Tag-team to slam Trump

Obama and Biden tag-team to slam Trump on foreign policy

'Set aside the nuclear code. What I think is scary is a president who doesn't know their stuff," the president says.

By Louis Nelson

With both men set to take the Democratic National Convention stage Wednesday night in Philadelphia, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden spent the morning hammering Donald Trump.

In separate TV interviews Wednesday, both the president and vice president painted the picture of a presidential candidate dangerously in over his head on foreign policy, an ignoramus who shows little interest in developing an understanding of the world on the fly.

“Set aside the nuclear code. What I think is scary is a president who doesn't know their stuff and doesn't seem to have an interest in learning what they don't know,” Obama said in a pre-taped interview that aired Wednesday morning on NBC’s “Today.”

“Do you think of Trump that way?” host Savannah Guthrie asked.

“I think if you listen to any press conference he has given or listen to any of those debates, basic knowledge about the world, or what a nuclear triad is, or where various countries are, or the different between Sunni and Shia in the Muslim world, those are things he doesn't know and hasn't seemed to spend a lot of time trying to find out about,” Obama replied.

Biden, for his part, spent the better part of the 8 a.m. hour on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” discussing an array of topics that included his relationship with President Obama and his cancer "moonshot" initiative. But the vice president also came ready to trash Trump, who Biden said was “playing directly into the hands” of Russian President Vladimir Putin by suggesting that the U.S. might not honor its commitments to NATO.

“The truth is Donald Trump knows nothing about foreign policy, nor should he based upon his background. But the thing that bothers me, Willie, is I don't see any attempt for him to go out and get people who really know [the subject] on the Republican side,” Biden told host Willie Geist.

“So here you've got someone coming along and says, ‘Unless Latvia pays their bills’ — first of all they’re paying their bills — but, ‘Unless Latvia pays their bills, I'm not sure we're going to honor Article Five of the treaty that is the single most significant treaty in the history of mankind, that has lasted over 60 years, that is absolutely central to our security.'"

“Maybe it’s not fair,” Biden continued. “I don't think he knows what Article Five is and nor should anybody here know what Article Five is. But if you're going to be president of the United States of America, hey, you better know."

Democrats have made a habit of slamming Trump's inexperience on foreign policy, advice on which the Manhattan billionaire has said he gets "from the shows." Several prominent GOP foreign policy hands, including Senate Armed Services Committee member Lindsey Graham and Senate Foreign Affairs Committee member Jeff Flake, have joined Democrats in attacking Trump's proposals, while dozens of Republican wonks have signed an open letter condemning his policies and committing themselves to work "energetically to prevent the election of someone so utterly unfitted to the office."

But Democrats have gone beyond those high-minded critiques in recent days to imply that Trump is colluding with Putin to throw the 2016 election. They've noted Trump's often-complimentary back-and-forth with Putin, combined with his less-than-full backing of NATO -- and some, including Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and even Obama himself, have suggested that the Kremlin timed the release of hacked Democratic National Committee emails to create maximum embarrassment for the Clinton campaign and disarray at the convention in Philadelphia.

Trump and the GOP have repeatedly denied any allegation that his campaign is somehow working in conjunction with the Russian government, which has also denied any attempt at influencing the U.S. presidential election.

The vice president went on to criticize Trump’s plan to defeat the Islamic State, which the Manhattan billionaire has said would include “carpet bombing.” Such indiscriminate attacks, Biden said, would not help the U.S. develop friendships and develop greater influence in the Middle East, but would instead gin up more anti-American animosity.

Trump took time during a Wednesday morning press conference to rebut that particular attack, pointing out that it was Ted Cruz, not Trump, who proposed carpet bombing as a strategy for defeating Islamic State militants. The GOP nominee has at times throughout the campaign said that as president he would "bomb the shit out of" the Islamic State, but he objected to the vice president attributing Cruz's words to him.

"Joe Biden lied today. He said that Donald Trump wants to carpet bomb. He was on television. He said Donald Trump wants to carpet bomb the enemy in the Middle East," Trump said. "No, that was Ted Cruz that said that, that was not Donald Trump. I mean, he's not a very bright guy but that was Ted Cruz that said it. And he shouldn’t say it. He said it with such sureity.”

The Manhattan billionaire also responded to Obama's attack on his foreign policy chops, calling him "the most ignorant president in our history." Trump accused all those criticizing his foreign policy proposals of being part of the same political establishment responsible for creating the current unrest in the Middle East. Trump said he knows more about foreign policy than those who criticize him would admit and that Obama was clueless on the subject at the start of his presidency.

“President Obama when he became president, he didn't know anything. This guy didn’t know a thing,” Trump said. “And honestly, today he knows less. Today, he knows less. He has done a terrible job.”

Biden also defended the Obama administration’s policy in Syria, the focus of many attacks from Trump and others within the Republican Party. The vice president suggested that while the GOP has been critical of the administration’s strategy in Syria, no one in either party was interested in deploying combat troops into the country. Because of that, Biden said, the U.S. limited its intervention to airstrikes and working cautiously with the more moderate opposition to Syrian President Bashar Assad, “because we’re always looking for the Thomas Jefferson hiding behind a sand dune.”

On multiple international visits, Biden said foreign leaders have expressed incredulous disbelief that Trump could ascend to the presidency. Citing visits to China and New Zealand as examples, the vice president said the leaders with whom he meets nearly always ask him of Trump, “This can’t happen, can it?”

“The things he says make absolutely no sense. But I think it is, he's into...” Biden said of Trump’s foreign policy proposals before trailing off. “Well, I shouldn't guess his motive. But it worries me.”

Biden then pivoted to discussing the 2016 presidential race. Clinton’s struggles thus far in the campaign, he said, are the result of a larger Democratic problem with the white, working-class voters that have been the target of Trump’s campaign. The Democratic Party has fallen away from addressing those voters, Biden said, even as its policies have continued to benefit them. To kick-start that relationship again, the vice president said, “I'm going to be living in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan.”

“I think the Democratic Party overall hasn't spoken enough to those voters. They've done the right thing for the voters. Haven't spoken to them,” Biden continued. “I think there has been in both parties not enough -- this is going to sound strange -- enough respect shown to ordinary people busting their necks.”

Biden is due to campaign with Clinton in his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, next month.