Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Monday praised President Donald Trump for objecting to any potential new U.S. wars in the Middle East, or rather, he noted that the MAGA leader said so previously — only to launch a war in the Middle East over the weekend.
“President Trump was right in 2020,” Sanders wrote on X while sharing a throwback clip of the president.
Trump, whose “America First” ethos of opposing foreign wars crumbled when he launched strikes Saturday on Iran and killed its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, decried in the April 2020 news briefing how many taxpayer dollars the U.S. has wasted on war.
“We’ve spent $8 trillion in the Middle East, and we’re not fixing our roads in this country?” Trump said in the clip. “How stupid — how stupid is that? And we’re not fixing our highways, our tunnels, our bridges, our hospitals, even, our schools, even? It’s crazy.”
Trump previously vowed to “drain the swamp” of corruption in Washington, D.C., and to “Make America Great Again” by opposing foreign conflicts and prioritizing domestic infrastructure projects.
The conflict in Iran has already resulted in the deaths of more than 787 Iranians, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society, and at least six U.S. service members, prompting critics to note Iran may have posed a danger to Israel, but not to the U.S.
Sanders received widespread support for his post on X.
“The irony is that ‘Operation Epic Fury’ has already cost an estimated $120 billion in its first four days alone, not including the surging price of oil. We are watching the same ‘forever war’ script play out, but with even higher stakes for the domestic economy,” one user wrote.
Kent Smetters, a preeminent fiscal analyst and director of the Penn Wharton Budget Model, told Fortune that the total economic cost of Trump’s strikes could be as high as $210 billion.
Another social media user argued infrastructure projects would create “domestic jobs and economic multipliers,” while military spending overseas “benefits defense contractors,” and that the U.S. thus “exports” this economic stimulus elsewhere, “while our own foundation crumbles.”
Trump spent much of last year touting his efforts in ending up to eight wars and campaigning for a Nobel Peace Prize. He also said during his victory speech on the eve of his 2024 election win, “I’m not going to start a war, I’m going to end wars.”
However, Trump recently said, “Wars can be fought ‘forever,’ and very successfully.”
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