In a brief speech Thursday on the closing night of this year’s Democratic National Convention taking place in Chicago, Leon Panetta, who served as Defense Secretary in the Obama Administration, shredded Republican nominee Donald Trump over the latter’s stance on the United States’ relationship to the world. Panetta also brought up allegations of Trump maligning fallen U.S. military service members.
“Trump would abandon our allies and isolate America. We tried that in the 1930s. It was foolish and dangerous then, and it’s foolish and dangerous now,” Panetta told the crowd.
“Donald Trump does not understand the world,” he later added. “And he does not understand the service and sacrifice of our military. Our fallen veterans are not suckers. They are not losers. They are our heroes! Kamala Harris will honor our veterans, and in Tim Walz, we will have a vice president who has served in uniform honorably for 24 years.”
“So we face a critical choice: to vote for someone who stands with our military and stands up for democracy or someone who will disrespect our heroes and undermine our democracy,” Panetta continued.
Panetta also pointed to Trump’s personal standing towards authoritarian leaders elsewhere in the world including Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Trump has, at times, praised Putin, characterizing the latter as supposedly strategically adept, although the Russian military has faced significant battlefield setbacks and large numbers of casualties throughout the currently unfolding war in Ukraine.
But Trump has also opined about potentially allowing for a Russian military incursion against a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the event that country fell short of supposed financial obligations, although that alliance involves a commitment to mutual defense in the event that a member is attacked. Trump claimed that he’d talked about, as president, the U.S. staying back in such a scenario, leaving whatever specific ally might have been under attack to the Russian military (and any back-up from elsewhere).
