Donald Trump Isn’t Telling the Truth About Opposing the Iraq War
You know how one of Donald Trump’s constant talking points is that he was opposed to the Iraq War from the start? For one example of many, in the New Hampshire debate recently, Trump said, “I’m the only one up here, when the war of Iraq… in Iraq, I was the one that said, ‘Don’t go, don’t do it, you’re going to destabilize the Middle East.’”
How surprised would you be to learn that Trump isn’t telling the truth about his supposed opposition to the war?
In 2002, Donald Trump Said He Supported Invading Iraq.
In the interview, which took place on Sept. 11, 2002, [Howard] Stern asked Trump directly if he was for invading Iraq.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Trump responded. “I wish the first time it was done correctly.”
Buzzfeed’s Andrew Kaczynski also points out that Trump made similar statements about supporting a war in Iraq in a book published in 2000:
Trump’s comments on Stern are more in line with what he wrote in his 2000 book, The America We Deserve, where he advocated for a “principled and tough” policy toward “outlaw” states like Iraq.
“We still don’t know what Iraq is up to or whether it has the material to build nuclear weapons. I’m no warmonger,” Trump wrote. “But the fact is, if we decide a strike against Iraq is necessary, it is madness not to carry the mission to its conclusion. When we don’t, we have the worst of all worlds: Iraq remains a threat, and now has more incentive than ever to attack us.”
It’s important to note that Donald Trump has been lying constantly about many, many things (and he isn’t the only GOP candidate to do so), but this may be one of the most egregious examples.
