Trump: I wanted Bush impeached
Posted: 01:45 PM ET

From CNN Ticker Producer Alexander Mooney


Trump says that Bush got the US into a war with Iraq using lies.
(CNN) – Business mogul Donald Trump told CNN Wednesday House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should have sought to impeach President Bush when she had the chance.

In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Trump said the president and his administration deliberately lied about the Iraq war, and congressional Democrats missed an opportunity to impeach him when the party took control of Congress in 2006.

"I was surprised that she didn't do more in terms of Bush and going after Bush," Trump said. "It was almost — it just seemed like she was going to really look to impeach Bush and get him out of office, which personally I think would have been a wonderful thing."

Pressed why he feels Bush deserved the punishment faced by only two other commanders-in-chief, Trump said the president misled the country in the run-up to the Iraq war, and that his actions were considerably more objectionable than those which led to the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton.

"He lied. He got us into the war with lies," Trump said. And I mean — look at the trouble Bill Clinton got into with something that was totally unimportant. And they tried to impeach him, which was nonsense. And yet Bush got us into this horrible war with lies, by lying, by saying they had weapons of mass destruction, by saying all sorts of things that turned out not to be true."

In the wide-ranging interview set to air on CNN's The Situation Room at 4, 5, and 6 p.m. Wednesday, Trump also praised John McCain and said the Arizona senator still has a chance to win the White House despite recent polls showing he is substantially trailing Barack Obama.

"He's a very smart guy, he's a tough guy," he said. "I think he'd be a great president. But, he has to be John McCain and he could still probably pull it out. But, it's going to be tough."

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