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Clinton touts foreign policy experience in Cincy speech to veterans


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Hillary Clinton laid out her foreign policy plan to veterans here Wednesday and continued to characterize her Republican opponent as a candidate lacking the temperament to lead the country’s military.

Addressing the American Legion National Convention, Clinton touted her experience as secretary of state and gave insight into what happened the night of May 2, 2011, when a team of Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden.

“I was holding my breath for the entire operation,” she said of seeing U.S. troops breach the compound, return fire initiated by bin Laden’s body guards, and find and kill the leader of Al-Qaeda. “Every second counted.”

Donald Trump, who will address this same audience of American Legion veterans Thursday, could not have carried out the diplomacy that led to that moment, according to Clinton.

“You don’t build a coalition by insulting our friends or acting like a loose cannon,” she said. “You do it by putting in the slow, hard work of building relationships. Getting countries working together was my job every day as your secretary of state. It’s more than a photo op. It takes consistency and reliability.

“Whoever America elects as president this fall won’t just be our next president, but this person will be our next commander-in-chief,” she said. “And every person in this room knows exactly what that means.”

But a pair of Ohio congressmen who were outside the Duke Energy Convention Center where Clinton spoke said her time as secretary of state only shows she is unequipped for the role as commander-in-chief.

“We witnessed Hillary’s foreign policy prowess during her time as secretary of state and it was an absolute disaster,” said U.S. Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Troy, an Army veteran. “She routinely compromised classified information on her private e-mail servers, and it appears she traded access to the State Department for donations to the Clinton Foundation.”

U.S. Rep. Bill Johnson, R-Marietta, said veterans “have been grossly neglected by the Obama administration’s Department of Veteran Affairs.”

“The slow claims process, faceless bureaucracy, and substandard care that many of our veterans continue to receive is simply unacceptable,” said Johnson, a co-chair of the Veterans for Trump coalition.

Clinton addressed the quality of health care for veterans in her speech, promising more timely care by the Department of Veterans Affairs and its health care system.

“We are going too build a 21st-century Department of Veteran Affairs,” she said, promising improved access for veterans and “world-class care.”

“And we’re not going to let anyone privatize the VA,” Clinton said. “We’re going to reform and strengthen it.”

Clinton also said she would end the epidemic of veteran suicides by expanding access to mental health care and fighting the stigma that isolates “too many of our veterans from getting the care that they need.”

The American Legion is not a political organization but advocates for veterans and their families, and often invites political figures to speak at its annual convention, which is in a different city each year.

Staff Writer Barrie Barber contributed to this story.

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