I would be slower to go to war than Hillary
I would be very, very cautious. I think I'd be a lot slower. She has a happy trigger. You look, she votes for the wars, she goes in Libya. I think it's a tremendous burden. I think there is no greater burden that anybody could have.
Strengthen military, but act defensively
Q: You say, in personal relations, you're a counterpuncher. You don't hit until you are hit. Is that a good way to think about the way you would use military force as a president?
TRUMP: I'm the most militaristic person on your show. I want to have a much stronger military. I want it to be so strong that nobody is going to mess with us. I want to take care of our vets, who are treated terribly, like third-class citizens.
Q: Well, let's take an example of some case where you may or may not use military force. It turns out Assad apparently used chemical weapons on his own people.
TRUMP: Well, you know, the time to have done it would have been when he drew the line in the sand.
Q: So, you would have done it in that case?
TRUMP: I might have gone in. Now it's such a mess over there, with everybody involved, and the airspace is very limited. It's not that big of an area. The airspace is very limited. So are we going to start World War III over Syria?
Radical violent Islam that must be feared, not Islam itself
I feel strongly that Muslims are excellent. (
) I know so many Muslims that are such fabulous people. But there is a problem. I mean, there's no question about it. And, you know, we can be politically correct, and we can say there is no problem whatsoever. But the fact is, there is a problem with some. And it's a very severe problem. And it's a problem that's taking place all over the world. But I have such great respect and love for so many of the people. I mean, they are great people.
All of the reasons for Iraq war were blatantly wrong
What was the purpose of this whole thing? Hundreds and hundreds of young people killed. And what about the people coming back with no arms and legs? Not to mention the other side. All those Iraqi kids who've been blown to pieces. And it turns out that all of the reasons for the war were blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!
No humanitarian intervention; only to direct threats
My rules of engagement are pretty simple. If we are going to intervene in a conflict it had better pose a direct threat to our interest- one definition of “direct” being a threat so obvious that most Americans will know where the hot spot is on the globe and will quickly understand why we are getting involved. The threat should be so direct that our leaders, including our president, should be able to make the case clearly and concisely, which has certainly not been the case regarding the terrible events in Yugoslavia.
At the same time, we must not get involved in a long-festering conflict for humanitarian reasons. If that’s our standard, we should have troops stationed all over Africa, and much of Asia as well.
FactCheck: Supported Iraq invasion in 2002; opposed in 2003
Trump has claimed that he opposed the Iraq War before the invasion began--as an example of his great judgment. But in a 2002 interview with Howard Stern, Donald Trump said he supported an Iraq invasion. In an interview on Sept. 11, 2002, 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."
Assad is a bad guy, but his replacement could be worse
Gov. Jeb BUSH: We should have a no fly zone in Syria.
TRUMP: Assad is a bad guy, but we have no idea who the so-called rebels--nobody even knows who they are.
Carly FIORINA: Governor Bush is correct. We must have a no fly zone in Syria.
TRUMP: So, I don't like Assad. Who's going to like Assad? But, we have no idea who these people, and what they're going to be, and what they're going to represent. They may be far worse than Assad. Look at Libya. Look at Iraq. Look at the mess we have after spending $2 trillion dollars, thousands of lives, wounded warriors all over the place--we have nothing. And, I said, keep the oil. And we should have kept the oil, believe me. We should have kept the oil. And, you know what? We should have given big chunks of the oil to the people that lost their arms, their legs, and their families, and their sons, and daughters, because right now, you know who has a lot of that oil? Iran, and ISIS.
Let Russia make moves in Syria; it's a quagmire
Q: Let's turn to ISIS and what should the United States do about it?
TRUMP: But we're going to have to do something very strong over there. We're going to have to take away the energy, the fuel, the money from ISIS, because, in the case of ISIS-- I've been saying this for years. We have to stop the source of money. And the source of money is oil.
Q: So you'd step up the campaign against ISIS even though you believe that Vladimir Putin is getting stuck in a quagmire by going in?
TRUMP: Well, I'm not looking to quagmire, I'm looking to take the oil. The Middle East is one big, fat quagmire. If you look at the Soviet Union, it used to be the Soviet Union. They essentially went bust and it became Russia, a much smaller version, because of Afghanistan. They spent all their money. Now they're going into Syria. I'm all for Russia going in and knocking and dropping bombs on ISIS. As far as I'm concerned, we don't have to have exclusivity on that.
If Obama had attacked Syria, we wouldn't have refugees now
Somehow, [President Obama] just doesn't have courage. There is something missing from our president. Had he crossed the line and really gone in with force, done something to Assad--if he had gone in with tremendous force, you wouldn't have millions of people displaced all over the world.