WaPo Factcheck - Recidivism Watch: Trump’s false claim that he opposed the Iraq war
This is a false claim that is even brought up on DU occasionally. Trump continues to insist that he was a vocal opponent of the Iraq War "from the beginning." However, the facts show that he only began to criticize the war when things started to go South. Now, if Trump admitted that he was mistaken, and the decision to invade Iraq turned out to be a mistake, then that would still be a positive statement from a Republican. Instead, Trump continues to double down and insist that he has always been a vocal opponent of the war.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/05/12/recidivism-watch-trumps-false-claim-that-he-opposed-the-iraq-war/
For the umpteenth time, Donald Trump falsely claimed he was against the 2003 Iraq war “from the beginning.” He contrasted his stance with Hillary Clinton, who he said showed “bad judgment” for voting to authorize an attack by then-President George W. Bush. (Clinton has since said the vote was a mistake.)
And for the umpeteenth time, a TV host failed to challenge Trump’s false claim — even though just last week, Fox News’s Bret Baier got Trump to admit that he has expressed support for the invasion at the time.
To sum up, there is absolutely no evidence that Trump opposed the war in Iraq. In fact, he certainly indicated he was in favor of it. Just weeks after the invasion, he praised it as a “tremendous success,” according to our timeline of Trump statements on Iraq.
The next time he makes this claim, the TV interviewer simply needs to say: “With respect, sir, that’s been proven to be false.”
https://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/trump-confronted-on-past-support-for-invading-iraq-blah-blah?utm_term=.laOWkmWZbo#.gxKVyQVJOE
“I criticized his decision to go into Iraq,” added Trump. “Now on that, I just want to clear that up,” asked host Bret Baier. “You’ve come out with articles, but there’s audio of you before there were…”
“No, there isn’t, no, there isn’t,” Trump replied.
“There’s a BuzzFeed piece,” Baier interjects, citing an article on BuzzFeed chronicling statements Trump made in support of Iraq regime change in the late ’90s and 2000, and telling Howard Stern he tepidly supported invading the country in 2002.
“Yes,” Trump said. “I’m talking to Howard Stern, weeks before, the first time anybody had ever asked. And don’t forget, I was a civilian. The first time anyone ever asked me about the war, about should we go in, because it was a question, are we going in? And I said very weakly, well, blah, blah, blah, yes, I guess.”
Baier then cited Trump on the first day of the war in 2003 saying it looked like “a tremendous success from a military standpoint,” and predicting the war would continue to be great for Wall Street.
= new reply since forum marked as read
His base could watch a video from 2004 of him explicitly stating that "I support the Iraq War" - 5 seconds later he would say "I've always been opposed to the Iraq War" and they would accept it no questions asked. He does Jedi mind tricks 
