While still not giving many specifics on his plan to fight ISIS – which he has said he won’t release so as not to tip off USA enemies – Trump said there would be “different generals” who would advise him on national security and military policy as president.
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Taking a jab at Democratic rival Hillary Clinton ahead of their first joint event – a Wednesday evening forum on the president’s role as commander-in-chief – Trump called the former secretary of state “trigger happy and very unstable”. “But I agree with him in terms of lifting the sequester on defense, he’s absolutely correct about that”, said GOP.
“They have been reduced to a point that’s embarrassing for our country”, Trump said at NBC’s “Commander-in-Chief” forum in NY attended by military veterans.
It was the first time Trump and Clinton had squared off on the same stage since accepting their parties’ presidential nominations in July for the November 8 election. Investigators said she was “extremely careless” but that criminal charges were not warranted.
The New York businessman, who has struggled at times to demonstrate a command of foreign policy, also seemed to acknowledge he does not now have a plan to address cyber security or Islamic State.
Mr Trump’s answer prompted a social media firestorm, where Twitter users accused him of blaming sexual assault on gender integration in the military. In the weeks after Trump’s assertion that an Indiana-born judge couldn’t rule fairly because of his Mexican heritage and his fight with the Gold Star Khan family, Trump tumbled in the polls as Clinton built a double-digit lead.
Trump continued to insist he was opposed to the Iraq War.
Trump said he didn’t “want to broadcast to the enemy what my plan is”.
He mocked Clinton’s interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigation over her private email server, and said her destruction of old phones was an effort to cover up “very, very – and I mean very – shady activity”.
Earlier on Wednesday, Trump pledged to launch a new US military buildup, saying America was under threat like never before from foes like Islamist extremists, North Korea and China.
During a national security forum, the Republican presidential nominee said the issue was a “massive problem”. “Right now, the court system practically doesn’t exist”, he said. Instead, they’ll appear back-to-back during the hourlong forum, facing questions from “Today” show co-anchor Matt Lauer and the audience. The issue has raised questions about whether she can be trusted to serve as president.
Clinton said none of the emails she sent or received was marked top secret, secret or classified, the usual way such material is identified.
Meanwhile, Trump brushed aside questions over his experience and temperament and attacked Clinton’s record overseas, especially in the Middle East.
“We need change”, the NY businessman said, arguing that he will bring a “common sense” approach to the demands of being commander-in-chief.
“They know they can count on me to be the kind of commander in chief who will protect our country and our troops, and they know they cannot count on Donald Trump”, Clinton said Tuesday. During the forum, Clinton defended her decision to intervene in Libya’s civil war and vowed that the US would not send ground troops to help defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
Trump was on the attack, using his campaign trail strategy of hammering the former secretary of state for getting the country mired in the Middle East.
Of the 3,358 polled, 55 percent said they would vote for Trump and 36 percent said they support Clinton.
“He’s on record extensively supporting intervention in Libya”, she said.
“This will require military warfare, but also cyber warfare, financial warfare, and ideological warfare”, he said. Republicans have made much of the fact that the USA ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, was killed in an Islamist attack in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012.
“She made a bad mistake in Libya”, said Trump.
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Questions over Clinton’s use of a private email server during her time as President Barack Obama’s secretary of state consumed a third of her time on stage in the Intrepid’s hangar bay. “We have to do a better job of not only collecting and analyzing the intelligence we do have, but distributing it much more quickly down the ladder to state and local law enforcement”, she told Lauer.
