The year was 2008. President Barack Obama had just been elected the first African American president in the history of the country. Donald Trump was revving his racist engines to begin a birther campaign in what likely started as a publicity stunt. Doing the media rounds, Trump spoke with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. In a clip that Blitzer posted on Twitter Wednesday, Trump can be seen giving his thoughts on Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the concept of impeachment.
DONALD TRUMP: You know, when she first got in and was named speaker, I met her. And I’m very impressed by her. I think she’s a very impressive person. I like her a lot. But I was surprised that she didn’t do more in terms of Bush [W.], and going after Bush. It was almost, it just seemed like she was gonna really look to impeach Bush and get him out of office. Which personally I think would have been a wonderful thing.
Blitzer, without a teleprompter, is sort of like a Christmas Tree without lights—quiet—and has to do his best. So he stammers the question, “Impeaching him?”
TRUMP: For the war.
BLITZER: The conduct of the war—
TRUMP:--Well he lied! He got us into the war with lies. And, I mean, look at the trouble that 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.
It’s one of Trump’s more coherent set of sentences, and arguably the only true thing he’s said in the last decade. But of course, with President Obama and a Democratic Congress, 2008 was a good year for Trump to promote Democratic Party officials. It would be six years later that Trump would be calling for President Obama’s impeachment for who knows what. I guess he stopped thinking Speaker Pelosi was so impressive when he actually had to try and face off against her in the same arena. Having Pelosi wipe the floor with you probably left a bad taste in his mouth.
Published with permission from Daily Kos.
