Trump In 2011 Praised Hosni Mubarak’s Ouster As A “Good Thing”

In a speech on Wednesday, Trump criticized the Obama administration for supporting the ouster of Egypt's president in 2011.

In his foreign policy address on Wednesday, Donald Trump criticized the Obama administration for supporting the removal of Egypt's president Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Trump took a much different position at the time of Mubarak's ouster, describing it as a "good thing."

"He supported the ouster of a friendly regime in Egypt that had a longstanding peace treaty with Israel, and then helped bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power in its place," Trump said of Obama on Wednesday.

On multiple occasions in 2011, however, Trump ridiculed Mubarak and called his ouster a positive thing.

"If you take look at Egypt — I'm not blaming anything or anybody for Egypt — although I would like to know how a man worth $70 billion that's working as head of a country," Trump told Fox News' Greta Van Susteren on Feb. 12, 2011. "That's an interesting case. I understand he has five Mara-a-Lagos and they're trying to justify this guy. So, it's a good thing that they got him out, hopefully they're gonna get the money back."

"The fact is, they don't listen to us," Trump added. "We give them billions and billions of dollars a year. And Obama, and I'm not blaming him for this, but they don't listen to us. Nothing that happened took place because of what we said in terms of the United States. And we do feed them billions a year. So there's just something wrong. It is not resonating. The country has lost. We just are not respected any longer."

Trump said he would have demanded Egypt do what the United States wanted or cut off aid.

As BuzzFeed News has previously reported, Trump also initially supported interventions in Iraq and Libya, but now calls both disasters and claims to have opposed both at the time.

Speaking with CNN on Feb. 11, 2011, Trump said Mubarak wasn't the sort of leader the Egyptians wanted and again said it was out of the president's control.

"He lives in tremendous estates all over the world," Trump said. "Supposedly, he's taken $50 to $70 billion dollars. Is this the kind of a leader they want? I don't think so."

Added Trump, "I don't think he has handled it, these events are beyond him."

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