I think under the leadership of barack obama and Hillary Clinton, the generals have been reduced to rubble. They have been reduced to a point where its embarrassing for our country. I think i would have a very, very Good Relationship with p e putin. If he says great things about him, i will say great things about him. Were some of the emails by you referring to our Drone Program, our Drone Program . Yes. In backtoback appearances on the same stage last night, Hillary Clinton and donald trump outlined their visions for leading the u. S. Military both overseas and here at home. For clinton, the first and
perhaps toughest test dealt with questions about her judgment, particularly in using a private email server for government business. Donald trump, meanwhile, bounced from Bashing American generals to seeking their advice suggesting hed install new top brass in the pentagon to wage his still secret strategy against isis. From Vladimir Putin to billion dollar budgets, the two contenders set the stage for the waning weeks leading up to election day. Quite a night here on msnbc. Good morning, its thursday, september 8th. With us on set we have veteran columnist and msnbc contributor, Mike Barnicle. Managing editor and cohost of all due respect that airs at 6 00 p. M. On msnbc, Mark Halperin and Richard Haass. Donald trump talked about the
state of the nations top military officers after matt lauer quoted back to him h criticism of the generals in americas current conflict. I know more about isis than the generals do, believe me, was that the truth . The generals under barack obama and Hillary Clinton have not been successful. Do you know more about isis than they do . Under the leadership of barack obama and Hillary Clinton, the generals have been reduced to rubble. They have been reduced to a point where its embarrassing for our country. You know, you said if we had mcarthur today or if we had patton today, we would not have isis. The rise of the military commanders we have today. They come up the military command and by the time they get to the top theyre too politically correct. Have you lost faith in the military commanders . I have great faith in the military. I have great faith in the commanders, certainly, but no faith in Hillary Clinton or the
leadership. What kind of research are you doing now . What kind of homework are you doing . What kind of things are you reading as you prepare for the day in two months where you might be elected the next president of the United States . Well, in the front row you have four generals. You have admirals, we have people all throughout the audience that im dealing with. Right here is a list that was just printed today of 88 admirals and generals i meet with and i talk to. How much are you spending on this . A lot. So, joe, you watched this from across the pond and well gauge reaction there. First of all, what did you think . I thought it was more of the same. I thought donald trump spoke in generalities and i think Hillary Clinton was peppered with very specific questions and something people have been complaining about on this show for a very long time. Donald trump is held to a lower standard. He just is. Nobody expects him to know the specifics of policy, so they dont push him on it. Last night we heard more
generalities and we heard insults of generals saying our generals have been reduced to rubble. That would have a terrible impact, i think, on donald trump as a commander in chief if he became president of the United States. And you can go down the line. Putin comments. Just a lot of generalities. Im really curious, i dont want to kill hamlet in the first act here. I want to go around and ask everybody what they thought. Lets start with you, richard. What was your take away on Hillary Clinton and donald trump and the night . Let me start with the night. I found it frustrated. I dont think we learned a lot about what these people would bring to the position of commander in chief. What did they learn from history . What, for example, other decisions the previous commanders in chief made. I came away with no greater insight on what they would do differently in syria. I dont think we know the answer to Something Like that. I found it a frustrating eepg. I thought mrs. Clinton had a rough start. The ten minutes on the emails
is not whereshe wanted to go. Her potential judgment as commander in chief. And then i thought for donald trump, as you se, he spoke at a level of generality. At 36,000 feet. We didnt, again, learn what he would actually bring to the job. Thats what we want to do at the top here before we play more. Were going to be general at first and then dig in deeper to specific questions. Lets go to you, Mark Halperin, what was your take away from last night. The American People believe these are two largely flawed candidate. I believe the way the flow of the evening went, unfortunately, one of two of them will be president. We saw their flaws. And i think they both should watch last night and think about, is that the side of themselves in terms of the specifics, the style, the willingness to engage on top issues that shows humillty and strength that they want to display in the debates coming
up. I dont think it is for either of them. Mike barnicle, not a lot of a pluses being handed out this morning by our tough staff. What do you grade both the candidates from last nights forum . I give Hillary Clinton a b minus. I flunked donald trump for a staggering lack of depth, lack of knowledge. He is the, as you pointed out, the beneficiary, huge beneficiary of the double standard. Hillary clinton was asked tough questions and had trouble answering those questions. Syria wasnt mentioned. Aleppo wasnt mentioned and the refugee crisis wasnt mentioned. I understand all of that. Trump aligned himself with Vladimir Putin that in a way is kind of shocking and Hillary Clinton has to figure out a way to play offense, not defense. Willie geist here in london,
obviously, a lot of people concerned about the prospects of a President Trump as they are across every country in europe other than russia. When you hear donald trump, once again, saying that a dictator that assassinates political players that gets in his way and all that dont fit his political, his political plans and you have donald trump comparing that man to barack obama, its got to be shocking even for rank and file republicans. And comparing him favorably to barack obama saying hes a much better leader than our own president. Whatever your politics are in this country, you may not like president obama, but thats a pretty outrageous statement to make. As for last night, joe, i dont think the state of play changed much. I dont think we learned that much about either of the candidates. Hillary clinton having to answer email questions again at the top and donald trump in addition
to what you said about putin. Him saying if putin says great things about me, im going to say great things about him. Thats a scary prospect. If you can be so seduced by someone saying nice things about you and the comment about the generals. Donald trump saying he was against the iraq war from the beginning. Citing an esquer article that came out. He was not against the iraq war. Not against the iraq war. Mika, a lot of people looking at this forum and, obviously, there were limitations. But great frustrations. Many people wondering why questions were asked about hillarys email server and, yet, none asked about aleppo, none asked about syria, none asked about the serious questions theyre facing. The most important questions that are facing the next commander in chief. A lot of question marks out the. What was your take away . Bottom lining it for both. Kind of overall pulling back. Donald trump was tragically uninformed. It was frightening. You cant pin him down and he could not be pinned down on anything because everything he said was sort of unprepared blurts of tv talk. And there was nothing to what he said that really helped sort of give the American Public a sense that he had a grasp on anything. And for Hillary Clinton, there was a different problem. She was defensive. She clenched up. She began to filibuster. You could see her get nervous about the email situation. She began to attack her opponent instead of talking about her own qualities. She is clearly impaired by the email scandal. Joe . She is impaired by an email scandal, mika, that, again, i think most americans, at this point, have already passed judgment on. I think a lot of americans want to know. And i hope we hear in the debates. What is the plan for syria . Whats your plan for getting
refugees back to syria . I mean, so many questions that were not answered last night because of time constraints. I dont know if last night was the place to be asking about emails. And, so, there were a lot more, obviously, to go through. Yeah. Trump was asked how he will take on isis over the last year and a half trump has claimed on multiple occasions that he has a plan to stop isis. Trump would assign his generals with formulating strategy. Immediately after taking office i will ask my generals to present to me a plan within 30 days to defeat and destroy isis. Is the plan youve been hiding this whole time asking someone else for their plan . No. But when i do come up with a plan that i like and that perhaps agrees with mine or maybe doesnt, i may love what
the generals come back with. But you have your own plan. I have a plan. But i dont want look, i have a very substantial chance of winning. Make America Great, again. Make America Great, again. If i win, i dont want to broadcast to the enemy exactly what my plan is. Let me tell you, if i like maybe a combination of my plan and the generals plan or the generals plan. If i like their plan, matt. Im not going to call you up and say, matt, we have a great plan. This is what obama does. Were going to leave iraq. But youre going to convene a panel of generals. They will probably be different generals. Willie, so much to sort through there. First of l so much to sort through. There are 1,000 followup questions there. He promises americans he has a plan. Now we find out he doesnt have a plan. And then he says hes going to
get the plan from generals after hes elected right after he said the generals are stupid. Then he says hes going to fire the generals. Then he repeats twice, lets make America Great again. Twice in the middle of just i would call it word salad, but its actually chopped word salad. It was just completely perp lll perposturous. Put out your plan so the American People know what theyre voting on. 14 months after not having specifics, he doesnt have ta. Arent the voters owed some idea of what he might do when he gets into the oval office . The short answer is yes. When you vote for someone as commander in chief, you have no idea what will come their way. When people voted for george w. Bush, no one knew 9 11 would happen ten months into his watch. You are making a vote of confidence that he or she could handle what comes their way. We know youre going to have to handle syria. One question is what would you do different than this administration is doing . We know you have to hand alcrisis in the north china sea or russian pressure on ukraine or implosion of venezuela and an entire agenda out there that is predictable. I didnt come away with a sense at all of how these people would handle what we know is going to be in their inbox on day one. You know, mika, i want to say this carefully. Why say it carefully since its our show. Donald trump just proved everything that youve said about analyzing sound and fury signifying nothing. He says nothing in that if you are matt lauer, its kind of hard to figure out exactly what
followup question. He did a great job. What he said meant absolutely nothing. You take Donald Trumps answer there and pick it apart, it completely confirms everything youve said about him saying nothing. Now, clinton said something about Ground Troops that was fascinating and important. Well get to that in just a second. But let me just add to that. You want to give strategy to the Clinton Campaign, both campaigns, both campaigns are too scared to do a long interview. Clinton for the email scandal, obviously, for not being able to have appropriate answers on that. She needs to take the licks on that. She needs to understand that there were really bad decisions made and she needs to lay it out for the American People and get past those questions by running out the clock on them. Shes not going to control time on this. The questions are going to keep coming. But, if she runs out the clock on thez questiose questions she about her record and why she can be president of the United States. If donald trump is held to the same standard and the clock is
run out on him and the questions go beyond the surface, the mask will come off. Clinton needs to understand the only way the mask comes off for donald trump is if they agree to ten minutes each. Also differed on the use of Ground Forces to take on isis. Take a listen. They are not going to get Ground Troops. We are not putting Ground Troops into iraq ever again and were not putting Ground Troops into syria. Were going to defeat isis without committing american Ground Troops. I always said, shouldnt be there, but if were going to get out, take the oil. If we would have taken the oil, you wouldnt have isis. How are we going to take the oil . How are we going to do that . Leave a Certain Group behind and take various sections where they have the oil. People dont know this about iraq, but they have among the Largest Oil Reserves in the world, in the entire world. We go in and spend 3 trillion
and we lose thousands and thousands of lives and then, matt, what happens is we get nothing. You know, use tad d to be to th victor. Believe me, there was no victor. I always said, take the oil. Yes, that says, thats his, i guess, guiding policy. It sort of to the victor goes the spoil, salt the earth so nothing grows back there. Richard haass another frightening answer from donald trump last night. If im not mistaken, seizing oil, isnt that against the geneva accord . A plan to unify iraq and brought all the iraqis together against the resources. No, the idea that somehow you can carve out a couple square miles of iraq and take the oil wells and the United States would not be the target of a massive terrorist onslot. Plus, it underlines the principles that we intervened on the two iraq wars. It was to uphold order in the region and the world. Mike barnicle . Well, first of l listeningalg to donald trump on many, many topics he has no idea what hes talking about. He is thimble deep on topics of national security. Were about to vote for president of the United States. Hes one of two major candidates running. Are we as a media, as a group dropping the pall here ball her. Asking him a series of yes or no questions. We havent here, but, yes. Getting pummeled unnecessarily and unfairly. Oh, no, he didnt have enough time. Be specific. What are you going to do about aleppo . Are we dropping the ball here . I think you saw last night the limits of these two candidates. Each of them had their own kind of limits. I thought her stylistic performance. If i was involved in her debate preparation, id be terrified if she replicates that in the debates. Substance matters, intelligence, knowledge. These matter most of all. And his performance on those points, i think, should be a real caution for his people because i think not only more time, but more of the questions youre talking about. One of these two will probably be president in january and, again, i think as a country and as a profession in the media, we need to figure out how to have more moments, not just the three debates, but more moments like last night. So one of these two at least improves. The New York Post comment was the best i read about what happened last night. This was a really discouraging moment for the country to see the two of them and the people who like trump will say she was worse. The people who like clinton will say he is worse. Neither rose to the occasion of what we need in the next president. I hope they do going forward, but they didnt last night. Lets be positive so all of america and the world is not depressed. Last night was a warm up. It was preseason. And if you look at the two candidates, you would rather be in the clinton camp than the trump camp because the trump camp, im sorry, hes asked basic questions and how do you defeat isis . He said he is going to be talking to generals and theyre going to formulate a plan. Generals that he says are stupid. That hes smarter than. Its going to be really hard to get donald trump up to speed. Right now, Hillary Clintons biggest challenge is a stylistic challenge, mika. Thats the sort of thing that shell be able to prep much better on, especially because shes been doing this now. Shes been emersed in policy for four decades. Yeah. Donald trump has been a
reality tv star and hes been, hes been a celebrity of sorts in new york city. And hes developed on the side. But Hillary Clinton, if she has, if she has challenges, probably more stylistic than substance. I think, willie geist, those challenges go awa