Hillary Clinton said voters should be concerned about Donald Trump's foreign policy suggestions. | AP Photo Clinton explains 'loose cannon' attack on Trump

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton explained her oft-repeated line that Donald Trump is a “loose cannon” in a pre-taped interview with CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that focused much more on the presumptive GOP nominee than Democratic rival Bernie Sanders.

“Being a loose cannon means saying that other nations should go ahead and acquire nuclear weapons for themselves — when that is the last thing we need in the world today,” Clinton said in the interview, airing Sunday. “Being a loose cannon is saying we should pull out of NATO — the strongest military alliance in the history of the world, and something that we really need to modernize, but not abandon.”


Clinton was referencing remarks Trump has made suggesting Japan and South Korea should develop their own nuclear weapons rather than relying on the United States to defend them against North Korea. Trump has also questioned the continued existence of NATO, calling the 28-nation alliance “obsolete.”

Clinton also knocked Trump for saying the United States should torture suspected terrorists and kill their families. The former secretary of state’s broadside on the real-estate mogul makes clear she plans to use against him statements he’s made that worked for him in the GOP primary but that she appears to believe will not play well in the general election.

“Going back to torture? Killing terrorists' families, which would be a war crime?” Clinton said. “Those are just some of the concerns that I hear people talking about, which I think does fit the definition of a loose cannon.”

On Sanders, Clinton said she was “very heartened to hear him say last week that he's going to work seven days a week to make sure Donald Trump does not become president.”

“I want to unify the party,” she added. “I see a great role and opportunity for him and his supporters to be part of that unified party. To move into not just November to win the election against Donald Trump, but to then govern based on the progressive goals that he and I share.”