Herman Cain: China has nukes?

Apparently Herman Cain was unaware that China has a thriving nuclear program:

JUDY WOODRUFF: China.

HERMAN CAIN: Yes.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Do you view China as a potential military threat to the United States?

HERMAN CAIN: I do view China as a potential military threat to the United States.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And what could you do as president to head that off?

HERMAN CAIN: My China strategy is quite simply outgrow China. It gets back to economics. China has a $6 trillion economy and they’re growing at approximately 10 percent. We have a $14 trillion economy — much bigger — but we’re growing at an anemic 1.5, 1.6 percent. When we get our economy growing back at the rate of 5 or 6 percent that it has the ability to do, we will outgrow China.

And secondly, we already have superiority in terms of our military capability, and I plan to get away from making cutting our defense a priority and make investing in our military capability a priority, going back to my statement: peace through strength and clarity. So yes they’re a military threat. They’ve indicated that they’re trying to develop nuclear capability and they want to develop more aircraft carriers like we have. So yes, we have to consider them a military threat.

This is his whole interview, the part above is after the 11 minute mark:

Some people are writing Cain completely off now. I just can’t. I keep taking a look at all the candidates, and I’m right back to Herman Cain. I like Perry too, but I’m still waiting for him to shine. And I like others, but I have problems with all of them. But back to Cain. Should he know that China is a nuclear power? Absolutely. Is it that big of a deal in the long run? I’d say probably not. Like any good president, he will have good people around him (hopefully John Bolton). I’m just not that worried about how he would govern on foreign policy so much as I’m worried about all the gotchas that he’ll get from here to the end of the election should he get that far. He has the right ideology but will need to seriously bone up to avoid mistakes like these going forward.

Obviously, I’m fairly forgiving on these things because I believe in the man. He’s a man of tremendous character and honesty and has a ton of executive experience. He’s a human success story in many ways and I think he’d do a great job as president. Problem is getting there with an adversarial media who is already trying to destroy him – and if he doesn’t work harder on his knowledge base, it will cause him even more problems down the line.


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