Clinton and Sanders pound the state before Tuesday’s primary

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton accused presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump of being reckless on foreign policy, especially for saying he would let more countries develop nuclear weapons.

Clinton, campaigning before several hundred people Sunday afternoon at a union training center in Kentucky’s largest city, said Trump’s recent suggestion that Japan and South Korea should acquire nuclear weapons was “risky talk.”

Meanwhile, Clinton Democratic rival Bernie Sanders capped a weekend swing through the state with a rally Sunday at Julian Carroll Convention Center in Paducah. The U.S. senator from Vermont was in Frankfort, Elizabethtown and Bowling Green on Saturday.

In Paducah, Sanders said he does better against Trump than Clinton in virtually every national poll and noted his recent victories, particularly in neighboring West Virginia.

In that state’s Democratic primary election, independents were allowed to vote. Independents can’t vote in Kentucky’s Democratic primary.

At stake in Tuesday’s primary are 55 pledged delegates to this summer’s Democratic nominating convention in Philadelphia.

Clinton leads Sanders by 767 delegates and needs 143 more to lock up the party’s nomination. That might occur June 7, when several big states, including California and New Jersey, hold their presidential primaries.

Before speaking for 36 minutes at the Louisville union rally, Clinton visited two predominantly black Louisville churches — St. Stephen Baptist and Canaan Missionary Baptist — to ask congregants for their support. She left Louisville for a Get Out the Vote event at the home of Nathan Smith in Fort Mitchell.

On Monday, Clinton is to speak at public rallies at La Gala in Bowling Green at 11:15 a.m. CDT and at the James Bruce Convention Center in Hopkinsville at 2:30 CDT. She is to wrap up her Kentucky campaigning at a rally at the Clive M. Beck Center at Transylvania University in Lexington at 6:45 p.m. EDT.

Clinton jabbed at Trump and Sanders at the rally at the Union of Carpenters and Millwrights Training Center on Durrett Lane.

On Trump, Clinton focused mainly on his foreign policy.

She said Trump said he “didn’t care” about some countries getting nuclear weapons.

Trump recently said U.S. allies South Korea and Japan are likely to get nuclear weapons soon, and the United States should stop trying to prevent that. His idea contradicts long-standing U.S. policy.

Clinton said national security is one of the biggest responsibilities of any president. She said Trump was wrong and dangerous when he talks casually about nuclear weapons.

Clinton also touted her role in foreign policy as secretary of state by saying she advised President Obama in May 2011 to order the raid on the residence of al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. The organizer of the September 11 attacks on the United States was shot and killed by U.S. special forces during the raid.

Clinton said she also showed in working with other countries that it is better to “build bridges, not walls” That was a swipe at Trump’s plan to build a wall across the southern border of the United States to keep out illegal immigrants.

Clinton made no mention of one of the biggest controversies during her term as secretary of state — the 2012 Benghazi attack in which Islamic militants stormed American diplomatic compounds in Libya and killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

At Sunday’s Louisville rally, Clinton said a “big difference” between Sanders and her is that she voted in the U.S. Senate to bail out the auto industry and he voted against it.

She said the auto industry and auto unions have rallied with the government’s help.

On other issues, Clinton touted her $30 billion plan to help coal country and voiced support for unions, raising the minimum wage, providing equal pay for equal work, reducing college debt and the costs of drug prescriptions. and creating more treatment beds for the mentally ill and drug addicts.

Clinton was introduced at the rally by former Gov. Steve Beshear, who called Trump “a showman” and Clinton one of the most qualified candidates ever for president.

Also on hand to promote Clinton’s campaign were U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth of Louisville and Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer.

The Paducah Sun reported that Sanders told about 2,000 people Sunday in Paducah that if anybody in Kentucky “wants to know what kind of president I will be, take a look at Gov. (Matt) Bevin and what he is doing, and then think about the exact opposite.”

The newspaper said Sanders encouraged voters to participate in Tuesday’s primary, to be part of a “political revolution” that he said millions of people in the United States desperately need because they are being left behind.

“What we have learned throughout this campaign is we do well when the voter turnout is high. We do not do well when the voter turnout is low,” he said. “Let us see on Tuesday a record-breaking turnout.”

Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes is predicting turnout of about 20 percent.

Sanders also criticized U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for supporting the Supreme Court’s Citizen United decision that prohibits the government from restricting independent political expenditures by a nonprofit corporation.

The court’s decision, Sanders said, “says to the billionaire class, you guys already own the economy, you own a bunch of America, now we will allow you to own the United States government.

“Mitch McConnell believes that Citizens United, which now allows an unlimited amount of independent expenditures, doesn’t go far enough,” Sanders said. “He wants to see the day come when corporations and billionaires can buy politicians directly.”

On Saturday night in Bowling Green, Sanders attracted a crowd of about 2,450 while he campaigned from a restored train car at the historic RailPark & Train Museum, The Bowling Green Daily News reported.

The newspaper said Sanders stumped for infrastructure improvements; free higher education; a minimum wage increase to $15 a hour; decriminalization of marijuana; free health care; and immigration, campaign finance and economic reforms.

He spoke out against government subsidies to corporations.

This story was originally published May 15, 2016 at 7:51 PM with the headline "Clinton and Sanders pound the state before Tuesday’s primary."