Trump: ‘I Love The Fact That ISIS Is Being Hit By Russia’

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump declared “I love the fact that ISIS is being hit by Russia” in an interview broadcast on Wednesday’s “CNN Tonight.”

Trump stated that Russia doesn’t respect the US or President Obama, but “At the same time, if they want to hit ISIS, that’s okay with me. I’m not going to be saying we have to do it all. You know, we’re like the policemen of the world. I’m a very strong person when it comes to the military, you and I have had this conversation before, I think it will be my big sleeper, you know, as a sleeper subject for me, I think one of my strengths will be the military. I’m very, very strong on the military. I believe so strongly in it. We’re going to build a tremendous military. Nobody’s going to mess with us. But at the same time, we have to be respected and, frankly, we’re not being respected. Nevertheless, I love the fact that ISIS is being hit by Russia.”

After host Don Lemon said, “But according to US officials, that — the areas that are being hit are not ISIS strongholds. These are areas that are propping up Assad.” Trump responded, “I’m hearing that, and I hear they’re hitting both, but I’m hearing that. And then you say to yourself, Assad, bad guy, killed hundreds of thousands of people, but you wonder what’s going to happen with the other people that we don’t know who they are. We always give weapons, we give billions of dollars in weapons, and then they turn them against us, we have no control. So, we don’t know the other people that we’re supposed to be backing. We don’t even know who we’re backing. Russia and Iran, and of course, we have made Iran strong by giving them $150 billion in one of the dumbest deals I’ve ever seen. So, you have Russia and Iran are backing Assad. At the same time, my primary thing is getting rid of ISIS, because ISIS really does stand for evil.”

Lemon continued to press, stating, “You have said let’s just let the Russians take care of it, but US officials, again, are saying these airstrikes…were not targeting ISIS, they were targeting the opposition to Assad. Do you want to change — would you change your position on that at all?”

Trump then stated, “Look, I want to invest trillions of dollars in rebuilding our country. I want to create a tremendously strong military, stronger than we’ve ever had before, and really technologically strong. We need technology. We’re the king of technology, but that’s what I want to do, and I want to invest money in our country. We’ve invested so much money in the Middle East and we have nothing for it. You know, Russia, if you think about the old Soviet Union, you know where they went bad, they went into Afghanistan, they were there for years, and they virtually went bankrupt as a nation, and that’s when it all split up. If Russia wants to go in, and if Russia wants to fight, in particular ISIS, and they do, and one of the reasons they do is because they don’t want ISIS coming into their country, and that’s going to be the next step. So, that’s why they’re there.”

He continued, “I think they will be fighting ISIS, and I think they’re going to also probably…prop up Assad and help him out. And, frankly, who are we backing? We don’t even know. I was with a major leader the other day, they don’t know who we’re backing. And if you look at Libya? What did we do in Libya? It’s a mess. Nobody knows what’s going on. You take a look Libya, you take a look at Iraq. We spent $2 trillion, thousands of lives, wounded warriors in Iraq, what do we have? We have nothing. And by the way, Iran is taking over Iraq, as sure as you’re sitting there.”

When asked if rules of engagement were needed between the US and Russia, he stated, “A couple of bad moves…you have World War III over Syria, right? I don’t think so, alright? I don’t think so. Look, if Russia wants to go in there, it would have been nice if we went in and as a unified front, to be honest with you, but if Russia wants to go in there and knock the hell out of ISIS, and maybe stabilize –.”

Trump later added, “we’ve had the dumbest foreign policy in the history of this country. We have unified the Middle East, we’ve unified Russia, by the way, with China. You know, from the time I’m a young man I always heard it would be a terrible thing if Russia and China ever got together. Guess what? They’re together now. You know why? Because of oil. Because Obama has done things to Russia where they ended up unifying with China. Everything is wrong with our foreign policy.”

Lemon then asked, “So what do you do then? because people are asking you to give more specifics about foreign policy.”

Trump answered, “I don’t like talking specifically. … I want to be unpredictable. You know there was a great article about me in the recent past, very recent past actually, and one of my competitors in business said, you know, the toughest thing about Trump is he’s so unpredictable. You don’t know what he’s going to do. I made a great deal, and I took it away from people who thought they had it, it was very nice. But, frankly, the competitor said with respect, not as a negative, they said Trump is totally unpredictable. And I want to be unpredictable. So, when you say, ‘what would you do?’ You know, I said I’d take the oil, okay? You know that. And lot of people, stupid people said, oh, what a terrible thing. Well, now who has the oil? ISIS is having — ISIS has so much oil they’re paying people to be their soldiers.”

Trump then talked about his opposition to the Iraq War, during this, Lemon stated, “But Americans who are trying to assess who their next president is going to at least want to know that you have some sort of plan, or have some sort of idea about as to what you would do.”

Trump responded, “I have an absolute idea. Now by the way, ideas change. It’s like on policy — and the reason I say I was against it, [is] because I think it’s important for people know that I predicted exactly what was going to happen with Iran and Iraq.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett