The issue came up when an audience member asked Trump: “As president, what specifically would you do to support all victims of sexual assault in the military?”
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Given that one of the the three presidential debates will have this same format, she’ll need to raise her game – and fast.
Both Trump and Clinton are scheduled to appear tonight at the “Commander-in-Chief Forum” sponsored by NBC News and MSNBC, though the candidates will not appear at the same time. The candidates also took questions from an audience of veterans and active-duty troops gathered on the decommissioned USS Intrepid, which is now a floating museum in NY.
“Trashing generals. When Mr Trump was asked if he stood by his claim that he knew more about defeating the so-called Islamic State than U.S. generals”, he said that under Mr Obama the generals had been “reduced to rubble”.
Clinton said she regretted her decision as a US senator from NY to vote in favor of the 2003 Iraq war and said Trump had been in favor of it as well.
Donald Trump says he will give military leaders 30 days to formulate a plan to defeat Islamic State.
“If he says great things about me, I’m going to say great things about him”, Mr Trump continued. “If I win, I don’t want to broadcast to the enemy what my plan is”.
By virtue of a coin flip, Clinton took the stage first. He’s zeroed in on her controversial email practices at the State Department, calling her private email server “reckless”.
An FBI investigation found that some email chains contained a “C” for confidential. But I agree with him in terms of lifting the sequester on defence, he’s absolutely correct about that, ” said GOP.
Clinton’s campaign dismissed Trump’s criticism.
“Steadiness, an absolute rock steadiness, mixed with strength to make the hard decisions”, she said.
“We are not putting ground troops into Iraq ever again”.
Clinton, by contrast, sought to re-emphasise her foreign policy expertise while defending her legacy as Obama’s Secretary of State.
► Increase the Army to around 540,000 troops, the Marine Corps to 36 battalions, the Navy to near 350 surface ships and submarines and bolster the Air Force to at least 1,200 fighter aircraft.
Trump, who cited endorsements from 88 generals and admirals on Tuesday, called for increased defense spending and an end to the automatic series of congressional budget cuts known as “sequestration” in his Wednesday remarks, saying that would permit the financing of more submarines, ships and troops. Trump had tweeted in 2013.
Trump has repeatedly expressed readiness to reduce tensions with Russian Federation, which have escalated amid the internal crisis in Ukraine that Washington believes Moscow is involved in (Russia has denied all the allegations).
The United States now spends more than $600 billion a year on the military, more than the next seven countries combined.
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Even before promising a huge boost in military spending, Trump’s plans to cut taxes, expand infrastructure spending and leave untouched entitlement programs such as Social Security already threatened to add trillions of dollars to the federal deficit.
