It turns out Trump’s a founder
by digby
He’s saying today that he was being sarcastic. He’s quite the comedian. In case you missed Trump’s full comments to Hugh Hewitt about Obama and Clinton founding ISIS, here they are. You be the judge:
HH: I’ve got two more questions. Last night, you said the President was the founder of ISIS. I know what you meant. You meant that he created the vacuum, he lost the peace.
DT: No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS. I do. He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way, Hillary Clinton.
HH: But he’s not sympathetic to them. He hates them. He’s trying to kill them.
DT: I don’t care. He was the founder. His, the way he got out of Iraq was that that was the founding of ISIS, okay?
HH: Well, that, you know, I have a saying, Donald Trump, the mnemonic device I use is Every Liberal Really Seems So, So Sad. E is for Egypt, L is for Libya, S is for Syria, R is for Russia reset. They screwed everything up. You don’t get any argument from me. But by using the term founder, they’re hitting with you on this again. Mistake?
DT: No, it’s no mistake. Everyone’s liking it. I think they’re liking it. I give him the most valuable player award. And I give it to him, and I give it to, I gave the co-founder to Hillary. I don’t know if you heard that.
HH: I did. I did. I played it.
DT: I gave her the co-founder.
HH: I know what you’re arguing…
DT: You’re not, and let me ask you, do you not like that?
HH: I don’t. I think I would say they created, they lost the peace. They created the Libyan vacuum, they created the vacuum into which ISIS came, but they didn’t create ISIS. That’s what I would say.
DT: Well, I disagree.
HH: All right, that’s okay.
DT: I mean, with his bad policies, that’s why ISIS came about.
HH: That’s…
DT: If he would have done things properly, you wouldn’t have had ISIS.
HH: That’s true.
DT: Therefore, he was the founder of ISIS.
Hewitt doesn’t ask him why he uses Obama’s middle name when he talks about this on the stump — the only time he does it. But then this is Hewitt who, for some reason, is a big favorite among the Villagers and has been mainstreaming fever swamp nonsense throughout this election.
By the way, here’s what Trump said about withdrawing from Iraq in the past:
“First, I’d get out of Iraq right now,” Trump said to British GQ in a 2008 interview. “And by the way, I am the greatest hawk who ever lived, a far greater hawk even than Bush. I am the most militant military human being who ever lived. I’d rebuild our military arsenal, and make sure we had the finest weapons in the world. Because countries such as Russia have no respect for us, they laugh at us. Look at what happened in Georgia, a place we were supposed to be protecting.”
Later, Trump said he wished Arizona Sen. John McCain, whom he was backing in the election, had supported pulling troops out of Iraq faster.
“I wish he would promise to get us out of Iraq faster,” said Trump. “I am not in love with that aspect of what he represents.”
Those comments echoed similar remarks in March 2007 when he said forces should be immediately withdrawn from Iraq.
“You know how they get out? They get out,” Trump said to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “That’s how they get out. Declare victory and leave, because I’ll tell you, this country is just going to get further bogged down. They’re in a civil war over there, Wolf. There’s nothing that we’re going to be able to do with a civil war. They are in a major civil war.”
Speaking with Howard Stern in October of that year, Trump said McCain’s support for keeping troops in Iraq was costing him the Republican nomination.
“Anybody who stays in Iraq — look at what happened to McCain — he want to show how tough he is, he’s sunk, immediately, and that’s with the Republicans.”
By late 2011, Trump notoriously began saying the U.S. should take Iraq’s oil before withdrawing. Trump also told CNN’s Piers Morgan in February of that year he would get of troops in Iraq “out real fast.” By 2016, he completely adopted the conservative critique of the Iraq withdrawal.
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