Charlie Rose said Tuesday on CBS's This Morning there is no "strong distinction" between Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama on their strategies to counter the Islamic State and that the Democratic frontrunner failed to affirm the president's leadership on the world stage.
After interviewing Clinton on a range of issues from climate change to terrorism, Rose recapped his conversation with fellow hosts Gayle King and Norah O'Donnell. He described Clinton's Islamic State strategy as mostly "the same" as President Obama's policies, saying that she mainly just wants to "intensify" current efforts.
"She [Clinton] clearly says she wants to intensify what we're doing—more special forces—but there was no strong distinction other than no-fly zone," Rose said.
The CBS host then brought up an idea Clinton kept referencing: leadership.
"The thing that she kept emphasizing in every conversation - whether it was climate, or whether it was the Middle East, whether it was China - is leadership, leadership, leadership."
When Rose followed up by asking Clinton if "we are not getting that leadership now [from President Obama]," he said that the Democratic presidential candidate "did not go to" the question.
Clinton announced her strategy to defeat the Islamic State jihadist group in a November 19 national security speech at the Council on Foreign Relations. She called for a more robust U.S.-led air campaign to assist local Sunni and Kurdish forces on the ground to push back the Islamic State, accompanied by a diplomatic push to get Turkey and Sunni Arab states more involved in the effort. The Democratic frontrunner also said she does not support sending American ground troops into Iraq and Syria, even in the event of a terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland.
The most notable distinction between Clinton's proposed strategy and Obama's policy is her call for a no-fly zone in Syria to create humanitarian safe havens to also train rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which the president has publicly criticized.