WASHINGTON, D.C. — In his exclusive interview with Breitbart News Saturday this weekend at the Values Voter Summit, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence—the GOP’s 2016 vice presidential nominee—said that on the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks Americans must reflect and consider the consequences of the upcoming presidential election.
It is imperative, Pence said, that to finally start winning the war on terror again, Americans have to elect someone for president of the United States who will actually “name the enemy.” He noted that that enemy is “radical Islamic terrorism,” and he harkened back to his speech at the Ronald Reagan presidential library last week where he compared Trump to Reagan because of both of their willingness to name the enemy.
“First, what we have to do is elect a president who will name the enemy,” Pence told Breitbart News Saturday in a live interview on SiriusXM Patriot Channel 125. He continued,
I was at the Reagan Presidential Library a few days ago, and one of the things Ronald Reagan did in his time was he named then the Soviet Union as an Evil Empire. All the fashionable beliefs at the time said that that was irresponsible, not what a president should do, but first you have to name your enemy. Donald Trump has been willing unlike this president and unlike Hillary Clinton to name radical Islamic terrorism. That is the threat to the people of the United States and to its allies. So first you name it and then as he did in Youngstown, Ohio, a comprehensive strategy of rebuilding our military, restoring the arsenal of democracy, restoring our relationships with allies and working with moderate Arab nations around the world to hunt down and destroy ISIS at its source. I was here on 9/11. I was on Capitol Hill as I reflected this morning. I saw the smoke billowing from the Pentagon, and it doesn’t seem like 15 years ago to me. It seems like a short time ago, and it’s very real and the truth is the threats to our nation today because of the nature of the enemy are closer and even more dangerous than they were 15 years ago. We have to have a leader, which we have in Donald Trump, who will name the enemy and who will marshal the resources of our nation and our allies to to hunt them down and destroy them before they threaten us.
Pence, during his Values Voter Summit speech, hammered Hillary Clinton for labeling half of Donald Trump’s supporters—millions of people across America—as “irredeemable” people who were in the “basket of deplorables.” He hit her again in the first part of this Breitbart News Saturday exclusive, an interview that’s already been reported.
“I do have to tell you that when I heard of what she said last night, at a fundraiser in New York City with Barbra Streisand, that in her words ‘you could put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,’ I was simply taken aback,” Pence said, continuing:
Hillary Clinton believes that millions of everyday Americans who think we can Make America Great Again are in her words ‘deplorable’ and she described them as ‘irredeemable.’ I was speechless about that—I was speechless about it, really, in my speech. My message to her is: Hillary, I got news for you. The millions of men and women, thousands of which I’ve seen since I joined this campaign, but the millions of men and women who are coming out and supporting my running mate are veterans, members of the Armed Services, law enforcement, farmers, factory workers, coal miners, business owners, pastors, everyday Americans for whom faith is important and who believe in the liberties enshrined in our Constitution. I said today that my message to Hillary Clinton is ‘they’re not a basket of anything—they’re Americans, and they deserve her respect.’ Frankly, anyone who has that low an opinion of millions of Americans should never be elected president of the United States.
Moments later, Clinton issued a non-apology apology statement saying she “regrets” saying that about “half” of Trump’s supporters but stands by what she said about at least some of Trump’s supporters. She was unclear in her follow-up statement about exactly how many Americans she was insulting as the “basket of deplorables.”
Clinton and her campaign have been feeling pressure over the past week as Trump and Pence bounce back in the polls – the latest slip coming as Clinton left the 9/11 memorial ceremony Sunday abruptly and early. Aides and Secret Service agents literally had to lift the former Secretary of State into a van as her shoe fell off and she appears to have fainted, according to videos and reports.
According to Roll Call, Pence made a surprise visit to the 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon after his Values Voter Summit appearance later in the day.
“On the eve of the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence spent half an hour Saturday afternoon on an unannounced visit to the memorial at the Pentagon,” Roll Call’s David Hawkings reported. “Pence, the Indiana governor, and his wife, Karen, laid a bouquet of white roses at the portion of the memorial honoring Army Lt. Gen Timothy Maude. Maude, a native Hoosier, was the highest ranking military official who died on 9/11. The governor also visited, along with several tourists and family members who were at the memorial, a broad plaza with benches honoring each of the 184 airline passengers and Defense Department workers who died when one of the jetliners hijacked by al-Qaida terrorists slammed into the Pentagon’s west facade.”
LISTEN TO MIKE PENCE’S BREITBART NEWS SATURDAY INTERVIEW ON SIRIUSXM 125:
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