Donald Trump made an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show during the 1988 election cycle to complain about our politics. As you'll see in the video, he's no fan of St. Ronnie.
Oprah Winfrey opened the questions by asking about a full-page ad Trump took out in newspapers in September, 1987, criticizing U.S. foreign policy, and asking him what he would do differently.
"I'd make our allies pay their fair share," the Donald said. "We let Japan come in and dump everything into our markets. It's not free trade."
He went on to rail against the Reagan administration's laissez faire attitude toward international trade.
"They come over here, they sell their cars, VCRs, they knock the hell out of a lot of our companies," he railed, before allowing that he has "tremendous respect for the Japanese people."
"[The Japanese] are beating the hell out of this country."
Where have we heard that before?
He went on to cite Kuwait as a place where even the poor live like kings. "And yet they're not paying," Trump said. "Why aren't they paying us 25 percent of what they're making. It's a joke."
When asked if he wanted to run for president, Trump demurred, saying he liked his job.
Apparently he's gotten bored with that.
One interesting thing about this video is how much more bombastic Trump has gotten since then. He's either getting some media coaching or else he's got one hell of a method acting coach.
The other interesting part is that the foreign policy Trump is criticizing is St. Ronnie Reagan's. Everything he complains about belongs to Reagan, and Reagan alone.
Republicans have a way of rewriting history and when it comes to Reagan, it's not just rewritten, it's a fantasy. But it's still a hoot to watch Trump use similar, if toned-down, rhetoric against Reagan.
