Clinton slams Trump for comments on
offensive against Islamic State
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[October 25, 2016]
By Luciana Lopez and Steve Holland
MANCHESTER, N.H./ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla.
(Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton
slammed rival Donald Trump on Monday for saying that the week-old effort
to retake the Iraqi city of Mosul from the control of Islamic State was
going badly.
“He’s basically declaring defeat before the battle has even started,”
Clinton said at a campaign event in New Hampshire. “He’s proving to the
world what it means to have an unqualified commander in chief.”
In a tweet on Sunday, Trump, the Republican nominee for the Nov. 8
election, said the “attack on Mosul is turning out to be a total
disaster. We gave them months of notice. U.S. is looking so dumb.”
Iraqi and Kurdish forces, backed by the United States, have mounted a
huge assault on the area surrounding the city, the last stronghold of
Islamic State forces in Iraq. They have retaken about 80 Islamic
State-held villages and towns since the offensive was launched on Oct.
16, but have yet to move on the city itself.
Trump reiterated his position during a rally on Monday in St. Augustine,
Florida, where he also urged supporters to vote early and declared his
campaign was winning the election.
"So now we’re bogged down in Mosul. The enemy is much tougher than they
thought. They’ve had a lot of time to get ready," Trump said. "It’s a
horrible, horrible situation that’s going on. Why did we have to tell
them we’re going in?"
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The operation could last weeks, or even months. Islamic State mounted
counterattacks on Monday across the country against the Iraqi army and
Kurdish forces, trying to deflect attention away from the Mosul
campaign.
Trump suggested last week during the final 2016 presidential debate that
the U.S.-backed attack on Mosul was orchestrated to help Clinton in her
White House bid.
With just over two weeks to go until the election, Clinton, President
Barack Obama's first-term secretary of state, leads the New York
businessman in national opinion polls. Both candidates have been
focusing on a small set of political swing states that could decide the
contest.
Seeking to cement a wide advantage she holds with women voters, Clinton
enlisted the help of firebrand U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of
Massachusetts, who blasted Trump over allegations he tried to grope or
kiss several women without their consent over a 20-year span.
“He thinks that because he has a mouthful of Tic Tacs that he can force
himself on any woman within groping distance,” Warren told a raucous
crowd of 4,000 at St. Anselm College in Manchester. “Well, I’ve got news
for you, Donald Trump. Women have had it with guys like you.”
'NASTY WOMEN'
At least 10 women have said Trump made unwanted sexual advances,
including groping or kissing, in incidents from the early 1980s to 2007,
according to reports in various news outlets. Trump has denied the
women's allegations, calling them "totally and absolutely false" and
promising on Saturday he would sue his accusers.
Warren's mention of Tic Tac mint candies referred to a moment in a 2005
video that surfaced earlier this month in which Trump was heard boasting
about groping and kissing women.
Warren also referred to Trump calling Clinton “a nasty woman” at last
week’s debate, a phrase that quickly caught fire on social media,
sparking hashtags and T-shirts.
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![](../images/102516pics/news_b3.jpg)
Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Hillary Clinton attends a
campaign rally accompanied by U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)
at Alumni Hall Courtyard, Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New
Hampshire U.S., October 24, 2016. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Oct/25/images/ads/current/st_claras_lda_082114.png)
“Get this, Donald, nasty women are tough,” Warren said. “Nasty women
are smart. And nasty women vote. And on Nov. 8 we nasty women are
gonna march our nasty feet to cast our nasty votes to get you out of
our lives forever.”
Clinton praised Warren for taking the fight to Trump. “She gets
under his (Trump’s) thin skin like nobody else,” the candidate said.
Warren is one of a handful of high-profile surrogate campaigners
helping Clinton in the final weeks of the race. In California, Obama
raised money for his former top diplomat and joked on the "Jimmy
Kimmel Live" show that he laughed most of the time when he saw Trump
on television.
Trump spent the day campaigning in Florida, a critical swing state.
At an event in Tampa, he criticized Clinton's position on Syria. "If
you look at her plans for Syria, these are the plans of a child.
These are the plans of someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing,"
he said.
At an earlier event for farmers in Boynton Beach, Trump disputed
multiple national and state polls that show him lagging Clinton and
accused the media of distorting poll results to discourage his
supporters from voting.
“I believe we’re actually winning,” Trump said.
Just the day before, Trump’s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway,
acknowledged that the candidate was trailing in the race, saying in
a TV interview: “We are behind.”
The former first lady is working to turn out her supporters in
states such as Ohio, where singer Jay Z plans to hold a concert in
support of her candidacy, the Clinton campaign said.
According to the Reuters/Ipsos States of the Nation project, which
surveys the vote in battleground states, Clinton leads Trump in most
of the states that Trump would need to win to have a chance of
amassing the 270 Electoral College votes needed to capture the White
House.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Oct/25/images/ads/current/castlemanor_lda_HALLOWEEN_2016.png)
According to the survey, she had a better than 95 percent chance of
winning, had the election been held last week. The mostly likely
outcome would be 326 votes for Clinton to 212 for Trump. The
Electoral College votes represent a tally of wins from the states.
(Reporting by Luciana Lopez in New Hampshire and Steve Holland in
Florida; Additional reporting by Amanda Becker; Writing by James
Oliphant and Jeff Mason; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Peter Cooney and
Michael Perry)
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