ABC This Week interviews during 2020: on War & Peace

Donald Trump: I'm bringing troops back, when advisers wanted war

Look at North Korea, how that's worked out. We haven't--the sanctions are on. Everything's the same. We haven't spent anything. We're getting along with him. I get along with Kim Jong-un. That was supposed to be a war.

If President Obama were president, if Hillary Clinton ever got in, that would be a war, probably a nuclear war with North Korea. In the meantime, I'm getting calls all the time from friends of mine in South Korea. Thank you. We love you. Thank you. It's really been rather amazing.

Donald Trump: We're creating peace in Mideast; not the old-fashioned way

The New York Times wrote incredible, glowing articles last week about this incredible thing that I've been able to do in the Middle East. A guy like Jim Mattis could have never done it because they were all doing it the old-fashioned way. They were going in the wrong outlets and the wrong doors.

And what happened today with UAE and with Bahrain and with Israel, people don't even believe it. And I have numerous other countries in that region that are going to be signing very soon also. You'll have peace in the Middle East, and this is without war and without losing our great, young soldiers.

Donald Trump: Soldiers don't want to be in Afghanistan

You know, there's no sadder thing than to sit with a widow or a mother, and these incredible Marines are walking off a casket and they were killed in the Middle East. Going there was the worst decision in the history of our country. We've spent $8 trillion and we've lost thousands of lives.

Iraq did not--Saddam Hussein did not knock down the World Trade Center. They said they had weapons of mass destruction. They made a mistake.

So we've been in there almost 20 years in Afghanistan. And we're bringing our soldiers back home. Nobody expected that from me. And people are so happy about it. And you know who's the happiest? The soldiers, I see them all the time. "What do you think, should we be here?" "No, sir, you shouldn't be here." "Why?" "They don't like us, sir."

Peter King: Sue Saudis for 9/11, but maintain relationship

REP. PETER KING: Obviously there was an intent [by the Saudi government] to kill him. But we do have a relationship with Saudi Arabia that we should try to maintain. During the Obama administration I led the fight in the House to allow 9/11 families to sue Saudi Arabia. President Obama fought us every step of the way--we had to override his veto. So all presidents want to maintain some sort of relationship. So I would ask the president to try to thread the needle here, whether it involves imposing sanctions, or delaying arms sales, or making a clear statement of condemnation at the end but still not hurt ourselves. Because the Saudis do provide very effective intelligence, they are a bulwark against Iran and they have been working closely with Israel. You put all that together, we have to try to balance it.

Marco Rubio: North Korea's nukes are about prestige, not about diplomacy

RUBIO: The first thing we all have to do is stop pretending that we're dealing with the old Soviet Union, or that we're negotiating with Italy or France. This is a very erratic regime that's very distrustful and paranoid about the rest of the world. They've never dealt with outsiders, they don't have an established diplomatic core. They have no history of it. And Kim Jong-un has a personal psychological attachment to these nuclear weapons. They make him feel prestigious; they make him feel powerful. And they have, quite frankly, been what his regime has been known for since he took over seven years ago. This is a man who has to figure out how to survive in power for 50-something years as a dictator and is probably afraid that if he gets rid of these weapons at some point, someone's going to take him out.

Lindsey Graham: Destroy Assad's air force; create safe zones in Syria

GRAHAM: Well, it's a defining moment in his presidency, because he has challenged Assad in the past not to use chemical weapons. So Assad is at it again. They see our resolve breaking. They see our determination to stay in Syria waning. And it's no accident they used chemical weapons. But President Trump can reset the table here. To me, I would destroy Assad's air force. I would create safe zones in Syria where people can come back to their country from the surrounding area and live a better life. Train up Syrians to take on Assad so we can negotiate in Geneva from a position of strength.

Lindsey Graham: Keep US troops in Syria so ISIS and Iran can't come back

GRAHAM: Complete utter disaster to leave before the fight is done. Have we learned nothing when what happens when you leave too soon? We pulled our troops out of Iraq. ISIS came back. President Trump made a speech in Riyadh, saying two things: "I stand with you against Iran; and I stand with you to defeat radical Islam." If we leave Syria by the mere passage of time, we undercut that policy. ISIS will come back. You will be giving Damascus to the Iranians. They'll have a land bridge from Tehran to Beirut. Syria will be occupied by Hezbollah, Russia, Iran, a nightmare for our friends in Israel. You've got to stick with it. You need a holding force as part of a regional force. If Americans are not part of a holding force, ISIS will come back. And there is no strategy by the Trump administration to counter Iranian expansion. And you need a strategy to deal with Iran just as much as ISIS.