Donald Trump told a rally in Colorado late Saturday that a "bomb went off" in New York City after initial reports that an explosion had caused multiple injuries.
"I must tell you that just before I got off the plane, a bomb went off in New York and nobody knows exactly what's going on," Trump said at the JetCenter in Colorado Springs.
He had just stepped off his private jet for the outdoor rally. At that time, no one knew what had caused the explosion.
"But boy, we are living in a time," Trump added. "We better get very tough, folks.
"We better get very, very tough.
"We'll find out," the Republican nominee said. "It's a terrible thing that's going on in our world, in our country and we are going to get tough and smart and vigilant.
"We'll see what it is. We'll see what it is."
He then slammed Hillary Clinton on national security and bashed Defense Secretary Robert Gates as a "clown" after his scathing assessment that Trump was "beyond repair" on global issues.
"We had a clown today, Robert Gates," Trump told an outdoor rally at the JetCenters in Colorado Springs. "He’s a nasty guy — probably has a problem, but I don’t know.
"I’m so better at what he does. Look at what we have," he added, referring to various hot spots around the world.
"We have people like Robert Gates, who don’t have a clue, and then they leave office and criticize.
"I don’t like critics," he said.
Gates, who served eight presidents over 50 years, said in an op-ed Friday in The Wall Street Journal that both candidates "have a credibility problem in foreign affairs" — though Trump is "unqualified and unfit to be commander-in-chief."
Trump bashed Clinton on a broad range of global issues — ranging from the Islamic State to China to Iran — as well as on other policies she has supported, including illegal immigration, NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
"Her policies have produced suffering everywhere," he said.
“We’re going to defeat ISIS and radical Islamic terrorism," Trump later added. "We’re going to rebuild our rapidly depleted military, the greatest people on Earth.
“We’re going to remember those three very famous words: ‘peace through strength,’" he added, invoking Ronald Reagan's credo.
"That’s what we’re going to have — and, hopefully, we won’t have to use our strength, but we need it — more than ever before.”
On domestic issues, Trump pledged to improve Americans' living standards by easing restrictions on the nation's energy reserves.
"There's $50 trillion of untapped energy reserves in our country — and we're going to unlock that vast potential," he said. "This one action will raise the quality of life for tens of millions of Americans.
"We'll be a rich country again."
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