Trump Attacks Clinton Over Decision To Intervene In Libya 

Trump Attacks Clinton For Supporting Libya Intervention. In his June 22 campaign speech criticizing presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump faulted Clinton’s actions as secretary of state, citing as one example her support for the decision to intervene in Libya during the Arab Spring:

DONALD TRUMP:The Hillary Clinton foreign policy has cost America thousands of lives and trillions and trillions of dollars and unleashed ISIS across the world. No secretary of state been more wrong, more often and in more places than Hillary Clinton.

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Her invasion of Libya handed the country over to the ISIS barbarians. [Time, 6/22/16]

CNN On Trump’s Speech: Attack Over Libya Intervention Has “Substance"

Jim Sciutto: On Libya, Trump “Can Go After [Hillary] With Substance.” Shortly after Trump's speech, CNN national security correspondent Jim Sciutto remarked that Hillary Clinton “pushed for” the intervention in Libya, and that Trump could “go after” her record there “with substance”:

JIM SCIUTTO: As always with Donald Trump you have a mix here. There were some things that are just factually not true, for instance connecting Omar Mateen to the Obama administration's refugee policy when as we know Omar Mateen was born in this country, and like we heard a few days ago from him saying that Hillary Clinton would let tens or thousands or hundreds of thousands in when in fact the U.S. is well behind its relatively modest goal of 10,000 refugees in calendar year 2016, far below what many European countries have taken in. So, you have that in there, but then you had him looking back to 2009 and citing the countries where things were better then than they are today, Libya being one of them. And of course the intervention in Libya is something that Hillary Clinton pushed for, really over the objections of others in the Obama administration, Bob Gates, the former defense secretary, among them. So that is a clear area on Hillary Clinton's record that he can go after with substance. [CNN, At This Hour with Berman and Bolduan, 6/22/16]

Sciutto: Trump Has “A Chance For Substantive Lines Of Attack Here, Say Libya, For Instance.” On CNN’s Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield, Sciutto twice more repeated the claim that Trump had grounds to attack Clinton over Libya:

JIM SCIUTTO: The thing is, with Donald Trump, you do have paths to criticize her that are substantive. One is on Libya. Libya is a policy move that you can't quite single handedly put around her neck, but she was a driving force for the military intervention in Libya over the objections of others in the Obama administration. Of course ultimately ultimately the president's decision, but she was behind that move, and you successfully removed Muammar Gadhafi from power but there was no after plan really, and the country really dissolved afterwards.

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So big picture Ashleigh, you have a chance for substantive lines of attack here, say Libya for instance, or not being able to convince her president for greater intervention, aiding the rebels in Syria at an earlier date. [CNN, Legal View with Ashleigh Banfield, 6/22/16]

Brooke Baldwin: “He Can Hit Her With That On Substance.” CNN Newsroom host Brooke Baldwin repeated the claim that Trump can criticize Clinton’s record on Libya with “substance”:

BROOKE BALDWIN: He talked about facts and there are also “facts,” right, and then we'll fact-check some that a little later, and also to be fair, Hillary Clinton, on what she could say as well.But I'm curious on what he talks about with Libya and how she wanted to intervene unlike members of Obama's cabinet a la Bob Gates, who I know she’s close with, he can hit her on that with substance, but there were other things he was saying that I’m just wondering as an audience member, someone who is trying to decide, how will they know where the truthiness lies? [CNN, CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin, 6/22/16]

CNN Ignored That Trump Also Supported The Libya Intervention

BuzzFeed: On Gadhafi, Trump Said “We Should Go In, We Should Stop This Guy.” In 2011 Trump commented of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, “we should go in, we should stop this guy, which would be very easy and very quick,” in a post to his video blog. From a January 19 BuzzFeed article:

“I can’t believe what our country is doing,” said Trump on his video blog. “Qaddafi in Libya is killing thousands of people, nobody knows how bad it is, and we’re sitting around we have soldiers all have the Middle East, and we’re not bringing them in to stop this horrible carnage and that’s what it is: It’s a carnage.”

Trump said Libya could end up one of the worst massacres in history, and it would be very easy to topple Qaddafi.

“You talk about things that have happened in history; this could be one of the worst,” he said. “Now we should go in, we should stop this guy, which would be very easy and very quick. We could do it surgically, stop him from doing it, and save these lives. This is absolutely nuts. We don’t want to get involved and you’re gonna end up with something like you’ve never seen before.”

Trump said the people would take over from Qaddafi eventually and then “they should pay us back” out of appreciation.

“But we have go in to save these lives; these people are being slaughtered like animals,” he said. “It’s horrible what’s going on; it has to be stopped. We should do on a humanitarian basis, immediately go into Libya, knock this guy out very quickly, very surgically, very effectively, and save the lives.”

Then, “After it’s all done,” Trump said, the protesters who took over the country would reimburse the U.S. through oil. [BuzzFeed, 1/19/16]

Vox: “Trump Criticized The Obama Administration’s Approach” In Libya Intervention “For Not Being Aggressive Enough.” Vox reported that on several other occasions, Trump supported “getting rid of” Gadhafi, and after the intervention began, criticized the Obama administration for not being aggressive enough:

Trump is selling a story of his own prescience about American military failure that we know, for a fact, is false. Indeed, he has a consistent pattern of saying things that sound skeptical of war, while actually endorsing fairly aggressive policies.

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In a March 2011 vlog post uncovered by BuzzFeed's Andrew Kaczynski and Christopher Massie, Trump full-throatedly endorsed intervening in the country's civil war — albeit on humanitarian grounds, not for its oil.

“Qaddafi in Libya is killing thousands of people, nobody knows how bad it is, and we’re sitting around,” Trump said. “We should go in, we should stop this guy, which would be very easy and very quick. We could do it surgically, stop him from doing it, and save these lives.” In a later interview, he went further, endorsing outright regime change: “if you don’t get rid of Gaddafi, it’s a major, major black eye for this country.”

Shortly after the US intervention in Libya began in March 2011, Trump criticized the Obama administration's approach — for not being aggressive enough. Trump warned that the US was too concerned with supporting the rebels and not trying hard enough to — you guessed it — take the oil.

“I would take the oil — and stop this baby stuff,” Trump declared. “I’m only interested in Libya if we take the oil. If we don’t take the oil, I’m not interested.”

At no point did he express skepticism about Libya becoming a failed state or express concerns that military intervention hadn't been authorized by Congress. Trump's instincts on Libya were for war, full stop. His only criticism was that Obama wasn't selfish enough in how it was prosecuted. [Vox, 5/27/16]