Donald Trump had no shortage of compliments for Bill and Hillary Clinton in 2008, a newly unearthed interview shows, before the couple became his fierce political rivals.
{mosads}In a 2008 interview with NY1, Trump said Hillary Clinton’s “history is far from being over,” CNN reported.
“I’d like to answer that question in another 15 years from now,” he said when asked about Hillary Clinton’s legacy.
“I think she is going to go down at a minimum as a great senator. I think she is a great wife to a president. And I think Bill Clinton was a great president.”
Trump in the interview praised the way the country was run during Bill Clinton’s tenure as president.
“You know you look at the country then … The economy was doing great. Look at what happened during the Clinton years. I mean, we had no war, the economy was doing great, everybody was happy,” he said.
“A lot of people hated him because they were jealous as hell. You know people get jealous and they hate you.”
The Republican nominee, who has been aiming attacks at the Clintons throughout his presidential run, eight years ago called Bill Clinton a “great president” and his now-Democratic rival a “great woman and a good woman.”
In a blog post Trump wrote at the time of the interview, he continued to offer praise for the Clintons.
“Hillary is smart, tough and a very nice person, and so is her husband. Bill Clinton was a great President,” he wrote.
“They are fine people. Hillary was roughed up by the media, and it was a tough campaign for her, but she’s a great trouper. Her history is far from being over.”
Trump also offered similarly high praise for Hillary Clinton in a CNN interview in March 2007. He called her a “very brilliant person” and said she did a great job as a New York senator.
“Everybody loves her,” Trump reportedly said in the interview.
“She just won an election with a tremendous majority and she really — she’s become very, very popular in New York. And it wasn’t easy.”