But instead of explaining himself or defending himself, Trump’s campaign is just out there pretending he never said it.
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President Barack Obama is angrily denouncing Donald Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric, blasting the views of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee as a threat to American security and a menacing echo of some of the most shameful moments in USA history. “If you don’t discuss the problem and can’t say the real name, we have a radical Islamic terrorist problem, folks”, Trump told the crowd, taking aim squarely at President Obama.
Many thought that the brash billionaire said that military members had swindled the USA and Iraq out of money. “Because I think they are living very well right now, whoever they may be”. In reality, it was Americans, not Iraqis, who were distributing millions of dollars, so the defense doesn’t make a lot of sense.
In those comments as well as his Tuesday comments in North Carolina, it’s fairly obvious Trump was not referring to Iraqi soldiers but, in fact, American soldiers.
A Center for Public Integrity report from last May said that 115 servicemembers in Iraq and Afghanistan had been convicted of crimes worth more than $50 million since 2005, with a number of schemes involving the selling of military fuel on the black market. “Because I don’t represent that”. Trump had made a very similar statement last September.
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“They were going through Afghanistan paying off, I want to know who were the soldiers that are carrying cash of 50 million dollars? I wouldn’t be surprised – if those soldiers, I wouldn’t be surprised if the cash didn’t get there”.
