Donald Trump on Friday took a nice little poke at Wolf Blitzer.
During an interview aired on CNN's the Situation Room, the real estate tycoon said to his host, "I know you like the president and all that stuff, although less than some of the folks at MSNBC" (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):
DONALD TRUMP, CHAIRMAN & PRES., THE TRUMP ORGANIZATION: Tragic, waste of money. Tragic --
WOLF BLITZER, HOST: More than a trillion dollars.
TRUMP: 1.5 trillion to be exact. Tragic, tragic waste of lives and money, and that we left there without taking the oil is unbelievable.
BLITZER: It's Iraqi oil.
TRUMP: Like hell it is. They have the second largest oilfields in the world, oil reserves. Second largest after Saudi Arabia. We spent 1.5 trillion, thousands of lives, and I'm not even talking about the wounded where I see them all the time. I love them.
No legs, no arms, their face gets blown to pieces, and my attitude was much different because what's going to happen as sure as you're sitting there, Wolf, is that Iran will go and then take over those oilfields and they'll take -- and the reserves more importantly because they're very backward, but they have the largest reserves after Saudi Arabia.
BLITZER: But you say the U.S. should have taken over those oilfields.
TRUMP: Absolutely. And you know we should do, every soldier's family that was killed, $5 million. You know what this is? Peanuts. That's peanuts compared to the kind of numbers you're talking about. Every soldier that was wounded, $3 or $4 million where they lost their arms and their limbs and their face. $3 or $4 million. These kids are going to be out for the rest of their lives.
They're going to be paying medical bills and they don't have to money to pay them. They're going to be going for the rest of their lives for operations. $3 or $4 or $5 million to every soldier that was badly wounded, and we have many of them, Wolf. I see them all the time because I help them.
So, we leave Iraq, and we didn't leave, by the way. They threw us out, just so you understand, Wolf. I know you like the president and all that stuff, although less than some of the folks at MSNBC.