During a town hall moderated by MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” co-host Joe Scarborough quizzed Donald Trump on his past statements about the Iraq War.
Scarborough referenced a book Trump wrote in 2000, in which the real estate mogul discussed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. According to Buzzfeed News, Trump discussed how Iraq was “developing a nuclear arsenal.”
“We still don’t know what Iraq is up to or whether it has the material to build nuclear weapons,” Trump then wrote, according to Buzzfeed News. “I’m no warmonger. But the fact is, if we decide a strike against Iraq is necessary, it is madness not to carry the mission to its conclusion.”
Scarborough confronted Trump about these comments on Wednesday night.
“In 2000, you also said that you thought that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. What happened between 2000 when you wrote that…” he asked Trump
“So we were told they had weapons of mass destruction,” Trump jumped in to say. “But he didn’t have weapons of mass destruction. Now, the only question is did the government know he didn’t? Why did they go in — look, Iraq did not knock down and the Iraqis did not knock down the World Trade Center.”
“So we attacked Iraq but they didn’t knock down the World Trade Center. We attacked them for a reason,” Trump responded.
Scarborough pressed Trump further, asking, “Did you believe in 2003 in March when we went to war that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction?”
“I didn’t know,” Trump answered. “If you would have watched you would have probably thought they did but I didn’t know. But the government should have known and they didn’t have. And we attacked a country and destabilized the entire Middle East.”
The MSNBC host then told Trump that “nobody can find” comments made by Trump before the U.S. went to war in Iraq.
“I’m a real estate person, a business person. Nobody cared about my comments,” Trump said in response, adding that in 2003 he said he was against the Iraq War. “I’m the only one that said, ‘Don’t go in.'”
Watch the clip via MSNBC:
Trump deserves credit for one thing: he forced the Republican base to face the inconvenient truth that George W Bush was president on 9/11, rather then beginning on the day after.
yet…you are being asked now.
written proof or it didn’t happen…
TPM:
And we still don’t.
Along with Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders, et. al.
Hiram Stephen Williams · UCLA
I have not been a fan of Donald Trump. However, I thought on Face the Nation Sunday he was the most coherent and appealing he has ever been. GW made us much less safer when he invaded Iraq. He strengthened Iran, created Al Qaeda in Iraq which has since morphed to ISIL, unstabilized the entire Middle East and North Africa, cost us trillions of dollars we could have spent on our homeland, and left so many of our noble soldiers dead, maimed, still suffering. I appreciate that Mr. Trump has squarely and fairly resurrected the issue that others in the Republican Party would leave buried, glossed over, or mythologized. Those would-be emperors now have no clothes to hide behind. Their facile naked misrepresentation is bared for all to see. We must all of us, Republican, Democrat, Independent alike, face our past honestly before we can have any hope at all of creating a better future for our nation
One of Marco Rubio’s most offensive moments in his disastrous and illuminating NH debate involved his gratuitous, extraordinarily ignorant, and disrespectful comments about the wonderful contributions to this country of Vice President and long-term Senator Joe Biden. Marco you are no Joe Biden. Not even close in matching him in good work done well with an understanding heart. But nor is Hillary Joe Biden, as much as I think a woman with proper credentials and a stirring message as President would be good for our country. A wonderful ticket for the Democratic Party would be Joe Biden for President and Elizabeth Warren for Vice President. Joe would bring foreign policy insight and wisdom (and more), Elizabeth would bring the passion for fairness that Bernie Sanders has mobilized and clarity about how to achieve it (and more). Together they could bridge differences across party lines, mobilize the better angels of our nature, and lead us toward the America most of us desire. I would love to see a campaign between Biden/Warren and someone with Kasich’s heart and decency/Haley. America would much better for it.
Mr. Trump may be the “only one” of the Republican presidential candidates who was against an invasion of Iraq – but he is far from the only person who was against it. So many good Americans felt it was wrong on so many levels and a squandering of the good will the world was feeling for the U.S. at that time. GWBush was a horrible president.