Jake Sullivan's concerns about Donald Trump: "The ideas he’s putting forward and the temperament that he has displayed." | AP Photo Clinton senior adviser attacks Trump on foreign policy

Hillary Clinton and her campaign officials so far have focused on Donald Trump’s tax plan and the economy as they begin the difficult task of defining and attacking the presumptive Republican nominee.

But on Monday evening, Clinton’s senior policy adviser, Jake Sullivan, began to outline how the campaign will take on Trump's "America First" foreign policy, calling him a “tremendously dangerous risk” and someone who vacillates wildly on his basic beliefs.


“It is very, very difficult to pin down where he stands on a lot of these policies,” said Sullivan, who participated in an hourlong foreign policy discussion with former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, president of the Asia Society Policy Institute, at the Asia Society in Manhattan.

“He’ll say on the one hand, the Chinese are eating our lunch, and on the other hand, we have all the leverage in the world to make the Chinese do exactly what we want,” Sullivan said. “On the one hand, we should sit down with the Russians. ... on the other hand, if I need to, I’ll just shoot down Russian fighter jets. He says on the one hand, the United States can do whatever it wants, wherever it wants, for whatever purpose it wants. On the other hand, we’re doing too much and we can’t do all that.”

Sullivan said he views Trump as someone “unlike any candidate that we have seen before, who looks to be close to securing the nomination of a major party, in that the ideas he’s putting forward and the temperament that he has displayed make him a dangerous proposition to be commander-in-chief.”

Sullivan, Clinton’s top national security and foreign policy adviser, warned that Trump’s statements that more countries should be able to obtain nuclear weapons “has the very real risk of sparking a nuclear arms race, and also makes it increasingly likely that terrorists will get their hands on nuclear weapons, which is the greatest threat that the United States faces.”

He added that Trump created more risk by saying we “should simply order our military officers, against the law, to kill the families of terrorists. He has said many things along those lines. If you add up the totality, however you slice it, whichever pieces you accept, the picture that is painted is one of a tremendously dangerous risk.”

In recent days, the campaign appears to be still finding its footing on how best to take on Trump. Campaign surrogates have been asked to call on Trump to release his tax returns. Clinton herself has highlighted Trump's empty plans to create jobs, as well as his tax proposals, slamming him Monday while campaigning in Kentucky for wanting to renegotiate the country's federal debt. Last week, Clinton slammed Trump for saying he would like the United States to withdraw from NATO.

Sullivan's comments Monday night hinted at how Clinton will begin to draw bigger contrasts with Trump and try and convince voters he doesn't pass a "commander-in-chief" test.

Rudd opened the conversation with Sullivan Monday night by noting that at 39 years old, Clinton's top policy adviser — who played a key role in negotiating the Iran Deal —is young for his stature. “In the dog years on a campaign,” Sullivan joked, “I’m about 80 years old.”

