One of the underrated accomplishments of Donald Trump's 2016 presidential run was that he criticized fellow Republicans for their foreign policy mistakes and lived to tell the tale. When Rep. Ron Paul (R–Texas) ran for president in 2008 and 2012, he was booed repeatedly for criticizing the Iraq War and other neoconservative foreign policy positions and he eventually faded from the race.
In 2016, by contrast, Trump repeatedly slammed the George W. Bush administration for the Iraq War, calling it "a big, fat mistake" and declaring that "we should have never been in Iraq." Trump also received some boos but nevertheless won the nomination even as he blasted U.S. foreign policy as too war-prone. By the end of that GOP primary season, even New York Times columnists were famously proclaiming that Trump could be a more dovish president than Hillary Clinton.
When Trump ran for president again in 2024, he articulated similarly dovish themes. He blasted his former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley as a "warmonger"; he advocated talking with authoritarian leaders such as Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim Jong Un; and he repeatedly declared that only he could avert World War III. His vice presidential nominee, J.D. Vance, maintained that Trump was "the candidate of peace."
