Keller @ Large: Fact-Checking Clinton On Trump

BOSTON (CBS) -- The lingering presence of Bernie Sanders notwithstanding, it's on between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Today in San Diego, Clinton delivered a blistering assault on Trump's foreign policy rhetoric, and the friendly crowd loved it.

But when it came to the factual accuracy of Clinton's, the speech was a mixed bag.

Check out this comment on his criticisms of our key European alliance, NATO:

"This is someone who has threatened to abandon our allies in NATO, the countries that work with us to root out terrorists abroad before they strike us at home."

But that's not what Trump has been saying.

He has called NATO's financing, which leans heavily on US funding, "obsolete," and in his own foreign policy speech on April 27th he said our NATO partners have to shoulder more of the burden or else be prepared to "defend themselves."

Fact-checking websites (here and here) scoured the public record and found no evidence of Trump calling for the US to abandon NATO as Clinton alleges.

But Clinton fared better with this take on Trump's flip comments about nuclear weapons:

"It's no small thing when he suggests that America should withdraw our military support for Japan and encourage them to get nuclear weapons."

That would shatter a cornerstone of US foreign policy for the past 70 years, opposing nuclear proliferation.

And in fact, according to Politifact's roundup of Trump interviews, he has suggested on multiple occasions that both the US and Japan would be "better off" if Japan had nukes to defend itself.

There was plenty of fodder for Clinton to work with here. And while this campaign has already featured plenty of distortion and flat-out lies, we're going to continue to fact-check all the candidates often as part of our coverage.