Facing a question from an audience member on military sexual assault, Trump stood by a tweet from 2013, in which he suggested the epidemic was a consequence of allowing women to serve in the military.
“26,000 unreported sexual assaults [sic] in the military-only 238 convictions. What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?” Trump had tweeted at the time. When confronted about the tweet, Trump defended his statement by saying “it is a correct tweet”.
He then demurred, however, from saying women should no longer serve in the military and insisted firmly if incoherently that “something has to be happened”.