Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” conservative commentator Ann Coulter said that although she disagreed with Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s suggestion former President George W. Bush may have misled the American people to invade Iraq, his broader point about avoiding foreign wars was the right.
According to Coulter, the focus on the Middle East in the GOP debates detracts attention from what is going on domestically.
“Well, what he said specifically about Bush lying to get us into the war about weapons of mass destruction, of course that made my head explode,” Coulter said. “But whether it’s Bush’s fault or Obama’s fault for pulling out every last troop as I believe, going forward, I do, and I think most Americans agreed with Trump — enough with the foreign wars. It didn’t work. It’s not working now. Again, whether it’s Bush’s fault or Obama’s fault. And you know, you watch these Republican debates, and at least for the first five of them, half of the debate is Republicans talking about the Quds and the Kurds. Can we get back to America?”
Later in the segment, Coulter explained why she sees Trump as resonating where the Republican Party isn’t and pointed out that you can tie Bush’s policies to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
“I think on three positions: trade, immigration and foreign wars, Trump is illustrating how the Republican Party and the establishment has been forcing Republicans, the entire GOP into taking suicidal positions that is not where the American people are,” she added. “And I have to say, I do think Trump is on much firmer ground, and is making an important point, although not as well this time as he has in the past about Bush being president when the 9/11 attack occurred. Look, one year before 9/11, in a debate with Al Gore, George Bush specifically raised racial profiling of Arabs at ticket security. One year later, the ticket agent who took Mohammed Atta’s tickets said he got a chill to the bone, he wouldn’t give it to him, but gave himself a politically correct mental slap.”
“Trump has said in the past, the reason 9/11 might well not have happened if I were president is, those 19 hijackers wouldn’t have been here,” she continued. “He is not enforcing politically correct rules. And by the way, Bush then went on to promote amnesty. We never had a vote on Bush after this. But we had a vote on Republicans and Congress and they were wiped out in 2006, because Americans don’t want amnesty. Keeping the borders open, and specifically, no racial profiling of Arabs at airports. Yeah, actually I think you can kind of say there is some partial blame there for Bush.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.