Speaking on his radio show Wednesday, Howard Stern confirmed that “Trump was on our show years ago and said yeah, you know, he was kind of for the Iraq war, us going into Iraq.”
“He was saying he really wasn’t for it, and so they were forced to mention my name. Yeah. It was cool. Good promotion,” Stern continued, saying he could check being “mentioned in a presidential debate” off of his bucket list. Stern’s comments were first flagged by Buzzfeed News.
Trump mentioned Stern during Monday’s debate, when moderator Lester Holt said Trump had supported the Iraq war before it began.
“When I did an interview with Howard Stern, very lightly, the first time anyone’s asked me that, I said, very lightly, ‘I don’t know, maybe, who knows?’ essentially,” Trump said.
Trump appeared on Stern’s show in September 2002, a month before Congress voted to invade Iraq. In that appearance, the shock jock asked him if he supported the war.
“Yeah, I guess so. I wish the first time it was done correctly,” Trump responded.
There’s no evidence that Trump opposed the Iraq war before it started, as he has repeatedly said on the campaign trail. Seventeen months after the invasion began, in August 2004, Trump did express concern about “the mess that we’re in” in Iraq.
