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Trump Says Al-Baghdadi Should Have Been Killed ‘Years Ago’

Trump Says Al-Baghdadi Should Have Been Killed ‘Years Ago’

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump took credit for the killing of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a speech before a police group, previewing how he might use the military action on the campaign trail.

Trump said Monday he told unnamed officials in his administration: “I want al-Baghdadi. Get him! And they got him.” The terrorist should have been killed “years ago. Another president should have gotten him,” Trump added.

Trump made the comments to the International Association of Chiefs of Police annual conference in Chicago. The death of al-Baghdadi in a U.S. military raid may boost Trump’s political standing at a time when Democrats are moving closer to impeaching him. House investigators resumed their work on Monday with more planned depositions as the president sought to use the Islamic State chief’s death as counter-programming.

The U.S. special operations raid over the weekend delivered Trump one of the biggest successes of his presidency. The president held a news conference on Sunday at the White House, where he described in unusual detail how al-Baghdadi died “like a dog” by killing himself and three of his children when American forces cornered them in a dead-end tunnel.

Trump said the al-Baghdadi raid was more significant than the Navy SEAL operation that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, which former President Barack Obama authorized in 2011.

“This is the biggest there is,” Trump said. “Osama bin Laden was very big, but Osama bin Laden became big with the World Trade Center. This is a man who built a whole, as he would like to call it, ‘a country,’ a caliphate, and was trying to do it again.”

Trump repeatedly argued during the 2012 presidential campaign that Obama deserved little to no credit for the death of bin Laden.

“Stop congratulating Obama for killing Bin Laden. The Navy Seals killed Bin Laden,” Trump tweeted on Oct. 22, 2012.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jordan Fabian in Washington at jfabian6@bloomberg.net;Josh Wingrove in Chicago at jwingrove4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Justin Blum

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