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The morning after the Republican presidential primary debate, Donald J. Trump said he had no regrets about saying that the George W. Bush administration “lied” in taking the nation to war in Iraq, despite the criticism Mr. Trump received.

“I could be very quiet, I could say, ‘Oh that’s wonderful,’ or I could say, ‘Excuse me, the World Trade Center'” came down during President George W. Bush’s tenure, Mr. Trump said.

During the debate, discussing the war in Iraq, Mr. Trump said, “George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes, but that one was a beauty.”

“We should have never been in Iraq,” Mr. Trump said. “They lied, they said there were weapons of mass destruction. There were none and they knew that there were none.” Jeb Bush defended his brother, as did Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a reflection of the former president’s durable popularity with Republicans in South Carolina, where primary voters will cast ballots on Saturday.

The remark was seen as potentially harmful to Mr. Trump with voters who still view Mr. Bush positively and who see “they lied” as similar to the type of attack that Democrats lobbed against Mr. Bush in 2004 and beyond. But Mr. Trump said on Sunday that he was unconcerned about any damage it could cause his candidacy here.

“If it does, it does — I have to tell the truth,” Mr. Trump said. “I’m a big boy.”

He reiterated that the war was a “terrible, terrible mistake” that cost the nation dearly in American lives and money, a comment he has frequently made during the campaign.

However, he softened his comment about Mr. Bush slightly, saying his remarks were “not against Bush, per se. It’s against the war.” But he again added, “He was the one that made that mistake.”