In an October 1980 interview with gossip columnist Rona Barrett, uncovered on Tuesday by Brookings Institution amid an escalating crisis with Iran, Trump said the US "should really be a country that gets the respect of other countries."
"The Iranian situation is a case in point," he ad That they hold our hostages is just absolutely, and totally ridiculous. That this country sits back and allows a country such as Iran to hold our hostages, to my way of thinking, is a horror, and I don't think they'd do it with other countries. I honestly don't think they'd do it with other countries."
Barrett replied: "Obviously you're advocating that we should have gone in there with troops, et cetera, and brought our boys out like Vietnam."
To which Trump said: "I absolutely feel that, yes. I don't think there's any question, and there is no question in my mind. I think right now we'd be an oil-rich nation, and I believe that we should have done it, and I'm very disappointed that we didn't do it, and I don't think anybody would have held us in abeyance."
