Donald Trump was only "pointing out the facts" when he discussed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's strong-armed approach with terrorists in a Tuesday speech in North Carolina, spokeswoman Katrina Pierson said Wednesday.
"There was no praise here," Pierson told Wolf Blitzer on CNN. "Mr. Trump was pointing out the facts — that Saddam Hussein was a horrible, horrible person.
"But he also pointed out the fact that there are people doing things in the Middle East that are far worse," Pierson added, according to
Mediaite. "We have people being beheaded, for crying out loud."
Trump cited Hussein, who was captured by U.S. forces in 2003 and later executed, in arguing that the United States needed to get tougher with terrorists and the rise of the Islamic State.
"Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, right?" he asked. "He was a bad guy. Really bad guy.
"But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so well. They didn’t read them rights. They didn’t talk.
"They were a terrorists, it was over.
"Today, Iraq is Harvard for terrorists," the presumptive Republican nominee said. "You want to be a terrorist, you go to Iraq.
"It’s like Harvard, OK? So sad."
Trump's remarks caused a firestorm on Twitter and brought attacks from Democrat Hillary Clinton's campaign.
In her CNN interview, Pierson dodged a question from Blitzer on whether Trump believed the Middle East would be better today if Hussein had remained in power.
"Donald Trump believes that any time you go into a sovereign nation and overthrow their government, creating a vacuum for bad people, worse people to be in charge, it is a bad thing," she said. "Saddam Hussein did kill terrorists."
"Let me repeat the question," Blitzer said. "Would the Middle East be better off if Hussein were today in power?"
"You’re asking me to predict the future, and that’s something I cannot do," Pierson responded. "But I will say that Saddam Hussein, although being a horrible man and a horrible dictator, he did kill terrorists — and we did not have ISIS at that point."