In interviews in 2011, Donald Trump expressed support for the overthrow of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and for some intervening action in Libya, despite his current claims to the contrary.
BuzzFeed News has uncovered two previously unreported interviews, where Trump again expressed those positions. Trump on Monday criticized President Obama and Hillary Clinton for supporting Mubarak's overthrow and for intervening in Libya.
"I have a problem with Mubarak for a different reason," Trump said in Feb. 11, 2011 interview on Fox and Friends. "I hear he's worth $50 to $70 billion. That means that all of the money we've been putting in, he's been taking. OK, I hear he has houses that are as beautiful as Mar-a-Lago throughout the world. And I wonder, how does a man that's supposed to be a president, the head of a country, how does this man get all of these houses throughout the world and how is he worth $50 billion? So something's going on that's not good."
"If I were in that nation and I heard that he's worth $50 billon, he goes immediately," Trump added.
One month later, on ABC News' Good Morning America, Trump said he wanted a "surgical" airstrike to take out Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
"That's a holocaust. If we could surgically strike and stop that from happening I'd be for it, but not to get into a war," Trump said.
"A surgical strike on Colonel Gaddafi?" asks the reporter.
"On Colonel Gaddafi," replied Trump.