By Molly Claire Goddard
1:52am PDT, May 20, 2025
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Mike Pence is calling out
Donald Trump.
During an interview on NBC's
Meet the Press, which aired on Sunday, May 18, the former vice president condemned statements his former boss made about Western intervention from "so-called nation-builders, neo-cons, or liberal non-profits" during a recent trip to the
Middle East.
Keep reading to learn what Pence said about Trump's controversial remarks…
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During the sit-down, Mike Pence expressed his disdain for Donald Trump speaking in a negative manner about the United States' foreign policy decisions to other countries. "I've never been a fan of American presidents criticizing America on foreign soil," he explained.
"To have the president in
Saudi Arabia questioning America's global war on terror and describing it as nation-building and interventionist, I thought was a disservice to generations of Americans who wore the uniform and who took the fight to our enemy in Afghanistan and in Iraq," the former governor of Indiana stated. "Particularly giving that speech in Saudi Arabia, where 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers hailed from, not including
Osama bin Laden, I thought was unfortunate."
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Mike Pence was also candid about his disapproval of Donald Trump accepting a $400 million
jet from Qatar during his visit to the region.
"The very idea that we would accept an
Air Force One from Qatar I think is inconsistent with our security, with our intelligence needs and my hope is the president reconsiders it," the politican added.
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During a speech at the capital of Riyadh on Tuesday, May 13, Donald Trump pointed to Saudi Arabia as a prime example of a nation that did not rely on the United States for assistance.
"The gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation-builders, neocons or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop Kabul, Baghdad, so many other cities," Trump noted. "Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought by the people of the region themselves. The people that are right here, the people that have lived here all their lives, developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions and charting your own destinies in your own way. It's really incredible what you've done."
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Donald Trump made it clear he wasn't happy with people slamming him for accepting the lavish aircraft from
Qatar's royal family.
"So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40-year-old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane," he wrote in a Sunday, May 11, Truth Social update. "Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!!"
