Trump 'cannot do the job': Hillary Clinton

U.S. Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton assailed Republican Donald Trump on Thursday as a potential president who would lead America toward war and economic crisis. She portrayed her own foreign policy as optimistic, inclusive and diplomatic, born from long experience in public life.

There was nothing diplomatic in her remarks, a clear indication of how she'll take Trump on. Electing him, she said, would be "a historic mistake."

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During a speech in San Diego that was billed as a foreign policy address, the Democratic former secretary of state unloaded on her likely Republican election opponent, counting down reasons he is not qualified — from his aggressive Twitter attacks to his emotional outbursts.

"I believe the person the Republicans have nominated for president cannot do the job," she said.

"Trump's ideas aren't just different, they are dangerously incoherent. They're not really ideas, they're just a series of bizarre rants, personal feuds and outright lies," Clinton said.

She said a Trump presidency could spark nuclear conflicts overseas and ignite economic catastrophe at home.

"He is not just unprepared; he is temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility," she told supporters in a ballroom. "This is not someone who should ever have the nuclear codes — because it's not hard to imagine Donald Trump leading us into a war just because someone got under his very thin skin."

She mocked Trump's Twitter blasts and predicted he was preparing more as she spoke. As if on cue, he tweeted after she finished: "Bad performance by Crooked Hillary Clinton! Reading poorly from the teleprom[p]ter! She doesn't even look presidential!"

At a rally Wednesday night in Sacramento, Calif., Trump said he had seen a copy of Clinton's speech and "it was such lies about my foreign policy." 

He expounded on the speech at a subsequent stop in San Jose, calling it a "hit job." The presumptive Republican nominee also joked that it was "hard to stay awake" during the speech and says Clinton would make a lot of money if she delivered speeches to insomniacs.

Clinton emphasizes her political experience

Clinton's robust assault on Trump was widely carried on television, a change for the leading Democratic candidate who's
frequently struggled to break through coverage of Trump.

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She is ramping up her criticism of the presumptive Republican nominee and trying to quell concerns within her own party that she isn't ready to rumble with the famously combative Trump. She offered a number of aggressive new attack lines.

She hit Trump for his reality television past, for his snarky Twitter feed, for his hotel experience.

She ran down a list of people he has insulted, including the pope.

And she assailed Trump over many statements, criticizing him for seeking to ban Muslims from entering the country, for talking about leaving NATO and for suggesting Japan could one day acquire nuclear weapons.

"He has the gall to say prisoners of war like John McCain aren't heroes," Clinton said. "He says he has foreign policy experience because he ran the Miss Universe pageant."

Emphasizing her experience as first lady, senator and secretary of state, Clinton said she recognizes what it means to deploy American troops and would provide the steady diplomacy the country needs.

Clinton and Trump offer starkly different visions of U.S. foreign policy. Her proposals reflect the traditional approach of both major parties. Despite differences on some issues, such as the Iraq war and Iran, Democratic and Republican presidents have been generally consistent on policies affecting China, Russia, North Korea, nuclear proliferation, trade, alliances and many other issues.

Trump's "America first" approach is short on details but appeals to angry voters who believe that successive leaders have weakened the country and have been duped into bad trade deals that cost American jobs.

Clinton still in a tough California fight

In recent days, Clinton has criticized Trump over his business practices, his resistance to disclosing which charities received money he raised during a January fundraiser for veterans' causes, and the now-defunct Trump University. On Wednesday she called him a "fraud" and said the real estate mogul had taken advantage of vulnerable Americans.

Trump has pushed back. On the education company, he has maintained that customers were overwhelmingly satisfied with the offerings.

While Clinton is stressing her concerns about Trump, she is still dealing with her primary race. She needs just 70 more delegates to win the Democratic primary, but is dealing with a tough fight with rival Bernie Sanders in California.

Trump, meanwhile, got an endorsement he'd been seeking, from Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, who had resisted even after the businessman clinched the GOP nomination.