A former Georgia congressman supporting Ted Cruz for president called Donald Trump’s recent comments about George W. Bush and the September 11 attacks “ridiculous.”
Jack Kingston, who served in the House of Representatives from 1993 to 2015, told reporters on a conference call Thursday that the Republican frontrunner’s “record on national defense is murky at best.” Kingston also said he does not remember Trump ever supporting the troops during the Iraq War.
At Saturday’s GOP debate in South Carolina, Trump was asked about his 2008 statement that President Bush should be impeached over the war. Trump said the Bush administration “knew there were” no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq but pushed for the invasion anyway. Trump often claims he was against the war and vocally opposed it in the run-up.
The New York businessman also questioned whether Bush kept the country safe by noting the September 11 attacks occurred during Bush’s “reign.”
Kingston, who served in Congress both on 9/11 and throughout the war in Iraq, criticized Trump when asked about those statements.
“I think that it’s ridiculous what Donald Trump said in the debate, blaming 9/11 on George Bush,” Kingston said, adding that the longstanding division between intelligence and law enforcement was something the former president worked to fix after the attacks.
Kingston pointed out that in the House he represented Fort Stewart, home of the Army’s Third Infantry Division, and that he visited the troops often. “I don’t ever remember Mr. Trump being there or saying strong pro-military statements,” he said. “I know he’s a patriot, I know he loves America like the rest of us.” But, Kingston said, Trump was more closely identified with his NBC show The Apprentice during the run-up to the war in Iraq.
Kingston said that when Barack Obama pulled troops out of Iraq beginning in 2011, “I didn’t hear Trump speak out.”
“His record on national defense is murky at best,” Kingston added.
Cruz communications director Rick Tyler also spoke up, noting that in Donald Trump’s 2000 book The America We Deserve, the real-estate mogul was actually warning that Saddam Hussein remained a threat and that the U.S. should “carry the mission to its conclusion” with respect to the First Gulf War.
