Two days after Russia’s war in Ukraine began, Donald Trump said there were “things” President Joe Biden could do to end the crisis “pretty quickly,” but the former president did not elaborate on what those “things” might entail. At one point, he suggested that the United States could put Chinese flags on our F-22 fighter jets, but this was not an argument to be taken seriously.
Nearly a year later, the Republican’s thoughts on resolving the crisis remain annoyingly vague, though he’s added a new wrinkle: the emergence of a secret plan.
In recent weeks, Trump has repeatedly argued that he knows how to negotiate a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine “within 24 hours.” He’s even boasted that it would be “easy“ to end the crisis. How? He wouldn’t say.
Last week, the former president sat down with a conservative outlet called the Right Side Broadcasting Network and suggested he has a secret plan that he’s reluctant to share:
“It can be negotiated, I think, within 24 hours. It really has to be done from the office of the president. And you have to get them both in a room and there are things you can say to each one of them, which I won’t reveal now, which will guarantee that this war will end immediately. And they have to do it.”
Sure, Trump could reach out — to the White House, to the State Department, to someone — with details about his secret plan, which we’re supposed to believe exists. But he won’t “reveal” the magic words that would bring an “immediate” end to the bloodshed and devastation.
There’s no need for us to play games here. Trump obviously doesn’t have a secret plan. He also doesn’t have any credibility on the issue, especially after having described Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine as “genius” and “very savvy.”
What makes the former president’s rhetoric stand out, however, is its familiarity.
Nearly eight years ago, for example, Trump claimed he knew exactly what to do to “defeat ISIS very quickly.” He added at the time, “I’m not going to tell you what it is. … I don’t want the enemy to know what I’m doing.” The Republican went on to say, however, that he was aware of “a method of defeating them quickly and effectively and having total victory.”
We soon learned that there was no secret plan and his rhetoric was meaningless chest-thumping.
Trump wasn’t alone. In 2008, then-Sen. John McCain assured voters that if he were elected president, he’d implement a secret plan to get Osama bin Laden. It was never altogether clear why the Arizona Republican didn’t just share the plan with the Bush/Cheney administration, but he pushed the line anyway. (Barack Obama, we soon learned, had his own ideas on the subject.)
What’s more, in 1968, Richard Nixon told voters he had a secret plan to end the war in Vietnam, but he wouldn’t share it before the election. Nixon won, the secret plan didn’t exist in any meaningful way, and the conflict continued.
Revisiting our coverage from several years ago, the bottom line hasn’t changed: Childish games and imaginary secrets are not a substitute for a national security policy. Candidates for national office have a responsibility, not only to demonstrate a degree of seriousness, but also to provide voters with a foreign policy vision that can be subjected to detailed scrutiny.
Those who aren’t prepared for such scrutiny should consider a different line of work.
President Joe Biden will deliver his second State of the Union address on Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET. Follow msnbc.com/sotu for live updates and analysis from experts and insiders.
