When Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was asked Sunday why his campaign website omits information about his views beyond domestic policy, he simply responded: I haven’t had enough time.
“There are two issues that are entirely missing from your campaign website, and those are issues of national security and foreign policy,” ABC’s Martha Raddatz reminded the Vermont senator.
“Don’t you feel these are issues a president should be very concerned about?” she asked.
“Absolutely, Martha, and in all fairness, we’ve only been in this race for three-and-a-half months, and we’ve been focusing on, quite correctly as you’ve indicated, on the economy, on the collapse of the American middle class, on massive income and wealth inequality,” Sanders responded.
“But you’re absolutely right; foreign policy is a huge issue,” he added.
While the 73-year-old senator has drawn thousands of supporters to campaign rallies and continues to close the gap between himself and Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, his remarks have focused entirely on the economy with little mention of the Islamic State, cyberattacks, or other hot-button issues related to U.S. foreign policy.
“Can you tell me what your criteria is for the use of force?” Raddatz asked Sanders on Sunday.
Skirting around the question, the self-described socialist told Raddatz that war should always be a “last resort,” before mentioning that his vote against the first war in the Gulf region “was the right vote.”
“I think we could have gotten Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait in a way that did not require a war,” Sanders said.
“Even though he had invaded Kuwait?” Raddatz interrupted to ask.
“The point was you had the whole world against him, Martha,” Sanders said. “Do we need to go to war in every instance, or we can be bring pressure of sanctions and international pressure to resolve these conflicts?”
“I think using our military is an option, obviously, that we will always have under certain circumstances, but it is the last option,” he added.
