Dan Rather: Trump’s Civil War remarks ‘sheer craziness’

Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather is dismissing President Trump’s remarks this week on the Civil War, calling it “sheer craziness” to be questioning whether the conflict needed to occur at all.

“People don’t ask that question, but why was there the Civil War?” Trump asked during an interview with the Washington Examiner’s Salena Zito.  “Why could that one not have been worked out?”

“I mean had Andrew Jackson been a little bit later you wouldn’t have had the Civil War,” Trump added. “He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart.”

Jackson, America’s seventh president, died in 1845. The Civil War erupted in 1861 before ending in 1865.

{mosads}“But the sheer craziness of this obsession by Donald Trump with Andrew Jackson and the Civil War is carnival act unlike anything I have ever seen at the White House,” Rather wrote on Facebook Monday.

“Nevermind that Mr. Trump’s knowledge of American history seems below that of most gradeschoolers. These are the rantings of someone who really should be focused on the job of governing.”

Trump tweeted later Monday that Jackson, who owned slaves, saw the Civil War coming and would have prevented the conflict.

“President Andrew Jackson, who died 16 years before the Civil War, saw it coming and was angry,” he said. “Would never have let it happen!”

Democrats and journalists widely mocked Trump’s comments, arguing that the president does not understand history.