Donald Trump addresses a rally in Milwaukee in April. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
(CNSNews.com) — “Every move we made in the Middle East was wrong,” Republican Donald Trump told “Fox News Sunday.”
“You know, if our presidents went to the beach for 365 days a year, we’d be a lot better in the Middle East than we are now.
“Now, you have a mess. You have a big fat mess and I called that a long time ago, in ’04 and ’03, I said, don’t knock out — when you knock out Iraq, you are just — you’re going to ruin the balance, and the balance has been horrible.
“Then you had Libya and Syria and everything. I mean, they couldn’t have been worse. The people that advised our presidents…whoever was the one that came up with this plan — I mean, what we’ve done in the Middle East, we’ve spent $4 trillion and we’re far worse than the first gunshot that was fired.
And what we’ve got to do is we’ve got to knock off ISIS and we’ve got to at some point get out of there, because we have to rebuild our country. Our country is becoming Third World, our airports, our roadways, our train systems.
“You go to China and you go to other places, they have trains that travel 300 miles an hour. We have the Long Island railroad that can hardly — it can hardly move. I mean, we are like a third world country.
“But we have to get rid of ISIS and we have to get rid of them very decisively.”
Trump said the Middle East would be better off if Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi were still in power. Gadhafi was toppled in 2011 with the help of U.S. air strikes, something advocated by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The air strikes were conducted by order of President Obamawithout congressional authorization.
“Every move we made in the Middle East was wrong,” Trump said. “And a lot of times, they want me to get these great foreign advisers and these great geniuses and they’ve been involved for 15 years. I don’t want the people that have been involved for 15 years because those are the people that have absolutely — what they’ve done to this country and our country and on top of it we owe $19 trillion in debt.”
“So, would it be fair to say that Hillary Clinton would be the hawk in this race?” host Chris Wallace asked Trump.
“But, Chris, we have so many things to do with our country, we can’t have this anymore. We are spending all of our money in the Middle East. We’re spending numbers that are crazy.
“And on top of that, we’re defending the world. We’re the policeman to the world…And this country can’t afford to do it.
Wallace tried again: “Would it be fair to say that Hillary Clinton will be the hawk in this race, and you’ll be the dove?
“No, I’ll tell you what? I’ll be much tougher than her, I will have much more respect than her from foreign countries. In fact, I read today where they’re very concerned with me, they feel I’m very strong, very tough and they’re very concerned.
So, that’s a little opposite of what you’re telling me. That’s a psychological thing which frankly is good. Let them be a little concerned.
Look, we’re defending Germany, we’re defending Japan, South Korea, we’re defending Saudi Arabia with all of that money and we’re not getting properly reimbursed.
We don’t have any more and we’re defending — we’re like the policeman to the world. What’s going on is crazy.
We’re going to strength on our military big league — by the way, it’s the cheapest money you can spend — and we’ve got it pulled back because that is just a big mess. That’s a revolution, that’s a civil war, that’s a religious war going over there. We’re in the middle of it.
For 15 years, we’ve been wasting time…because of horrible decision-making by our presidents.”
Donald Trump addresses a rally in Milwaukee in April. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast) 
