Did Hillary Clinton Really Restore America’s Reputation in the World?

Hillary Clinton is set to deliver a major speech on national security Thursday in San Diego, where she’s expected to outline her vision of America’s role in the world—and cast Donald Trump as a purveyor of “fear, bigotry, and misplaced defeatism.” Clinton and her surrogates often point to her foreign-policy expertise, and in particular her years as President Barack Obama’s first secretary of state, as evidence of her effectiveness as a leader.

“Hillary worked to restore America's leadership in the world, after it was badly eroded by eight years of the Bush administration's go-it-alone foreign policy,” her website says. At a Clinton rally in February, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, referring to the Bush administration, said, “They really undermined America's reputation and our position in the world. And Hillary as secretary brought us back.” Writing in Politico, New York Senator Charles Schumer, another Clinton supporter, said Clinton “did much to restore the shattered credibility of the United States, which had lost so much influence following the failed foreign policies of the previous administration.” Former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said she was “key in rebuilding America’s leadership and prestige overseas after the Bush years.”