LOL LOL LOL : Donald Trump said Andrew Jackson was alive during the Civil War

[thesquanderer]

115. Yeah, the "later" indicates that he did know that Jackson came before the Civil War.

So when he says "he was really angry what he saw in regard to the Civil War" he could have essentially been saying "he was really angry what he saw in regard to the run-up to the Civil War". His speech is sloppy enough in general where you can reasonably see that. Also, an article in the NYTimes mentioned that he could have been referring to the the nullification crisis, which did happen under Jackson and was, in a sense, a prelude to the CW.

Really, I don't think there is an issue here that Trump actually thought Jackson was alive duing the CW. On the list of Trump mis-statements, this one is pretty low, and arguably passable.

The bigger issue may be that he seems to think the CW could have been avoided, without explaining how the South was going to be inclined to give up slavery without a war. As that NYT article says,

any president would have had to contend with the South’s attempt to expand the institution of slavery into territory newly acquired by the United States. It’s what Mr. Meacham called the unavoidable historical question.

“The expansion of slavery caused the Civil War,” he said. “And you can’t get around that. So what does Trump mean? Would he have let slavery exist but not expand? That’s the counterfactual question you have to ask.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/us/politics/trump-andrew-jackson-fact-check.html