1. Trump denies he was pro-war before it started. The only real evidence refuting this is a Howard Stern article where Trump gives a half-hearted "I guess so" sort of answer as to whether we should invade Iraq. It's about as wishy-washy as anything I've ever heard from Trump's lips, and hardly serves as a ringing endorsement of the invasion. Hanging pro-war sentiment on that is a shaky argument. On the other hand …
2. Trump claims, instead, that he was highly outspoken against the war before it started. There's no evidence of this. As in … well, really, no evidence of this.
Trump's main focus about the war in the lead-up and immediate follow-up seem to have been mostly as a speculator, worried about (or ecstatic over) the affect of the war on the economy and the deals he was working. He did get anti-war (or, rather, anti-the-way-Bush-was-handling-things) the year after.
3. Trump claims he was so anti-war before the war started that the Bush White House sent out a delegation asking him to tone down the anti-war rhetoric. There's no record of this, either; the Trump campaign ignored requests to provide evidence; none of the folk in the Bush White House who might be in a position to remember such a thing have any such recollection.
Trump's lack of real record on the war before the fact might be enough for most to get by. But that's not good enough for Trump. The Donald always has to be on top. The Donald always has to be in the limelight. The Donald always has to be correct, and recognized as being so. So the Donald must have protested the war before it began, and in terms so strong and (of course!) influential that the President of the United States had to dispatch people to quiet him down.
Because he's the Donald.
Clinton, of course, voted for the war as a US Senator. And she has — out of honest contrition or political expediency, take your pick — admitted that was a mistake and apologized for it. Trump, on the other hand, keeps upping the ante in claims about how right he was and how important and vigorous an anti-war leader he was.
There is a difference.
