Invoking religion, a more disciplined Trump speaks of unity

Trump outlined what he would do on his first day as president if elected on Nov 8

GREENVILLE: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump invoked religion, talked of unifying Americans and tried to raise doubts about whether Democratic rival Hillary Clinton can be trusted in a new campaign stump speech unveiled on Tuesday.



"I will fight for Detroit, for Chicago, for Baltimore, and for every neglected part of this nation – and I will fight to bring us all together as one American people," Trump told a packed rally in Greenville, North Carolina, in a departure from his typical bare-knuckled approach.

On the Democratic side, both Clinton and her vice presidential running mate, Tim Kaine, blasted Trump. Clinton focused on Trump's past bankruptcies and his refusal to release his tax records.

“He clearly has something to hide. We don’t know exactly what it is, but we’re getting better guesses about what it probably is," she said in Tampa, Florida.



Kaine, in a national security speech in Wilmington, North Carolina, criticized Trump's business dealings with Russia, the ties between some of his campaign advisers to the country and Trump’s suggestion that he hoped Russian hackers could find missing emails from when Clinton was secretary of state.

“He has openly encouraged Russia to hack his political opponents and commit espionage against his own country,” Kaine said.

Trump, in a speech on Wednesday in Cleveland, is to lay out a military preparedness plan in which he will call for rescinding mandatory defense spending cuts and embarking on a major military buildup.

The Trump campaign said the candidate will call for big increases in spending for new ships, planes, submarines and training combat troops and bolstering missile defense systems. Trump will also criticize Clinton for "military adventurism" for her handling of Libya and the Middle East as secretary of state.



Trump, buoyed by polls showing him as gaining ground against Clinton, outlined what he would do on his first day as president if elected on Nov 8, part of a new effort to inject more discipline into his free-wheeling campaign.

He said he would suspend the resettlement of Syrian refugees into the United States, start toward repealing and replacing President Barack Obama's signature healthcare plan, and begin the first steps toward building a wall along the US southern border with Mexico.

Trump, who rarely mentions religion, quoted from a Bible passage he read aloud at a black church in Detroit on Saturday, part of his effort to appeal to African-American voters.

"Imagine what our country could accomplish if we started working together as one people, under one God, saluting one flag," he added. "It is time to break with the bitter failures of the past, and to embrace a new American future."