[Wednesday] night, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton appeared separately but on the same stage at a forum devoted to foreign policy and military issues. The forum was moderated by NBC’s Matt Lauer. Judging from the furious left-wing reactions to Lauer’s performance, it seems safe to say that Donald Trump carried the night.

Hillary Clinton went first and immediately got into a heated exchange with Lauer over her handling of classified information as secretary of state. In fact, more than a third of her time was spent discussing this issue.

But that wasn’t the worst of it. The first question from the audience came from a former naval officer. He told Clinton, “Had I communicated [classified] information not following protocols, I would have been prosecuted and imprisoned.” He’s right. Just ask Petty Officer Kristian Saucier.

Then he asked Clinton, “How can you expect [us] to have any confidence in your leadership as president when you clearly corrupted our national security?”

It was a very bad moment for Hillary, demonstrating once again that this scandal will continue to dog her. More on this below.

There was another jarring moment when the discussion turned to Libya. Clinton bragged about the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi and then declared: “We did not lose a single American in that action.”

Excuse me? Did she forget about Benghazi? Of course she didn’t.

What makes this even worse is that Clinton has said this before and gotten tremendous blowback — especially from the families of the four Americans who died in Benghazi.

Yet Clinton keeps repeating this lie — describing Libya as some sort of great victory where no Americans suffered. It is beyond bizarre. And we have continued to battle ISIS ever since because radical jihadists filled the vacuum created after Gaddafi was overthrown.

Hillary was also on defense over the Iranian nuclear deal. She dug her heels in, which she has to do, because she began the secret negotiations which ultimately led to the most significant American diplomatic disaster in modern times.

That deal was never ratified by the Senate and is overwhelmingly rejected by the American people. And for good reason.

It has resulted in ransoms payments, the harassment of our ships and further interference by Iran in the Middle East. It has emboldened Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist proxy, and it has also resulted in the widespread perception that we have abandoned our allies.

Far from stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, it will likely lead to further proliferation of the world’s most dangerous weapons in the world’s most dangerous region.

More Lies

By all accounts, Clinton lied yet again about her mishandling of classified information. I don’t want to call this an “email” scandal, because doing so trivializes the seriousness of the issue. This is a national security scandal for which she is entirely responsible.

When we learned last year about the existence of her private server, Clinton told us that she never sent or received classified information. That was a lie. FBI Director Comey said 110 emails contained classified information.

At [Wednesday] night’s forum, Clinton claimed that none of the material she received was marked classified. That was a lie. Some in fact were marked “C” for “Classified,” which she told the FBI she didn’t understand what that meant.

But we also know of at least one exchange in which State Department officials were having trouble sending Clinton a document through a secured fax system. Clinton instructed them to turn the document into an electronic format, strip the heading and “send nonsecure.”

Trump’s Turn

While many in the media are furious with Matt Lauer for being too tough on Hillary, others complain that he was not tough enough on Trump. Yet, Lauer constantly repeated the central Clinton campaign theme during his interview with Trump — questioning whether he was qualified or had the temperament to be president. To his credit, Trump kept his cool and pressed his case.

Lauer said that Trump had claimed to know more about ISIS than our generals. Trump responded that under Obama, “the generals have been reduced to rubble.”

Some in the media are accusing Trump of insulting our military leaders. No. Trump was suggesting that Obama was ignoring them. In addition, an extraordinary number of commanders have been forced into early retirement when they objected to Obama’s policies.

Lauer repeatedly tried to force Trump into the trap of offering specific plans. Trump wisely refused to take the bait, saying that unlike Obama he was not going to announce his plans in advance to our enemies on national television. But he did say that once in office, he would give our generals 30 days to come up with a new plan to destroy ISIS and he would implement it.

Trump also announced [Wednesday] that he would end “sequestration.” That’s an inside the Beltway term for Obama’s budget deal that resulted in defense spending being slashed at a time when we are experiencing more and more national security challenges. Trump has committed to increasing defense spending.

About That Oil…

[Wednesday] night, Trump again suggested that we should have kept Iraq’s oil. At a press conference [Thursday] morning, Hillary blasted Trump, saying, “America does not loot and pillage.”

Donald Trump was not advocating either of those things. Looting and pillaging is what ISIS does as it enslaves people. Getting fair payment when we liberate a nation is common sense.

Trump was pointing out that America spent vast amounts of money and, more importantly, lost precious lives, to free the Iraqi people. We should have made it clear that we would be securing the nation’s resources to pay the huge bill for giving the Iraqi people the first chance in their lives to vote in free elections.

And as the Iraqis began to rebuild their nation, we should have maintained security around those oil fields to ensure that they did not fall into the wrong hands — exactly what has happened under Obama. ISIS is making millions from Iraqi oil.

But even before that, I remember how heartsick I felt seeing Iraq’s oil fields being taken over by the Chinese, who moved aggressively to secure those resources.

Enough About Putin

Trump is also taking heat today for allegedly “praising” Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump should stop talking so much about Putin because the media are using his remarks to bolster Clinton’s absurd claims that Trump will be soft on Russia. That is ludicrous.

The media are prophesying what Trump may do while ignoring the past eight years of Obama/Clinton appeasement. How can the media complain that Trump is too nice to Putin when Obama and Clinton have done nothing to resist Russian aggression?

But say what you will about Putin, unlike Obama, he gets up every day and asks himself how he can make imperial Russia great again. Sadly, we have a president and numerous officials who bristle at the idea of making America great again.

Putin is a horrible man. He is a former KGB officer. Numerous journalists and political opponents have been assassinated. But Putin is looking out for Russia’s national interests. We need a leader who will put America’s interests first.