AIKEN, S.C. — Ted Cruz on Monday criticized Donald Trump for his past and present comments about George W. Bush, and whether the former president should have been impeached for the Iraq War.
Speaking with reporters before an event in South Carolina, Cruz criticized Trump's foreign policy credentials and positions at length, including Trump's position on impeachment:
On Saturday, one of the strangest moments was when Donald Trump repeatedly attacked George W. Bush and defended his position seeking to impeach George W. Bush. Now, when he was arguing for the impeachment of George W. Bush that was not a reasonable position — that was an extreme and radical position. Trump, on the debate stage said, well, he thinks George W. Bush made a mistake in Iraq. Well, under the Constitution, you do not impeach a president for a mistake. The constitutional standard for impeachment is high crimes and misdemeanors. When Donald Trump sided with MoveOn.org and Michael Moore and the extreme fever-swamp left wing, on calling for the impeachment of George W. Bush, that demonstrated where he was coming from.
In Saturday's debate, moderator John Dickerson asked Trump about comments he made in 2008 when he expressed surprise that Nancy Pelosi had not moved to impeach Bush over the Iraq War.
“George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes. But that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East,” Trump said during Saturday night's debate, adding that the war cost trillions and thousands of lives.
When pressed on whether Bush should have been impeached, Trump said "you call it whatever you want" and said of the Bush administration, "They lied. They said there were weapons of mass destruction and there were none. And they knew there were none. There were no weapons of mass destruction.”