President Donald Trump defended his statement that the United States should have captured Osama Bin Laden earlier.
“Of course we should have captured Osama Bin Laden long before we did,” Trump said.
In an interview with Fox News Sunday, Trump dismissed Retired Admiral Bill McRaven, a Navy SEAL who commanded the special forces operations that took out Bin Laden, who criticized Trump’s attempts to delegitimize the press.
“Would it have been nicer if we got Osama Bin Laden a lot sooner than that, wouldn’t it been nice?” Trump said replied when host Chris Wallace cited McRaven.
McRaven said that Trump’s characterization of the media being “the enemy of the American people was “perhaps the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime.”
Trump dismissed McRaven as a supporter of Hillary Clinton, his former rival for the presidential race, and former President Barack Obama.
In response, McRaven denied that he supported Clinton in the 2016 presidential race, but clarified that he was a supporter of President Barack Obama and President George W. Bush.
Trump recalled on Twitter that he wrote in his book that former President Bill Clinton “missed his shot” to take out Bin Laden in the 90s prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
He also held Pakistan responsible for failing to reveal Osama’s location.
“We paid Pakistan Billions of Dollars & they never told us he was living there,” he added. “Fools!”
Trump said the United States would no longer pay Pakistan billions of dollars.
“They were just one of many countries that take from the United States without giving anything in return,” he said. “That’s ENDING!”