FRANKLIN, Tennessee—GOP frontrunner Donald Trump launched a blunt and biting critique of the Obama administration’s military weakness to an overflow crowd of more than 4,000 here in Tennessee on Saturday.
Trump, who also made national headlines with his ringing defense of gun rights and the Second Amendment during the speech, doubled-down on the need to defeat our enemies abroad.
“We don’t have victories any more. We don’t win any more,” he said.
“Bring back Patton!” Trump boomed to a cheering audience, referencing the aggressive American general from World War II, George Patton, who won the Battle of the Bulge.
“Years ago, prior to Viet Nam, we never lost a war, right? We never lost a war,” Trump noted.
“Viet Nam was a loss. There’s nothing else you can call it. And then after that, now we don’t even think about winning. We lose in Iraq, we lose with ISIS.” he added
“I see a general the other day being interviewed, and they said to him—nice guy…,” Trump began, and then ad-libbed to the audience.
“I don’t really want a nice general, you know?” he said.
Trump continued on the theme of great American military leaders of the past. “I liked McArthur. You know, in the history of West Point, he had the highest marks. . . He would get off his plane with the corn cob pipe and the high hat and he’d say ‘Here I am, you mess with me, go ahead, mess with me,’” he pointed out.
But today, Trump added, “it’s different.”
“So they’re interviewing recently this general on television—first of all, he shouldn’t be on television, doing an interview, right?” he said as the audience applauded. “He’s supposed to be unpredictable,” Trump emphasized.
“I’ve been using that term. They said I did this great deal recently. It was a great business deal. And my other side, they were tough, but I beat ‘em,” Trump explained.
“They said, ‘You know we don’t like Donald Trump but I have to tell you he was really tough to beat because he’s so damn unpredictable. We couldn’t predict what his moves were.’ ”
“And I said to myself, our country has to be unpredictable,” Trump added to more cheers.
“How about… with Iraq a number of years ago when Obama said ‘We are leaving on…whatever date…in one year.’ So the enemy says, ‘I can’t believe it!’ ” Trump said, once again to laughter from the audience.
“You know, a big part of the enemy is ISIS. So they just went away, they just said why should we fight now? We’ll wait. So the day we leave they go in and they just knock the hell out of everybody, it’s unbelievable,” Trump said.
“And frankly, he [President Obama] should have said we’re never leaving. We will destroy them. We are never ever going to leave,” he added.
“I never wanted to get into Iraq…with that being said, there’s nobody that will build a bigger, stronger military than me,” Trump concluded.
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