Trump has blasted Obama's policy toward China as weak and said the president was humiliated by the Chinese during his visit to Asia this week. In a recent poll from the nonpartisan Pew Research Centre, about one in four voters said they were undecided or did not know when asked to choose between Clinton and Trump.

Mr Trump and rival Hillary Clinton had taken questions from military veterans. All he needs to do is keep his temper and sound vaguely like he knows what he's talking about and he'll be deemed presidential enough.

Quizzed by NBC host Matt Lauer on his previous complimentary remarks about Mr Putin, Mr Trump responded: "He does have an 82% approval rating".

Democratic strategist Craig Varoga said he wasn't surprised that the candidates were playing against type, which he viewed as the most logical course for both campaigns to set up for the fall race. "Sound familiar?" he said drawing a parallel between Trump and Reagan. Secretary of Defense and the Department of Defense basically said 'We're not going to tell you.' And I said, 'Well, yes you are.' We had such a briefing. The New York Times declared Thursday, "Matt Lauer Loses the War in a Battle Between the Candidates".

The Republican nominee made his case that he was against the Iraq War by pointing to comments he made in the first months of the Iraq War as "yet more evidence that I had opposed the war from the start".

"The most important thing for the public and the press is to just listen to what he says and follow up and ask questions to what appear to be either contradictory or uninformed or outright wacky ideas", Obama told reporters in Laos at the end of a multi-day tour of southeast Asia.

Senior Syrian rebel leader 'killed' near Aleppo
The group in reaction, stated in it's newspaper Al-naba, that his death would not harm it, and his killers would face torment. Abu Omar Saraqib of the Syria Conquest Front was killed in an air raid on the outskirts of Aleppo late Thursday, rebels said.

"She was unable to answer for her awful foreign policy judgment, mishandling of classified information and claims that the [Veterans Affairs] wait time scandal was overblown".

"Having interviewed her several times in the 2008 campaign, I found her very impressive and a very smart tactician. Always have, always will".

On NBC Nightly News, reporter Andrea Mitchell was as giddy about the verbal attacks as a Clinton fangirl could be. She also flushed out several national security priorities if she is elected, including trying to take out the leader of the Islamic State and vowing to defeat the extremist group without putting USA troops on the ground in Iraq or Syria.

But she said it meant she was in "the best possible position" to ensure it never happened again.

Trump and Clinton will square off directly in their first presidential debate on September 26, with two more scheduled in October in the weeks before the November 8 election.