Hannity’s Shameless Trump Town Hall Includes Lies That Trump Opposed Iraq And Opposed Troop Withdrawal

Sean Hannity’s town hall with Donald Trump included several lies about the war in Iraq that were repeated by Hannity throughout the night.

In one of the first questions of his town hall, Hannity suggested that Trump opposed the war in Iraq initially but wanted troops to remain later in the war to keep the country stabilized, arguing that “even though you were opposed to [the war], you were opposed to leaving.”

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): Let me ask you this, I know it was being controversial when you said that the founder of ISIS is Obama and the co-founder is Hillary, but yesterday -- yesterday you went into a lot of detail. You and I, actually, I remember debating you, because I did support Iraq, but I didn't support leaving early without finishing the job. We had so many Americans bleed and die and risk their lives for Mosul, Baghdad, Fallujah, Ramadi, and Tikrit, they won those cities. And you talked about, even though you were opposed to it, you were opposed to leaving.

DONALD TRUMP: Look, look, I said one thing right from the beginning, I wanted to get out. We should have never been there, and I wanted to get out and I've been against it ever since. You can look back to 2004, 2003. In fact, on Neil Cavuto's show before the war started, I said let's not do it, we have other things we have to do, including fix our economy, which was a mess, to put it mildly. The way we got out was ridiculously. But I've been saying something since I've known you, keep the oil. Have I said that?

During the interview with Hannity, Trump cited a 2003 interview he gave to Fox News’ Neil Cavuto as proof that he opposed the war. But Trump did not say during that interview he opposed the war, instead he urged President George W. Bush to make a decision, saying “either you attack or you don’t attack.” Furthermore, during a 2002 interview with radio host Howard Stern, Trump said that he supported the invasion of Iraq.

Trump also called for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq in 2007 saying  America should “declare victory and leave” Iraq, and in 2008 he said “I’d get out of Iraq right now.”