Donald Trump on evidence he backed Bush's Iraq invasion: 'By the time the war started, I was against it'
On Thursday night, BuzzFeed News posted an audio clip of Donald Trump being interviewed by Howard Stern on Sept. 11, 2002, where Stern asked Trump if he favored invading Iraq. "Yeah I guess so," Trump said. "I wish the first time it was done correctly." Since Trump has made his opposition to George W. Bush's Iraq War a centerpiece of his foreign policy, Anderson Cooper asked Trump about his 2002 comments — made about the same time Hillary Clinton and John Kerry cast their career-haunting Senate votes in favor of authorizing the invasion — during a town hall event hosted by CNN.
"I could have said that," Trump said. "I wasn't a politician, it was probably the first time anybody had asked me that question.... By the time the war started, I was against the war." There were articles in 2003 and 2004 that proved his opposition, Trump said. "When you're in the private sector... you get asked things, and you're not a politician," he added. "By the time the war started, I was against it. And shortly thereafter, I was really against it." You can watch the back-and-forth below. Peter Weber
The Week
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