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President Trump offers praise of military during speech in Newport News

Posted at 5:41 AM, Mar 02, 2017
and last updated 2017-03-02 18:19:39-05

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. – President Donald Trump gave a short, but to-the-point speech aboard the Future USS Gerald R. Ford on Thursday afternoon.

The speech was high on praise for the nation’s military and discussed once again how he wants to expand the military.

“I asked Congress to eliminate the defense sequester and to support my request for a great rebuilding of the United States military and the United States Navy,” President Trump said.

President Trump promised to give the 4,000 sailors and ship builders in attendance the tools they need. “We’re going to start winning again,” he said.

On Tuesday night, in an address to Congress the President announced a $54 billion dollar increase in defense spending. “To keep Americans safe, we must provide the men and women of the U.S. military with the tools they need to prevent war and, if they must they have to fight and they only have to win,” Trump said.

Trump called this spending announcement the “largest increases in National Defense spending in American history,” and said he will be giving the plan to Congress.

News 3 spoke to a political analyst from Hampton University on Wednesday, asking Dr. Eric Claville what this means for Hampton Roads. “Hampton Roads is going to get a very gold share of that whether it be military spending in general on our installations,” said Claville, referring to the spending surge for Dept. of Defense personnel and installations.

As for the President’s choice for Secretary of the Navy, that is still to be determined. Last month President Trump selected Philip Bilden who withdrew his name from consideration saying he told the Secretary of Defense he could not commit to the engagement due to preexisting financial holdings.

Earlier in the day, President Trump landed on Air Force One at Joint Base Langley-Eustis.