By Michael Hernandez
WASHINGTON (AA) – Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump pledged Friday to go after Daesh “big league” if he wins the election in November, but would refrain from attacking Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
“I would have stayed out of Syria, and I wouldn’t have fought so much for Assad, against Assad, because I thought that was a whole thing,” he said on the Morning Joe program on MSNBC cable television station. “We have Iran and we have Russia totally on the side of Assad, and that’s not the reason I’d stay out necessarily, but certainly it’s a complicating factor.”
The U.S. has "bigger problems than Assad", he said.
When asked by co-host Joe Scarborough about past military inventions, Trump maintained that he opposes those in Iraq and Libya, but said he would not hesitate to go after Daesh.
“I would go after ISIS big league”, he said, adding that he would tell U.S. generals “to knock the hell out of” the group.
He lambasted the Obama administration’s diplomatic efforts to broker a nuclear accord with Iran, saying that it has bolstered the Islamic Republic’s presence on the international stage.
“You have Iran, which we made into a power. Iran now is a power – because of us, because of some of the dumbest deals I have ever seen. So now you have Iran and you have Russia in favor of Assad. And we're supposed to fight the two of them. At the same time, we're supposed to fight ISIS, who is fighting Assad,” he said.