With just two months until Election Day, national security has emerged as a centerpiece issue in the White House race.
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The forum was sponsored by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and held aboard the USS Intrepid aircraft carrier museum in New York City.
In a live “Commander in Chief Forum” hosted by NBC News, both Trump and his democrat rival Hillary Clinton were questioned separately about the military and national security at the event attended by USA veterans.
But that lead has narrowed amid a steady string of reports about the Clinton Foundation’s ties to the State Department, and Clinton’s use of a private email server – all amplified by Republicans. The vote has drawn criticism from Democrats who opposed the war and Republicans who have grown tired of years of foreign conflicts since 9/11. She vowed to defeat the Islamic State group “without committing American ground troops” to Iraq or Syria. “I believe I’m the best person for this job and I believe they’re going to keep coming after me”, she told reporters. But troop levels are still only a tiny fraction of the force deployed during the earlier Iraq War.
She added that every Republican in office should be asked if they agree with the real estate mogul on his views of Putin and his comments about USA generals, who Trump said have been “reduced to rubble” under the Obama administration.
But Clinton defended certain emails, including information about the country’s covert drone program, as not revealing classified information. The sailor said he would have been “prosecuted and imprisoned” for not following proper protocols.
Clinton insisted she had sent no classified documents through her private server, which was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and has been the subject of congressional inquiries. While she repeated her charge that he is “temperamentally unfit” for office, Trump told veterans in Virginia Beach: “She’s a disaster”. He saw that as a good thing, saying: “That’s how well we did”.
One audience member asked Trump: “As president, what specifically would you do to support all victims of sexual assault in the military?”
Trump, who has both said he has a secret plan to defeat ISIS and, if elected, that he would give generals 30 days to present him with a plan to beat ISIS, also offered little clarity as to which was the case.
“I have a plan …”
“I have a plan …” “You would leave a certain group behind and you would take various sections where they have the oil”. “What would Ronald Reagan say about a Republican nominee who attacks American generals and heaps praise on Russia’s president?”
“Unlike my opponent, my foreign policy will emphasize diplomacy, not destruction”, Trump said.
“I didn’t recognize many of those names as being there in the fight with me over the last 16 years”, said Hertling, who retired in 2012.
However, the billionaire businessman did not specify how the country would raise the money, other than a promise to take steps like reducing wasteful spending, which military budget analysts said would be inadequate. “I don’t think it should be outside of the military”, Trump said.
Clinton, who has cast Trump as dangerously ill-prepared to be commander in chief, tried to center the discussion on her foreign policy proposals.
Trump’s list includes three retired four-star generals: Gen. Burwell B. Bell III, who commanded the United States Army, Europe, and USA forces in Korea; Gen. Alfred Hansen, who commanded the Air Force Logistics Command; and Gen. Crosbie “Butch” Saint, commander US Army Europe.
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Clinton’s list has seven four-star generals and admirals: Nathman, Allen, Clark, Maddox, Newton, former Eighth U.S. Army commander Gen. Robert Sennewald, and former commanding general of the United States Army Materiel Command Gen. Johnnie Wilson.
