President-elect Donald Trump made plenty of promises on the campaign trail this year. One stood out as his most audacious vow – he would swiftly end the war between Ukraine and Russia, even before being inaugurated.
Trump, now five weeks away from taking the oath of office again, was asked about that Monday. And it became immediately clear that the former and future president had moved on from audaciousness to a mix of ambiguity and ambivalence.
Consider Trump’s response during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, when a reporter noted that he had promised to end the war before he took office and asked if he could still get that done.
“I’m going to try,” Trump said.
Trump repeatedly pivoted to other subjects, including his now farcical claim that the 2020 presidential election he lost to Joe Biden was rigged. This is the predictable path for Trump – shrug off a pressing challenge by diverting the conversation with some raggedy rhetoric.
But while he is still talking about ending the war – and that’s all it is, talk – the death and destruction has actually intensified since he won the election last month.
Trump doesn’t seem committed, or able, to keep his promise
See if you get an “I might. … I’m going to try,” vibe from these promises Trump made this year.
Let’s start with this June 22 campaign rally in Philadelphia, where ending the war between Ukraine and Russia was written into his stump speech.
“Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, shortly after we win the presidency,” Trump said. “I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled.”
Russia was clearly listening. Tass, a Russian state-owned news agency, reported Trump’s promise the next day. But the Russian government was not convinced. That country’s ambassador to the United Nations cast serious doubt on Trump’s ability to end the war in comments made 10 days after that promise.
Trump didn’t care. He made the promise again during a Sept. 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, where he bragged about having the “respect” of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“That is a war that is dying to be settled,” Trump said then. “I will get it settled before I even become president.”
It’s no surprised that Trump repeated his false promise
Trump made this vow a third time on Oct. 17 during a speech at the annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner in New York. Trump, lamenting the deaths from the war, said “religious people” had asked him to intervene.
“So sad to see so many people have been 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁ed in Ukraine and we’re going to get it settled up if we win,” Trump said. “As president-elect, I’m going to get that done.”
So here we are. Trump is president-elect. Time to get the deal done. But on Monday, Trump didn’t even sound like he had “concepts of a plan” on how to end the fighting that has raged since Russia invaded Ukraine. Trump claimed to have made “a little progress” without offering even a scrap of detail to back that up.
“It’s a tough one. It’s a nasty one,” Trump said when asked about the war. “It’s nasty. People are being 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁ed at levels that nobody’s ever seen.”
Trump was asked if Zelenskyy should give up Ukrainian territory seized by Putin.
“He should be prepared to make a deal. That’s all. Got to be a deal,” Trump said before pivoting again to his unsubstantiated claim that Putin would have never invaded Ukraine in 2022 if he had still been president.
Left unsaid, of course, is that Russia’s first, smaller invasion of Ukraine happened in 2014 and that Trump did nothing during his first term in office to undo that damage.
What if the plan to stop the war is to stop helping Ukraine?
By now, you may catch the drift that Trump thinks he can end the war by talking about ending the war. He posted on his social media website Truth Social on Dec. 8 that Ukraine and Russia should engage in “an immediate ceasefire” and focus on negotiating for peace.
The countries are still shooting missiles at each other. I guess a social media post isn’t a sure-fire fix for a complicated diplomatic endeavor.
Trump was also asked about his claim to be able to end the war during a Dec. 8 interview with NBC’s “Meet The Press.” He could only muddy the conversations with claims about what would or would not have happened if he was president, while again suggesting he won an election we all saw him lose in 2020.
Trump’s approach to ending this war is more likely to rely on slowly starving Ukraine of the support America has provided in offensive and defensive weapons systems and other military supplies.
That could end the war, while forcing Ukraine to make concessions to Russia. And that would please Putin, which always seems like a priority for Trump. But it seems unlikely for any of that to get worked out before Trump takes the oath of office on Jan. 20.
So keep that in mind whenever you hear Trump make what sounds like an inviolable promise. Remember, the uncertainty of “I’m going to try” is really the message as he tries to sound so certain.
