The prospect of the winner of November’s election being a wartime president is becoming more real after Iran sent more than 180 ballistic missiles into Israel on Tuesday — a day after the U.S. released video of a Russian fighter jet coming within feet of colliding with an American F-16 just off the Alaskan coast last month.
Both candidates have largely focused on domestic issues, though former President Trump has begun to turn up the heat on Harris over foreign policy and defense, seeking to get voters to question the vice president’s ability to handle a world in turmoil.
Trump warned Tuesday that “the world right now is spiraling out of control” and accused “a non-existent president and our Vice President, who should be in charge” of “going to fundraisers in San Francisco” instead of prioritizing national security.
The former president has repeatedly argued that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Hamas attack on Israel a year ago would not have happened if he were president.
His running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), doubled down on that idea during Tuesday’s vice presidential debate, arguing that when Trump was president, he projected “effective deterrence” by making U.S. enemies not want to risk striking out.
Some polls have pointed to a weakness for Harris on defense and foreign policy.
A CNN/SSRS poll of more than 2,000 registered voters nationwide conducted Sept. 19-22 found Trump leading Harris on the question of who would best handle foreign policy, 47 percent to 38 percent. Among likely voters, 47 percent trust Trump more on foreign policy, while 40 percent trust Harris more.
It’s a shift from four years ago, when Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden led Trump on the same question, 54 percent to 42 percent.
Harris’s campaign has pushed back at the Trump case by noting that more than 700 national security officials last month signed a letter endorsing her, including former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), who served as secretary of Defense in the Obama administration.
A number of Republicans seen as hawkish on national defense have come out in support of Harris, including, in a somewhat head-spinning turn, former Vice President Dick Cheney. Trump, for his part, has long criticized the policies of former President George W. Bush’s administration, particularly its handling of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Trump’s campaign, meanwhile, is stepping up attacks on the Biden-Harris administration’s Iran policy by putting a spotlight on the billions of dollars in revenues Iran collected by exporting oil because of weak sanctions enforcement.
Read the full report at TheHill.com.
