Sen. Tim Kaine has said Donald Trump lacks the basic knowledge required to be commander-in-chief. | AP Photo Kaine uses Trump's words against him

Relying on Donald Trump’s own words as evidence, vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine painted the Republican presidential nominee as a flip-flopping opportunist whose national security stances are based on a shaky understanding of foreign policy.

“I don’t need to twist or spin Donald Trump’s words at all. Because once Americans hear his words just as he said them, they’ll reach the same conclusion that national security leaders — Democrats, Republicans and independents — have reached,” Kaine said. “Trump has offered nothing but empty promises and divisive rhetoric. Under his leadership, we’d be unrecognizable to the rest of the world. And we’d be far less safe.”


Using elements that in many cases have been campaign-trail talking points for weeks, Kaine laid out his argument that Trump has misled Americans on his personal views and lacks the necessary knowledge of the world to make fully informed decisions as president. The Virginia senator, whose son is a Marine, said Trump “trash-talks our military,” pointing to the Manhattan billionaire’s much-covered feuds with Sen. John McCain, a prisoner of war in Vietnam, and the Khan family, whose son was killed in Iraq in 2004.

Kaine also recalled how Trump has regularly and falsely claimed that he was opposed to the decision to invade Iraq in 2003, even though he told radio host Howard Stern during a 2002 interview that he supported an invasion. Kaine also pointed to an interview Trump gave to the Fox Business Network in 2003 in which he said the invasion had been a “tremendous success.”

Trump had also attacked President Barack Obama for removing U.S. troops from Iraq, which Kaine pointed out was a process begun by President George W. Bush. But Kaine also quoted Trump in 2006 as saying the U.S. should “get out of Iraq as quickly as possible.”

“There’s no escaping the facts: Trump has misled the American people over and over about his position on Iraq,” the senator said. “He was for invading Iraq. And then he decided he wasn’t. He was for leaving Iraq. And then he decided he wasn’t. He says whatever he feels like at any given time because that’s what you do when you’re a TV star. But you can’t do that when you’re President of the United States.”

On Libya, Kaine said Trump is “doing the same thing” as he has done with Iraq. The vice presidential candidate put side-by-side two of Trump’s quotes on the issue, one from a GOP primary debate last February where Trump claimed he was discussing Libya for the first time and said “We would be so much better off if Qadhafi were in charge right now,” and another from 2011, when Trump said of Qadhafi “We should go in, we should stop this guy, which would be very easy and very quick.”

Trump made his own pitch to veterans and military voters Tuesday, taking questions from retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn at a town hall event in Virginia Beach, near Naval Station Norfolk, the world's largest naval base. There, Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin would rather see Hillary Clinton in the White House.

"Putin looks at her and he laughs, OK? He laughs. Putin. Putin looks at Hillary Clinton and he smiles," Trump said. "Boy, would he like to see her. That would be easy, 'cause just look at her decisions. Look how bad her decisions have been. Virtually every decision she's made has been a loser."

Kaine, at his rally, also said Trump lacked even the basic knowledge required to be commander-in-chief. He recalled an appearance on Hugh Hewitt’s radio show in which Trump mixed up the Kurds, an ethnic group in Iraq with which the U.S. military works, and the Quds force, part of the Iranian military.

“He talked about the Kurds because he had no idea what the Quds force is,” Kaine said. “In the same interview, Trump couldn’t tell the difference between Hezbollah and Hamas either. But don’t worry, he said. Eventually, ‘I will know more about it than you know, and believe me, it won’t take me long.’”

Kaine also slammed Trump for attacking the military, which the GOP nominee has said needs to be rebuilt.

“Trump doesn’t think our military has what it takes to stop ISIS. He literally said ‘we can’t beat’ them. He’s called our armed forces ‘a disaster.’ That they’re ‘in shambles.’ That they’re ‘going to hell,’” Kaine said. “I don’t know how anyone who’s met with our men and women in uniform could ever think that. As a military father, his disrespect for our armed forces infuriates me.”