“But they wouldn't even have been formed if they left some troops behind, like 10,000 or maybe something … or if we had taken the oil.”
She also pressed Trump on his claims of having always opposed the 2003 Iraq invasion, an attack he denied.
“That is mainstream media nonsense put out by her,” Trump said. “I was against the war in Iraq. … The record shows that I'm right.”
Trump acknowledged giving an interview to radio host Howard Stern in 2002, during he which supported invading Iraq, but the business mogul said he changed his mind shortly thereafter. Clinton leveraged the issue to suggest, as she has throughout the campaign, that Trump is unstable, untrustworthy and unfit to serve as commander in chief.
“The other day I saw Donald saying that there were some Iranian sailors on a ship in the waters off of Iran, and they were taunting American sailors who were on a nearby ship,” Clinton said. “He said ‘if they taunted our sailors, I'd blow them out of the water and start another war.’ That's bad judgment.” Trump countered by raising questions again about Clinton’s use of a private computer server to store sensitive emails while serving as secretary of State, and he questioned her stability and stamina.
“I think my strongest asset, maybe by far, is my temperament,” Trump said. “I have a winning temperament. I know how to win. She does not.”
The two sparred over U.S. commitments to foreign allies, with Clinton pledging to honor agreements to NATO nations and accusing Trump of threatening to abandon them.
Trump pledged “I want to help all of our allies,” but he said the country will not foot the bill for others' complete defense needs.
“We are losing billions and billions of dollars,” he said. “We cannot be the policeman of the world. We cannot protect countries all over the world.”
The next presidential debate is scheduled for Oct. 9 in St. Louis. The vice presidential candidates will hold their only debate of the campaign on Oct. 4 in Virginia.