Donald Trump's 70th birthday: Six times the presumptive Republican nominee has completely contradicted himself

From the Iraq war to abortion to his own marriage, Mr Trump has no qualms about changing his mind

Mr Trump will be attending the official reopening of his golf course in Scotland (PA)

Donald Trump may have turned 70 on Tuesday but the presumptive Republican nominee shows no sign of subduing in old age.

No stranger to controversy, the billionaire-turned-politico has landed himself in hot water for his incendiary comments on more than one occasion.

But there is one person who has disagreed with Mr Trump more than anyone else, and that is Mr Trump himself.

The Donald is rarely afraid of changing his mind or shifting positions, whether it be the Iraq war, his political orientation, his stance on abortion or on guns.

Here is a selection of just some of the times Mr Trump has contradicted himself.

Iraq War

Mr Trump may often tout his opposition to the Iraq War as a cornerstone of his campaign but an old 2002 interview with Howard Stern reveals a somewhat different picture.

In the past interview, Stern asked him if he supports invading Iraq. “Yeah I guess so,” Mr Trump replied. “I wish the first time it was done correctly.”

But this hasn’t stopped the politician plugging his long-running opposition to the war. “I was totally against the war in Iraq, saying for many years that it would destabilise the Middle East,” Mr Trump said in April while laying out the fundamentals of his foreign policy in a Washington hotel conference room.

Political orientation

It is difficult to keep track of Mr Trump’s remarks about his political standpoint over the years. While most people would consider him a staunch Republican, he has, on occasion, considered himself more affiliated with the Democrat Party. Here is a brief timeline of his changing views.

“If I ever ran for office, I’d do better as a Democrat than as a Republican—and that’s not because I’d be more liberal, because I’m conservative,” he told Playboy in March 1990. But nine years later Mr Trump changed his mind, telling CNN in October 1999, “I’m a registered Republican. I’m a pretty conservative guy. I’m somewhat liberal on social issues, especially health care.”

In 2004, he told CNN: “You’d be shocked if I said that in many cases I probably identify more as a Democrat.”

Abortion

The issue of abortion is another issue on which Mr Trump’s views can be somewhat difficult to follow. In March of this year, he stirred controversy for saying women who receive abortions once the procedure is illegal will face punishment. Following this, a spokesperson for Trump changed the “issue is unclear” and said Mr Trump was pro-life. He later said the doctor would be punished for illegal abortions not the woman. Over the next few days, he continued to qualify his statements.

Nuclear weapons

Mr Trump pulled something of a U-turn on his position on nuclear weapons. First, he suggested Japan and South Korea should build nuclear weapons or pay protection fees to the US. However, at a later date, he claimed his biggest fear was the proliferation of nuclear weapons. “Look, nuclear’s a horror show … The single biggest problem the world has is nuclear,” Trump told CBS in April.

Marriage

The politician has contradicted himself on his view on marriage. “I think I’ve been a very good husband,” he told CNN in February of 2011. While in 2007, he wrote in his book Trump: Think Big: "What the hell do I know, I’ve been divorced twice?”

Gun policy

At a January rally Mr Trump said he would “get rid of gun-free zones in schools...and on military bases.” After being attacked by Clinton in May, he clarified his position and told CNN that ”school resource officers“ or trained teachers should be the ones carrying guns. He stood by his rebuking of gun free zones but moved away from his broader call to eliminate all gun free zones in schools and instead said they would only be eliminated ”in some cases".