Posted by sigismund on April 19, 2011, at 21:46:06
"I hate what's happening to our country," he told CNN's State of the Union. "We are not respected. We're scoffed at. We're laughed at. We are a whipping post for the world."On how he would deal with Libya, Mr Trump, 64, said: "Either I go in and take the oil or I don't go in at all. We can't be the policeman for the world."
Asked to clarify if he would take the oil, Mr Trump said: "Absolutely. I'd take the oil. I'd give them plenty so they can live very happily. I would take the oil.
''You know, in the old days when you have a war and you win, that nation's yours."
Mr Trump also derided rival Republican Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and venture capitalist who is expected to run for the nomination, as "a small-business man".
"I'm a much bigger businessman," he added. "And I have a much, much bigger net worth."
"I wish I didn't have to do it," he told State of the Union. "I would prefer not doing it, but I love this country"I am giving it serious, serious thought. And I'm honoured by the polls, because people agree with what I am saying."
But White House advisers and top Republicans continue to dismiss Mr Trump's presidential ambitions as a publicity stunt.
Mr Obama's right-hand man, David Plouffe, recently mocked Mr Trump's antics as a "sideshow", while the influential Republican strategist Karl Rove, a Fox News contributor, said at the weekend that the businessman could have been an "interesting candidate and could have contributed to the dialogue".
"But his full embrace of the birther issue means that he's off there in the nutty right and is now an inconsequential candidate.
"I'm shocked. The guy's smarter than this. And the idea that President Obama was not born in Hawaii, making that the centrepiece of his campaign, means that he's just a joke candidate."
poster:sigismund
thread:983293
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20090821/msgs/983293.html