Electoral battles

Clinton Trots Out Former Military Brass and CIA Director to Slam Trump and Cruz

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign on Friday used its highest-profile national security surrogate yet — former CIA director and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta — to step up its attack on Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for their tough-guy responses to Tuesday’s terrorist attacks in Brussels.

Trump reacted to the bombings on the subway and at the international airport in the Belgian capital by doubling down on his calls for the U.S. to ban Muslims and torture terror suspects, while Cruz said U.S. law enforcement should begin policing Muslim neighborhoods and blamed “political correctness” for the attacks.

Panetta, along with Rand Beers, former deputy assistant to the president for Homeland Security, and retired Maj. Gen. Tony Taguba, who led the investigation of the Abu Ghraib scandal, said in a press call for the Democratic candidate on Friday that those policies put forth by the two front-runners for the Republican nomination are actually endangering American troops and spawning more terrorists.