Just days after making a surprisingly well-informed speech on the U.S. military, Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump has defended a comment he made on sexual assault in 2013.
The comment was specific to the U.S. military, and Trump claimed sexual assault happened because men and women serve alongside each other.
The GOP candidate said that sexual assault was to be expected in the military.
26,000 unreported sexual assults in the military-only 238 convictions. What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 7, 2013
The comments have sparked outrage at the GOP candidate for suggesting that the presence of women in the military was to blame for the sharp rise in sexual assault cases in 2013.
https://twitter.com/LadislavMikoSk/status/773859770050633728
NBC Host Matt Lauer asked Trump about the tweet at the Commander-in-Chief forum in New York. Trump responded by saying:
“Well, it is a correct tweet. There are many people that think that that’s absolutely correct.”
"It is a correct tweet." —Donald Trump, just now #NBCNewsForum https://t.co/EyNuOmY8oF
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 8, 2016
When asked whether the solution to the issue was the remove women from the military, Trump dismissed the idea but said:
“Something has to happen. Right now, part of the problem is nobody gets prosecuted.”
Following this, Trump suggested that the best solution was to prosecute those accused in a military court system, despite there already being a military court system.
“The best thing we can do is set up a court system within the military… Right now the court system practically doesn’t exist.”
Followed by:
“When you have somebody that does something so evil, so bad as that, there has to be consequences for that person… You have to go after that person. Right now, nobody is doing anything.”
The comments prompted a social media explosion, with people unleashing on the presidential hopeful.
Trump is completely incoherent. He's spouting lines from his stump speech in no particular order… #CICForum
— Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) September 8, 2016
https://twitter.com/AWebGal/status/773733246769127424
Trump Blames Integration Of Genders For Assaults
He went on to accuse male military veterans of raping women because they are sat next to each other in combat.
“You’re in there and you’re fighting and you’re sitting next to a woman… now they want to be politically correct. They want to do it but there are major problems… And as you know, there are many people that think this shouldn’t be done, at a high level. I can say this, the number of rapes in the military are through the roof.”
In a study completed by the U.S. Department of Defense in 2015, 22 percent of active-duty women and 7 percent of active-duty men may have experienced sexual harassment in the last year.
More than 20,000 members of the military, both men and women, reported sexual assaults in 2014. More than 160,000 individuals reported sexual harassment of gender discrimination in the same year.
#Trump lies and insults the military and veterans while praising Putin https://t.co/ViJJl5nMmZ #CICForum #NBCNewsForum #TrumpLies
— Margaret Ann Morgan (@Margaret_AnnM) September 8, 2016
Trump Made His Comments Before An Audience Of Army Veterans
Despite this, Twitter users are favoring the Republican over his rival Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton.
Think @NBCNews is having 2ND thoughts about their Twitter poll on who won the #NBCNewsForum? https://t.co/BtQBg7Mm8q pic.twitter.com/V81PcW5IGr
— Small Biz for Trump (@SmallBiz4Trump) September 8, 2016
Featured Image: Screenshot Via Twitter.
