Trump will deliver the first in a series of policy addresses next week, and some fans are hopeful that Trump can clear up his conflicting messages. Most of his policies range from illogical to illegal. To celebrate this speech, here are 10 of the most astounding.
1) Last December, Trump called for a “total and complete shut-down of Muslims entering the United States," which not even Bill O’ Reilly could make sense of. "Would you see that you need Arab-Muslim nations to defeat Jihad?” Bill O’Reilly asked Trump. "We need the friendly Muslim nations, you can’t insult them like that."
2) According to Trump,Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) "is a deal that was designed for China to come in, as they always do, through the back door and totally take advantage of everyone." There's just one problem, as former presidential candidate Rand Paul pointed out in the fourth GOP debate. China isn't even included in the TPP.
3) Trump has a secret plan to defeat ISIS. And, according to Trump, "Hillary Clinton created ISIS with Obama," which he told a crowd at a rally in Mississippi last January. “Like many of Trump's charges, this one doesn't hold much water," confirmed CNN's national security analyst Peter Bergen. "Clinton left the State Department in January 2013, and ISIS wasn't even founded until three months later.”
4) Trump’s claim that Mexico will pay for a wallalong our southern border has become a hallmark of his campaign. However, when confronted by the fact that the Mexican president refused outright to fund this project—and rightfully so—Trump didn't back down. “The wall just got 10 feet taller,” announced Trump.
5) Trump advocates for waterboarding and "beyond waterboarding..." whatever that entails. The GOP frontrunner insisted that waterboarding terrorist suspects absolutely works, and then after a minute-long rant stated that even if it doesn't, “they deserve it anyway for what they’re doing to us." However, a former Bush DOJ lawyer who actually approved waterboarding has already confirmed the illegality of Trump’s policy.
6) Trump is a strong proponent of carpetbombing. When CNN's Anderson Cooper questioned Trump about his plan to attack ISIS' wealth by bombing Iraq's oil fields, the conversation got surreal pretty quick:
Donald Trump: “I would take away their wealth. I would take away their oil.”
Anderson Cooper: “Wouldn’t you be destroying the wealth of Iraq?”
Donald Trump: “No, there is no Iraq.”
Anderson Cooper: “The Iraqis might differ with you."
Donald Trump: “Excuse me. There are no Iraqis.”
7) Despite how much Trump claims he gets along with everyone, he has a plan for dealing with leaders he doesn't like: Make them disappear. “I would get China to make that guy disappear in one form or another very quickly,” Trump said, referring to North Korea’s Kim Jong-un on CBS "This Morning." "How do you get him to make him disappear? An assassination?” asked co-anchor Norah O'Donnell. “No," Trump responded, but then added, "Well, I’ve heard of worse things."
8) In a GOP Debate last December, CNN’s Hugh Hewitt asked Trump about the nuclear triad—the means to deliver nuclear warheads by planes, missiles and submarines—and the presidential candidate's priorities. “Of the three legs of the nuclear triad, what is your priority?” Hewitt asked. It quickly became clear that Trump not only has no idea what the nuclear triad is, but also doesn't know how long nuclear weapons have been in existence. And while the average American citizen may not know this, Trump had, at this point, been running for president of the United States for six months.
“The power is so massive that we can’t just leave areas that 50 years ago or 75 years ago it was hand-to-hand combat,” Trump told Hewitt in an answer that Rolling Stone reported was so terrifying it “should end his campaign.”
9) Just because Trump doesn't know much about nuclear weapons doesn't mean he's ruled out using them... anywhere. In an MSNBC Town Hall last month, Trump refused to "take his cards off the table" regarding nuking anywhere in the world—even when host Chris Matthews begged the GOP frontrunner: "Just say it, 'I’ll never use a nuclear weapon in Europe!'" Trump replied, "I'm not going to take it off the table." The following week, President Obama was asked at the Nuclear Security Summit about Trump's statements.
“The person who made these statements doesn’t know much about foreign policy or nuclear policy or the world generally," Obama told the crowd.
10) Before Trump assembled a foreign policy team—just one month ago—his main consultant on foreign policy was himself. “I’m speaking with myself, number one because I have a very good brain and I’ve said a lot of things," Trump said. "I know what I’m doing."
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