NEW YORK - President Donald Trump made a puzzling claim about Andrew Jackson and the Civil War in an interview.

Speaking to The Washington Examiner, Trump wonders why issues "could not have been worked out" in order to prevent the bloody conflict. Trump praises the accomplishments of Jackson, the populist president he has cited as a role model.

He makes the puzzling claim that Jackson "was really angry that he saw what was happening in regard to the Civil War." But Jackson died in 1845, and the Civil War didn't begin until 16 years later, in 1861.

Trump then says, "People don't ask the question, but why was there the Civil War?"

The war was decades in the making, stemming from disputes between the North and South about slavery and states' rights.