Donald Trump pledges massive military buildup, offers no details
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has promised a massive military buildup but provided no specific details.
“We’re going to make our military so big and so strong and so great. It will be so powerful that I don’t think we’re ever going to have to use it. Nobody’s going to mess with us,” he said Tuesday in Los Angeles.
It was Trump’s first major “national security” speech delivered aboard a retired World War II battleship in Los Angeles a day before the second Republican presidential debate in nearby Simi Valley.
The billionaire businessman also pledged to improve the healthcare system for frustrated veterans stuck on long waiting lists in hospitals run by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Trump, however, did not say how he would pay for the expansion of the US armed forces or the veterans’ healthcare, highlighting the criticism that his campaign agenda is still mostly a blank slate.
“We’re going to come out with some plans in a very short time,” he said.
A great portion of Wednesday’s speech also dealt with illegal immigration, a divisive issue that has defined Trump’s candidacy ever since he joined the 2016 White House race in mid-June.
"There's tremendous crime, there's tremendous drugs pouring across the border," Trump said. "We're going to build a wall."
Trump’s sweeping immigration reform entails deporting all undocumented immigrants from the country and building a towering wall along the US-Mexico border.
His harsh rhetoric on immigration has threatened to alienate an influential and growing bloc of Hispanic voters.
Dozens of protesters gathered in the parking lot adjacent to the battleship where Trump delivered his speech.
"He's a racist," chanted the protesters, some of whom holding signs such as “Deport Trump.”
Even some of Trump’s supporters were troubled by the tone of his comments.
“You have to be careful about how you talk about the Latino population,” Craig Pahl, a veteran, told The Associated Press. “I have real mixed views on how he addresses that. ... Hispanics start thinking, ‘Wow, there are a lot of white prejudiced people out there.’”
Trump continues to sustain his lead among the crowded GOP field.
The latest New York Times/CBS News poll released on Tuesday found that 39 percent of Republican primary and caucus voters say Trump has the best chance of winning the White House next year.
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