MSNBC’s Morning Joe panel said Friday that recent terrorist attacks, including the one Thursday night in Nice, France, expose a key vulnerability for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin said that so far American presidents have pursued two different strategies to fight terrorism since the attacks on September 11, 2001: one of toughness involving varying forms of military force and another of soft power, which includes outreach and trying to make deals with the Islamic world.
Co-host Mika Brzezinski then connected Halperin’s comments to the current campaign between Clinton and Donald Trump.
"We have a problem here ... at least for Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. If there are more and more attacks like this, isn’t the overarching message to Americans going to be what have we been doing hasn’t been working and we failed in Syria," Brzezinski said. "We need something, someone stronger."
"There’s no question that that is a vulnerability for her, both the record of the Obama administration and her own style as compared to Trump’s if the country wants someone who will be different than Barack Obama in terms of full emphasis on the first track," Halperin said.
"People are going to feel that these are stepping up," Brzezinski said, referring to terror attacks.
Critics of Clinton say that she will likely continue President Obama’s national security policy because she was his secretary of state for four years.