After Hillary Clinton avoided mentioning her Republican opponent by name in a speech Monday to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Donald Trump declined to return the favor.

The Republican presidential nominee teed off on Clinton within minutes of taking the stage Tuesday to deliver his own speech at the VFW convention in Charlotte, N.C. Seeking to contrast himself with the former secretary of state, Trump said he can be trusted to take care of American veterans while Clinton's record shows she cannot.

"We know how she takes care of the veterans. Just look at her invasion of Libya or Benghazi — a disaster," Trump told the roomful of retired service members. "Or look at her emails, which put America's national security at risk.

"And to think she was here yesterday because she didn't do very well," Trump said of Clinton's speech. The dig was met with cheers and whistles by some in the crowd.

Trump sought to pin Clinton as incapable of bringing reform to the Department of Veterans Affairs and fixing issues that have plagued the VA because she's part of the system from which they originated.

"[Clinton] recently said of the VA scandal that it's not as widespread as it's been purported to be," he told the audience. "It's like she's trying to sweep it under the rug, which, by the way, politicians have done for years and years and years. It's going to be four more years of the same if she ever got in."

Telling veterans in the crowd, "our debt to you is eternal," Trump vowed to introduce a series of measures intended to root out corruption and incompetence within the VA. Highlighting the 10-step plan he first debuted during a veterans reform speech last month, Trump first said he would appoint a VA secretary whose "personal mission [would be] to clean up the VA."

"Our most basic commitment to provide basic health and medical care to those who fought for us so bravely has been violated completely," he said. "Can you imagine the waste and corruption — and I will tell you, we will find it and we will find it big league when I become president in January 2017."

Trump vowed to restore honesty to government by "using every lawful authority to remove and discipline federal authorities or managers who breach their public trust."

Less than a week after he told Americans that he alone can fix the country, Trump struck a different tone on Tuesday by vowing to seek congressional approval for his VA reform proposals.

"I will ask Congress to pass a bill giving the VA secretary to remove or discipline any VA employee who risks the health, safety or well-being of any veteran," he said.

Despite leveling attacks against Clinton through much of his speech Tuesday, Trump also delivered a more refined version of his "I'm with you" message.

"Let's reject the doubters and the cynics and choose instead to believe in ourselves and in our country. It's time to follow the amazing example of our veterans, who work together across racial lines, across income lines, across all lines in unity of mission and purpose," Trump said. "If we do this, we will truly, absolutely 100 percent make America great again — greater than ever, ever, ever before."