Trump’s actual record on the Iraq War is messier than he’s ever admitted.
In September 2002, Howard Stern asked him whether he supported the coming invasion, and Trump answered, “Yeah, I guess so.” He stayed quiet in public until a year after the war began, then told Esquire in August 2004 that he would never have handled it that way, adding that “all of the reasons for the war were blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!”
CNN put that history next to a war he’s currently running himself.
Trump launched the Iran war alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on February 28, and it’s now six months old. He’s declared victory more than once already, claiming the U.S. had “won” and “destroyed 100% of Iran’s Military capability.”
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Netanyahu laid out the original case to Trump and senior officials in the White House Situation Room on February 12, presenting intelligence he said proved Iran was ready for regime change. That pitch sounded familiar too. Netanyahu had made a nearly identical case to Congress back in 2002, urging an Iraq invasion and calling it “a good choice.”
That’s where the old rhetoric starts sounding familiar.
NewsNight host Abby Phillip opened Tuesday’s broadcast with the latest round of strikes trading between the U.S. and Iran, six months past the point Trump had promised the fighting would stop.
“The escalation runs counter to Trump’s own claims that the war has been won, specifically claiming, quote, ‘mission accomplished,'” she said. “But unfortunately for Trump, that’s only where the similarities in tone from the Bush administration begin.”
From there, her montage put Bush and Trump next to each other, phrase for phrase.
Bush in 2002 said “The United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.” Trump in 2026 offered his own version, telling supporters to answer any doubters with “because we cannot let them have a nuclear weapon. It’s very simple.” Bush had described Iraq’s “treacherous history” of warring with its neighbors, and Trump reached for nearly the same idea describing Iran, calling their conduct “very foolish, very stupid” and saying “they attacked their neighbors.”
The terror-sponsor language lined up too.
Bush had framed the Iraq War partly around stopping regimes “that sponsor terror from threatening America, or our friends and allies.” Trump called Iran the “number one state sponsor of terror” that “sends their money all over the world to create problems.”
Bush’s 2001 line about being “either with us or against us” showed up twice from inside Trump’s own Cabinet, once from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent telling reporters “we are telling people either you are with us or against us,” and again from UN Ambassador Mike Waltz warning that “you don’t want to be siding with Iran right now.”
Featured image via YouTube screengrab
