RALEIGH, N.C. — Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who frequently criticizes U.S. foreign policy under President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has praised former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s ruthlessness.

“Saddam Hussein was a bad guy, right? ... But you know what he did well? He killed terrorists. He did that so good,” Trump told a campaign rally Tuesday night in Raleigh, N.C. “They didn’t read ’em the rights, they didn’t talk. They were a terrorist, it was over.”

Trump has previously said the world would be “100 percent better” if dictators like Hussein and Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi were still in power. Prior to the U.S. invasion, Iraq was listed by the U.S. as a state sponsor of terrorism.

Jake Sullivan, a Clinton senior policy adviser, said Trump’s “praise for brutal strongmen seemingly knows no bounds.”

Sullivan said such comments “demonstrate how dangerous he would be as Commander-in-Chief and how unworthy he is of the office he seeks.”

Trump’s foreign policy pronouncements have proven controversial, often even within the Republican Party.