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The truth of this was disputed in the first debate.

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    Depends on what day it is. Have you actually tried to find any information on this yourself or have come straight here to ask?
    – user7754
    Sep 27, 2016 at 2:40
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    Put what you found and then we can debate more..
    – nelruk
    Sep 27, 2016 at 3:03
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    Depends on what the meaning of "support" is? He was for it before he was against it? Oups sorry, wrong debate.
    – user4012
    Sep 27, 2016 at 4:55

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As with almost everything politics-related, there's shades of gray between the two poles of "He opposed the war" and "He supported the war".

This article from FactCheck.org and this one from PolitiFact investigate this claim, and the answer basically comes down to how you ask the question.

Before the war, he made what he calls a "very light" statement in favor of it to Howard Stern on 9/11/02, which reads to me, as if he hadn't given much thought to it either way.

"Yeah, I guess so. You know, I wish it was, I wish the first time it was done correctly."

Then, in January of 2003, he avoided giving an answer, instead saying "Either you attack or you don’t attack," and calling on Bush to make a decision. (See the first article for the full transcript).

After the war was declared, he made increasingly negative statements about it.

So, did he support the war?

Aside from what seems to be a vague statement of agreement, Trump definitely did not support the war, but there's no evidence that he was opposed to it beforehand, either.

Thus:

  • Did Donald Trump support the War in Iraq? Not really.
  • Did Donald Trump oppose the War in Iraq? Yes.
  • Did Donald Trump oppose the War in Iraq before it began? No.
  • Does the record show that Donald Trump opposed the War in Iraq before it began? Definitely not.

If he maintained he opposed it in general (i.e. as it was happening), no one would question him. If he simply maintained that he opposed the war before it began, there would be reason to question it, but no one can really get inside his head to know.

Unfortunately for him, he's making the fourth claim, which PolitiFact rates as purely False: The record does not show it.

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    The question from Stern was: “Are you for invading Iraq?” to which the response of "Yeah, I guess so." - while not staunch support, it does indicate that he was, in fact, in favour of it. While he later opposed it, he did, initially, support it. More importantly, he didn't publicly oppose it when he said he did.
    – user7754
    Sep 27, 2016 at 5:58
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    @Thomo Just goes to show that words matter when used, even if they happen to be the best words.
    – Jeff Lambert
    Sep 27, 2016 at 20:19
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    In conclusion: I think it's fair to say he never really puts much thought into what he says in general. :)
    – user1530
    Sep 28, 2016 at 19:33
  • @Thomo - I've updated the "Thus" about supporting the war to "Not really", which better conveys my reading. He said something kindof-maybe-sortof in favor of it, once. He definitely didn't oppose it at that time, though.
    – Bobson
    Sep 28, 2016 at 19:58

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