Posted on 07/20/2026 10:42:45 AM PDT by Milagros
A decades-old television interview featuring a young Donald Trump has resurfaced after the US President launched strikes on Iran.
The 1980 interview reveals Trump was calling for US military intervention during the height of the Iranian hostage crisis.
In the exchange with TV host Rona Barrett, Trump sharply criticised the US government’s handling of the crisis.
The crisis saw 52 American diplomats and citizens being held captive following the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
“That they hold our hostages is just absolutely and totally ridiculous,” Trump said at the time.
“That this country sits back and allows a country such as Iran to hold our hostages to my way of thinking is a horror.”
Trump unequivocally agreed with the option of sending US troops into Iran to retrieve the hostages:
____
When you get the respect of the other countries, then the other countries tend to do a little bit as you do and you can create the right attitudes. The Iranian situation is a case in point that they hold our hostages is just absolutely and totally ridiculous. That this country sits back and allows a country such as Iran to hold our hostages to my way of thinking is a horror. And I don't think they do it with other countries. I honestly don't think they do it with other countries.
> Obviously, you're advocating that we should have gone in there with troops etc and brought our boys out.
> I absolutely feel that. Yes. I don't think there's any question. There's no question in my mind. I think right now we'd be an oil rich nation, and I believe that we should have done it and I'm very disappointed that we didn't do it and I don't think anybody would have held us in obeyance. I don't think anybody would have been angry with us and we had every right to do it at the time. I think we've lost the opportunity.
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I think intervention with boots on the ground at that time might have been easier than now. The IRCG has had a generation to grow, gain strength, expand and exert complete control. Back that the protest was a small subset and perhaps easier to crush - one cannot be sure as the same could be said of our revolution and the Brits found out otherwise. Regardless, now a ground invasion would take a substantial investment in American blood I think. And without it, nothing will change in the end. Trump managed to do what he said he wouldn’t: get involved in a regime change war with not clear way out.
This is impossible because Israel and Tha Joooooos!!!!
I was tole on FR by the Allahu Akhbar Chorus.
Yea. My point.
A technical point, but wouldn't it be Juuuuuus?
Is Loose!
That’s what I voted for. Anyone who voted for Trump because they thought “no open-ended wars” in the Mideast included Iran didn’t do their homework.
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