Throughout the 2024 presidential election, Donald Trump repeatedly assured the public that if voters elected him, he’d successfully broker an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine. This would happen, the Republican boasted, during his transition period and “within 24 hours.” He even repeated the vow during a presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, assuring Americans, “I will get it settled before I even become president.”
A tally published by NOTUS found that Trump, ahead of the election, told voters 33 times that he’d end the devastating conflict within one day, routinely adding that this would happen before his second term began.
We now know, of course, that the president did not follow through on his promise. In fact, he didn’t even try.
Some of Trump’s allies made the case that his “within 24 hours” vow meant that the Republican, despite his claims about a pre-inaugural breakthrough, would end the war on his first day back in the White House. With this in mind, on Monday night, a reporter reminded the president about his campaign promise.
“Well, this is only half a day,” he responded. “I have another half a day left. We’ll see.”
What we see, of course, is that the war rages on, and Trump’s guarantees about a rapid end were false.
Roughly 48 hours into his second term, however, the president has taken a newfound interest in the crisis he said would be easily resolved. CNBC reported:
President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to impose ‘high levels’ of sanctions on Russia and tariffs on imports from there if the country did not reach a settlement to end its nearly three-year-old war against Ukraine. Trump’s warning, made in a social media post on his third day as president, called out Russian President Vladimir Putin by name.
As online missives go, this was an odd one for the Republican. He began by expressing his “love” for the Russian people, whined about the “Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX” that was not actually a hoax and claimed that Russia lost “almost 60,000,000 lives” during World War II — a wildly inflated figure, given that Brittanica provides 60 million as the upper limit of the estimated international death toll.
Trump added, “All of that being said, I’m going to do Russia, whose Economy is failing, and President Putin, a very big FAVOR. Settle now, and STOP this ridiculous War! IT’S ONLY GOING TO GET WORSE.”
The president proceeded to get to the heart of the matter, writing, “If we don’t make a ‘deal,’ and soon, I have no other choice but to put high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States, and various other participating countries.”
During his candidacy, Trump had an unnerving habit of suggesting that he had a plan to end the war, but it was a secret. There are “things” he could say to Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Republican said in February 2023, that would “guarantee that this war will end immediately.” He added at the time, “I won’t reveal [those things] now.” Nearly two years later, Trump is apparently showing his cards: His plan involves threatening Russia with “high levels of Taxes, Tariffs, and Sanctions.” There is, however, one glaring flaw with the plan: The United States has already imposed “high levels” of sanctions on Russia and cut off trade with the country years ago. In other words, Trump’s threat (for lack of a better word) is to do what we’re already doing. Maybe the newly inaugurated president is simply unaware of the status quo. Alternatively, perhaps he knows the basic details and simply wants to give the impression of “getting tough” with Russia without actually saying or doing anything meaningful. Either way, if Trump wanted to remind everyone about one of his most important broken promises, he’s doing a terrific job.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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