some criticism from people who say she s taking an important option off of the table here, anderson. she said that she would support american troops, special forces, doing reconnaissance assisting, indigenous or local forces and providing advisory roles which is the terminology currently used by the white house. some also thought that by not acknowledging that some special forces are currently in combat situations in iraq and syria, she was also, you know, sort of perpetuating this idea that there are no troops who are in harm s way. in fact, they are. some of them have actually died. dru donald trump hitting her on this saying she s telegraphing isis, she commented on donald trump not having a firm grasp of the facts when it comes to national security and the issues that were discussed last night. trump had an event earlier today. he also tried to address some of the things that were said in t
mess that we re in. it s right after the war started. the only problem, that was actually one year and five months after the war started. meanwhile, trump s running mate might pence talks to dana bash defending the candidate s charge that america s generals have been, reduced to rubble. i think he was talking about the commander in chief reducing the influence of generals to rubble. you know who doesn t agree? hillary clinton. he trash talks about america s generals saying that they ve been, quote, reduced to rubble. he said he would fire them all and hand pick his own generals because he knows so much about what it takes to be a general. let s get now to cnn s dana bash, mark preston and mr. david gergen. mark, i m going to start with you because donald trump and hillary clinton aren t holding back attacking each other today. take a look at this. let me be clear. last night was yet another test and donald trump failed yet again. we saw more evidence that he is
both candidates spent the day on the campaign trail clarifying some of their positions, doubling down on others and most definitely taking aim at each other. our senior political correspondent, brianna keilar, joins us with the latest. clinton spending today defending what she said last night. what did she focus on? that s right. what she said last night, a promise, she s clearly sensitive to her iraq war vote still and promised there would be no ground troops used if iraq or syria. and she s gotten some criticism from people who say she s taking an important option off of the table here, anderson. she said that she would support american troops, special forces, doing reconnaissance assisting, indigenous or local forces and providing advisory roles which is the terminology currently used by the white house. some also thought that by not acknowledging that some special forces are currently in combat situations in iraq and syria, she was also, you know, sort of perpetuating t
this is cnn tonight. i m don lemon. meanwhile trump insisting he was against the iraq war from the beginning and he says his interview with esquire magazine proves it. and in august of 2004, very early in the conflict, extremely early in the conflict, right at the beginning, i made a detailed statement in an interview to esquire magazine. tonight the writer who did that interview tells me what else trump said. plus libertarian candidate gary johnson finds himself in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. what would you do if you were elected about aleppo? about? aleppo. and what is aleppo? you re kidding? no. will johnson s voters jump ship and who will get their support? i want to go to executive editor mark preston. we re going to talk about that, but what a stunning moment that was. i saw it happening live. let s talk about this fallout, lots of fallout from last night s military forum, a lot of back and forth attacks today. does any of this cha