Trump Saw Turkey as Friend to ISIS Years Before Syria Pullout
MANHATTAN (CN) – A 2015 radio interview from the Donald Trump campaign trail has been political dynamite for those who believe the president has ulterior motives when it comes to his policy on Turkey.
“I have a little conflict of interest because I have a major, major building in Istanbul, and it’s a tremendously successful job,” Trump disclosed in a Dec. 1, 2015, interview alongside his future campaign chief, Steve Bannon. “It’s called Trump Towers. Two towers, instead of one. Not the usual one. It’s two.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had been prime minister at the property’s ribbon-cutting in 2012, receiving a thank-you for his attendance from Ivanka Trump on Twitter. Audio from the interview has been replayed on U.S. major networks whenever Trump steers U.S. foreign policy in an Erdogan-friendly direction.
What Trump declared after that comment, however, has been largely forgotten and was equally ominous.
“Turkey looks like they’re on the side of ISIS, more or less, based on the oil,” Trump told Bannon, who would briefly became Trump’s chief White House strategist.
That allegation did not stop Trump from praising Erdogan as a “strong leader.”
Last week, some four years after that interview, President Trump spoke to Erdogan on the phone and then gave his blessing for Turkey to invade territory in northern Syria held by the Kurds, a people historically considered U.S. allies.
Read more: https://www.courthousenews.com/trump-saw-turkey-as-friend-to-isis-years-before-syria-pullout/
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan center, shakes hands with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, left, in Tehran, Iran, prior to their talks in a Russia-Iran-Turkey summit to discuss Syria on Sept. 7, 2018. (Presidential Press Service via AP, Pool)
= new reply since forum marked as read
I think his campaign was just one more money grubbing scheme - like all the others - he was hoping to collect donations and pocket the cash. And now that he's got it, he still has neither the knowledge or the interest and no willingness to learn. It's all about whatever earns him more ill-gotten $. 
