Posted on 02/14/2016 2:52:49 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Donald Trump sought Sunday to walk back his statements during Saturday night's Republican debate that former President George W. Bush bore responsibility for the Sept. 11 terror attack.
"I am not blaming him," Trump said on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday.
Trump continued to imply Bush erred, however. "The CIA said there was a lot of information that something like that was going to happen," he said. The attacks killed just under 3,000 Americans.
During Saturday night's debate, Trump told former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush: "The World Trade Center came down during your brother's reign, remember that."
"How did he keep us safe?" Trump said later. "I lost hundreds of friends. The World Trade Center came down during the reign of George Bush. He kept us safe? That is not safe."
Trump holds a large lead in South Carolina. A CBS poll released Sunday put his support at 42 percent. That is more than double the 20 percent of the second-place candidate, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., polled in third at 15 percent.
But in the wake of the debate, many pundits argued Trump risks losing support of pro-military conservative voters in South Carolina and other upcoming primary states, among whom George W. Bush remains popular.
For some GOP voters, Trump's faulting of Bush may have sounded too similar to Democratic denunciations of the former president, who faced criticism at the time for taking a lengthy vacation in the weeks prior to the attack, which occurred nine months into his presidency.
Hoping to capitalize on the those views, Rubio responded to Trump's claims Saturday by arguing former President Bill Clinton was at fault for the 9/11 attacks. Clinton failed to kill Osama bin Laden, Rubio said.
Trump on Sunday also seemed to walk back his claim that the Bush administration deliberately misled Americans in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.
"They lied," Trump said during the debate. "They said there were weapons of mass destruction, there were none. And they knew there were none."
On Sunday, Trump said George W. Bush "thought there were weapons of mass destruction, maybe, or maybe he didn't."
Trump insisted the invasion of Iraq was a "disaster" that continues to spread instability.
"We would have been so much better off if Bush and the rest of them went to the beach and didn't do anything," Trump said. "If you had Saddam Hussein, he was a bad guy and all of that, but he made a living off killing terrorists. Now if you want to become a terrorist you go to Iraq."
Trump spoke just hours after he fired off a series of post-midnight tweets arguing he fared well in the debate.
Saturday's debate "might have been my best performance," Trump said Sunday.
I served in the Army from 1997-2001 and Texas Army National Guard from 2001-2005. I was saying the same things Trump is saying back in 2003. Nothing he has said has lessened my opinion of him.
He is deathly afraid of Jeb
‘Jeb and the Bush Crime Family’ page 331-332
‘Mission accomplished, at least for George W. Bush. The man who plotted to kill his father, and committed untold other crimes, is dead. But 12 year later, more than 4,000 American
Troops have died in Iraq-and $1.7 trillion dollars have already been spent, a number that increases every day. The weapons of mass destruction George W. claimed were there, and used to justify that human and financial cost, were never found.
The people of Iraq? The horror of Saddam has been replaced by the horror of civil war, ISIS, and an entirely uncertain future.
But George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld got their man...’
Wow. Cognitive dissonance.
It’s actually the worst sort of scapegoating and demagoguery.
He is using the deaths of the 911 victims and pissing and dancing on their graves.
Trump is not an honorable man.
Trump did not merely argue during the debate that the Iraq war was ill-conceived or poorly executed. He argued during the debate that George W. Bush lied about WMDs in Iraq.
Has Trump always maintained the position that “Bush lied, people died”?
Is Trump maintaining that position now? If not, then is he walking that back from his position during the debate?
Did George W. Bush in fact lie about WMDs in Iraq?
Shhh, you are making too much sense. The Cruzbots can’t handle that. They read a headline, see red and go into attack mode. It’s their M.O.
All he really said is that Jeb doesn’t get to say that his brother “kept us safe” because he didn’t.
Why else would the mighty Trump back away from what he truly believes?
Just out of curiosity and even given the generous 15yrs hindsight already being employed...
...who exactly would The Don have “bombed the shit out of” back when the nation supported Bush doing the same?
This type of character assassination of Cruz and Carson is what soured me on Trump and opened my eyes to his dishonesty and amorality.
Keep it up!
Bush is partly to blame - you need to dig a lot deeper into history to find the truth. It will surprise you. Bush was warned, and chose to ignore it - as did his brother, Jeb, who was then Governor of FL, where the terrorists planned and executed their attacks. A great majority of them had overstayed their visas, but, the amnesty-loving Bushes turned a blind eye. Please educate yourself, as I hope millions of Americans will do.
Roller Debate. Where one team gangs ups to block the front runner
Bush used weak “evidence” at best to invade Iraq. More likely he wanted to finish the job his dad failed at. For what? To destabilize the middle east and make it even worse than before. Thousands of troops are dead at a cost of trillions.
And of course the Bush administration did not keep us safe on 9/11. Clinton gets to share the blame as well.
When that dope, W, campaigns this week for his even bigger dope brother, Jebby, the disastrous will be remembered for the recession and putting Obama in to the White House.
Well said
TRUMP CAN SAVE US!!!!
“...who exactly would The Don have “bombed the shit out of†back when the nation supported Bush doing the same?”
Trump said the US should take out Osama one year before 9/11. That’s foresight, not hindsight.
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