Transcripts For CNNW At This Hour With Berman And Bolduan 20

Proudly claimed that he had a plan but was keeping it secret. Last night, though, he indicated his plan was to tell generals to come up with a plan. So did he ever really have his own plan . Thats just one of the issues on the table today. Lets go right now to senior white house jim acosta live for us at that event. What are you expecting, jim . I think what well hear from donald trump here is hes going to make this argument hes better suited to be Commander In Chief of the United States. We expect him to make these remarks here in the next half an hour or so. Hes going to talk about, as you mentioned, that plan to talk to his generals on the first day he takes the oath of office, to come up with a plan for defeating isis. It is something he talked about at an event in greenville, North Carolina last night. Heres what he had to say. So were going to convene my top generals and give them a simple instruction. They will have 30 days to submit to the oval office a plan for soundly and quickly defeating isis. We have no choice. Now, among the other things we expect trp trump to talk about during this speech, he is going to be calling for an end to those defense forced budget cuts known as sequestration. President obama has also talked about ending sequestration. Donald trump is going to be talking about this. In addition to that, hes going to go after Hillary Clintons Foreign Policy record. Tie her to President Obama. And basically say that there isnt a Military Intervention that Hillary Clinton does not like. Hes going to talk about her vote to authorize use of force against iraq in 2003. Hes going to talk about her support for intervention in libya. And, john and kate, whats interesting about all of this is that there are some reversals we need to talk about if donald trump is going to be talking about today how he wants to lift those forced budget caps on the defense budget. We should point out back in 2013, he told greta van sus train over at fox he didnt think that was enough. Of course, he was caught on tape saying he thought it would be okay to go ahead and use force against iraq before the war started in 2003. And so this is going to be a repositioning for donald trump on some Key National Security issues. At the say type, hes going to use the speech to go after Hillary Clinton on this issue of her qualifications to be president. He has been saying over the last 24 hours shes not qualified to be president because of the way she handled her emails, the iphones and smart phones that were destroyed. We can expect to hear donald trump go off on that as well. Trying to make that case because we saw on that cnn orc poll that cape out yesterday, people still believe that donald trump is not fit temperamentally to be president , that Hillary Clinton does score better in that regard than he does. Part of the reason for the speech is to chip away at those feelings among voters. Because obviously thats one area, one deficit donald trump has to work on, john and kate. Jim acosta there at the speech. Were keeping a close eye on it. As soon as it starts, we will bring it to you. Here now to discuss trumps vision on National Security and military, retired Lieutenant General Mark Hurtling. Pet peter hofstra, thank you for being with us. Let me start with you. Last night, for the first time, we heard donald trump say what hes going to do if hes elected. Hes going to ask his generals to come up with a plan to defeat isis in 30 days. Now, thats different than what we heard up until this point on the campaign trail. The campaign trail, donald trump said he had a plan but he was keeping it a secret. Lets listen. I dont want the enemy to know what im doing. Unfortunately, ill probably have to tell at some point. But theres a method of defeating them quickly and effectively and having total victory. How aggressive would you be in trying to destroy i dont want to tell you. We want to be unpredictable. I have a great plan. Its going to be great. What is it . Id rather not say. I want to be unpredictable. I hate to tell people because if i win, i dont want isis to know. So then he said he had a great plan. Now he says im going to tell my generals to come up with a plan. Mr. Chairman, when he said he had his own plan, was he just making it up . I dont think he was making it up. I think its very clear. I met with mr. Trump three weeks ago. We talked about this. He had a number of his National Security advisers. He clearly understands and knows what he wants to do. Number one, he does want to defeat isis and put in place a detailed plan to make that happen. The second part is he believes theres a role for our nato allies to play with us. That this is not going to be america alone. The third thing is, he wants to make sure people in the region, countries in the region, have a responsibility. And he will also reach out to various groups, whether its the kurds or whatever to partner with us. So it doesnt necessarily mean american boots on the ground to defeat isis. So at a strategic level, he very much knows exactly what he wants to do and what hes going to ask the generals to do is to fill in the blanks. But give them a clear direction which they have not had under President Obama. Which says we want to beat isis. Mr. Chairman, his plan, working with the kurds, working with nato allies sounds exactly like whats happening now. No, its not whats happening now. Weve never empowered the kurds. Weve never armed and equipped the sunni tribes in iraq to do the mission that they are very capable of doing. They, you know, are going from day to day. Theyre being spoon fed the resources that they need. If we had equipped them a number of years ago, we would have defeated isis in iraq and isis would be out of iraq and there would be no isis there. There would not have been a cali caliphate. But no, we are not working effectively with the kurds or the sunni tribes. Plus, we made major strategic errors. Getting rid of gadhafi. Going into syria. Which both of those countries are now failed states. They john iraq, yemen and afghanistan as being failed states. And so no, theres a lot of mistakes that have been made over the last number of years. A President Trump understands those mistakes. He supported that Military Intervention. Which Military Intervention . Both in iraq and libya. The its clear we would be much better off if if gadhafi had stayed in power or if we had gone in, had overthrown gadhafi, and President Obama has admitted, we didnt have a plan for what happened the day after gadhafi left, so whether mr. Chairman, just to be clear, donald trump supported going into libya. In a video in 2011, he said on a humanitarian basis, immediately go into libya, knock this guy out very quickly, very surgically, very effectively, and save the lives. So he supported the policy. Now, it may have turned messy after the fact but he did support that policy. He may have supported that policy. He also would have had a policy in place, this is what businesspeople are good at doing. They not only plan for the first step but they have a longterm plan. He would have asked the very simple question, what are we going to do the day after gadhafi is gone. That appears to be a question that Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton didnt ask and the president didnt ask. Let me bring in lieutenant journal Mark Hurtling on this. Youve had some strong things to say about this. Especially very specifically, we can get into a lot of it, but most specifically first, this idea he proposed yesterday, in 30 days, when he becomes president , he wants a plan from his generals of how to take out isis. You called that insulting to the people who are fighting this fight. What do you mean . I did, kate. And im very confused because frankly over the last 12 months or so, ive been taking meticulous notes on the things mr. Trump has said. And he has shifted his position so many times from the military perspective, i dont know what he wants to do. Now, listening to congressman hofstra, i feel the same way, im very confused. Mr. Trump started off by saying he would bomb the oil fields and encircle them with troops. Then he said he would bomb all the terrorist safe havens. Then he said i know more than the generals do. Then he said i dont have to ask for advice because i know it all. Now hes saying im going to take some advice from the generals. So im very confused. This could be placed as an evolution in his thought processes but truthfully, these kinds of things when youre talking about dealing with allies, conducting combat operations, there is an eightpoint Campaign Plan that is in place. It sounds an awful lot like what you just outlined mr. Trump is going to do. Working with the kurds. Ive been with the kurds on the ground for almost two years. I know the kinds of things we have done with them and for them. And it is not whats meeting the current dynamics of whats being talked about in washington, d. C. So this is all very confusing. General, though, what about the criticism you hear from trump and others that libya, whether or not donald trump supported the policy to go in, which he did, but after the fact, there was no plan to deal with what happeneded in libya . What about the criticism weve heard about iraq, that the United States pulled out too quickly and, again, without a plan to keep that Country Stable and that allowed isis to rise up, what about that criticism, general . Yeah, all that criticism, some of it is founded, john, some of it is not. But its not something that can be addressed in a three or fourminute conversation on cnn. Truthfully, mistakes are often made in Political Engagement and in combat engagement. Thats why theres got to be clarification from the very beginning and the secret plans and no one knowing what were going to do next is not beneficial in order of getting to the real problems. So yes, there were some issues in libya, but id remind everyone that it wasnt the United States that was leading the way in libya, it was members of our Nato Alliance that wanted gadhafi out and we contributed to that. Yes, it may not have been thought out completely in terms of what the end state was going to be. There are indications of what might occur and what could occur. Some of those things did not occur. It caused a little bit of a government morass. So all those things are certainly up for discussions. But to put these all in very Simplistic Solutions is contrary to what huge engagement and conflict is all about. Mr. Chairman, on the most basic level, donald trump said, for months, that he was not going to talk about his plans that he had to combat isis and defeat isis because he wanted to be unpredictable. He had a plan and he was going to keep it secret. Do you want your candidate to keep his plan secret . Well, i think hes going hes not going to telegraph what the generals come back with in terms of tactically implementing a victory against isis will look like. They will keep guessing on that. But, you know, the bottom line here is and i appreciate what the generals talking about. But in the last 7 1 2 years, the military and our political leaders have put us in a position where we are losing this war. In 2008, roughly 3,000 people per year were losing their lives as a result of radical jihadist attacks. In 2015, that number was now approaching 30,000 people per year. This cancer from Radical Jihadism has spread from the middle east in from Northern Africa into the midsection of africa. Its going into asia. Youve got this mass migration flow going into europe. Im sorry, that does not look like winning to me. It doesnt look like winning do you want to hear specifically how he is going to be different than what President Obama has put in place . Do you want to hear specifics from donald trump on how he will put in place a different plan than what weve already heard, what youve laid out in Broad Strokes is in Broad Strokes what the administration has been doing. No, it is what the administration has said they are doing. When you actually get on the ground and you take a look at whats going, the steps that are being taken, those are not the things happening on the ground. Take a look at iraq. Mosul, the second largest city in iraq, 500,000 people. That city is still under the control of isis. You have a caliphate the size of indiana but do you want to hear specifics from donald trump is what im asking. Well, the specifics are were going to put in place a strategy that actually is going to enable us to win and is going to take the handcuffs off our Military Personnel to give them the tools, the equipment and the discretion to put into place a strategy that will win. But mr. Chairman, the strategy you laid out, which donald trump hasnt really laid out, is it that different than the strategy, that is very much the strategy thats in place right now . If i can follow up on something you said earlier, you were talking about libya. You said you were convinced that donald trump would have a plan to govern libya after overthrowing gadhafi. What evidence do you have of that . Particularly because in terms of a plan here, hes been inconsistent on what his plan is. To battle in the middle east. Hes been inconsistent on what his Immigration Plan is. What evidence do you have that he would have a consistent plan for Something Like this . Number one, ive met with donald trump. I company out of the Business World myself. What you do in the Business World and what ive seen in the questions and process mr. Trump goes through. Hes always thinking two, three, four steps past the initial decision. So thats very consistent. The other thing is when you go back to 2013, 2012 and pull quotes out from mr. Trump and say look, hes evolving, hes changing his position. Im sorry, the facts on the ground have gotten much worse in the last three or four years so of course his position is going to evolve because the situation hes looking at is much different than the quotes he was given in 2013. We have lost five countries that are now failed states. Critical countries in the middle east, in Northern Africa. They were not failed states in 2011, in 2012. So of course his policies are going to evolve because the day he takes office in 2017, the conditions are going to be much worse and the challenges hes going to be facing as Commander In Chief are much different to 2012. Thats a fair point, conditions on the ground can change. But in terms of should the United States have gone into libya, he was not antithat, he was for that. That is in the past. Thats factually accurate. He supported u. S. Involvement intervention in libya. That is a fact. That is a fact. Im not sure that position would have been maintained if he would have had the intelligence briefings. If President Obama and secretary state clinton had listened to their intelligence briefings, they would have recognized the people they were partnering with in libya were linked with radical jihadist groups, and i can tell you donald trump recognizes that radical jihadist groups, groups like the muslim brotherhood, are a threat to the United States and they are not a group these are not the type of ideology we can partner with to bring stability and security to the middle east and in Northern Africa. We have to take a break. General, i want to give you a quick chance to respond to the chairman here, general. Again, id just say im deeply confused by the thing ms. Trump is saying. Im even more confused by the things now that Congressman Hoekstra is saying it hes a member of the intelligence community. He knows you cant go backwards in terms of saying tomorrow what you would have done yesterday. These are all things theres a great deal of conjecture in some of the things the congressman is saying. Its nice to be a Monday Morning quarterback but sometimes you dont get that opportunity even when you have the intelligence briefings. The congressman was in congress at the time. Why didnt he stop all this . All right, general hertling, chairman hoekstra, thank you. Pretty soon, there will be more to discuss. Love to continue the conversation between you two, thank you very much. Were waiting to hear from donald trump. I guarantee that will spur more discussion. Well have live remarks as soon as they begin. Plus, it would be a good idea for trump to apologize for questioning President Obamas place of birth. Those birther conspiracies. According to a highprofile donald trump supporter, dr. Ben carson. 80 of women say a Healthy Lifestyle is a priority. 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