November 5, 2016
By James Hohnman
With Breanne Deppisch
THE BIG IDEA:
Fayetteville, N.C.—Republicans (click here) typically perform well around military installations.
At a rally yesterday afternoon just outside of Fort Bragg, the world’s biggest Army base by population, Barack Obama crisply summarized why Democrats hope this year will be different – and why the Clinton campaign is competing so aggressively for the votes of active duty service members, their families and veterans.
“Listen, if you want to keep our military the greatest fighting force that the world has ever known … then we can’t have a commander-in-chief who suggests that it’s okay to torture people,” the president said, referring to Donald Trump. “We can't afford a commander-in-chief who insults POWs [like John McCain], who attacks a Gold Star mother, who actually talks down our troops (and) says he knows more than our generals.”
Obama recalled a briefing he received just hours after being inaugurated on how to launch nuclear weapons. “It will sober you up,” he said. “We can't have somebody like that handling our nuclear codes.”...
