Fact check: Trump revives his years-old lie that he warned not to invade Iraq

Former President Donald Trump repeated a variety of his previous false claims about the Middle East, rival Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other subjects in an interview that aired Sunday morning on Fox News – notably including his years-old lie that he warned the US not to invade Iraq. Here’s a non-comprehensive roundup.

Trump revived a lie he has been uttering since his 2016 presidential campaign – an assertion that he publicly spoke out against the idea of invading Iraq. He said on Fox: “Going into Iraq was a stupid thing. Remember I used to say: ‘Don’t do it, but if you do it, keep the oil.’”

Facts First: Trump’s claim that he said “Don’t do it” is false; the claim was debunked eight years ago. In reality, Trump did not publicly express opposition to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq before it occurred. In his 2000 book, “The America We Deserve,” Trump argued a military strike on Iraq might be necessary; when radio host Howard Stern asked Trump in September 2002 whether he is “for invading Iraq,” Trump responded, “Yeah, I guess so. I wish the first time it was done correctly”; and Trump did not express a firm opinion about the looming war in a Fox interview in January 2003, saying that “either you attack or don’t attack” and that then-President George W. Bush “has either got to do something or not do something, perhaps.”

Trump began criticizing the war in 2003, but after the invasion, and also said that year that American troops should not be withdrawn from Iraq. He emerged as an explicit opponent of the war in 2004. You can read more here about his shifting positions.

A CNN search in 2019 turned up no examples of Trump saying anything before the war about keeping Iraq’s oil. Trump’s White…