Flashback: Tim Kaine Says Clinton Will Lead Team That Takes Out Baghdadi

Leah Barkoukis | October 29, 2019 8:00 AM

After President Trump announced U.S. special operations forces took out ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Saturday, a flashback of Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Kaine emerged from an October 2016 debate where he discussed Hillary Clinton’s plan to defeat ISIS and said she would lead the team that would get him.

"Do you think the world today is a safer or more dangerous place than it was eight years ago? Has the terrorist threat increased or decreased?" moderator Elaine Quijano asked.

“The terrorist threat has decreased in some ways, because bin Laden is dead,” he responded. “The terrorist threat has decreased in some ways because an Iranian nuclear weapons program has been stopped. The terrorist threat to United States troops has been decreased in some ways because there's not 175,000 in a dangerous part of the world. There's only 15,000.

“But there are other parts of the world that are challenging. Let me tell you this: To beat terrorism, there's only one candidate who can do it, and it's Hillary Clinton. Remember, Hillary Clinton was the senator from New York on 9/11. She was there at the World Trade Center when they were still searching for victims and survivors. That's seared onto her, the need to beat terrorism.

“And she's got a plan to do it. She was part of the national security team that wiped out bin Laden. Here's her plan to defeat ISIL. First, we've got to keep taking out their leaders on the battlefield. She was part of the team that got bin Laden, and she'll lead the team that will get Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of ISIS.”