{"id":723312,"date":"2026-06-08T16:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T16:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/723312\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T16:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T16:21:09","slug":"fact-check-trump-told-nbc-that-he-never-promised-not-to-start-a-new-war-he-did-repeatedly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/723312\/","title":{"rendered":"Fact check: Trump told NBC that he never promised not to start a new war. He did, repeatedly"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n President Donald Trump told a bunch of lies before he abruptly walked out of<\/a> an interview that aired Sunday on NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press.\u201d\u202fOne of them was about what he had promised Americans about war.\n <\/p>\n

\n While discussing the Iran war Trump started this year, NBC anchor Kristen Welker pressed him on what had changed from the campaign promise she described as \u201cno new wars.\u201d The president responded to this line of questioning in several ways \u2013 you can read the full transcript here<\/a> \u2013 but one of his claims was this: \u201cFirst of all, I didn\u2019t guarantee no war.\u201d Later, he said, \u201cSo when you say I promised \u2013 I didn\u2019t promise anything. I don\u2019t like these endless wars. This is not an endless war.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In fact, Trump repeatedly promised in 2024 that the US would not have any wars during his second presidency. Though it\u2019s true that he often deployed some nuance on the subject \u2013 for example, vowing to end \u201cendless\u201d wars or prevent \u201cWorld War III\u201d \u2013 he unequivocally pledged on other occasions that the US wouldn\u2019t get involved in wars, period.\n <\/p>\n

\n Here are some examples.\n <\/p>\n

\n In a June 2024 social media post<\/a>, Trump described the election as \u201ca choice between STRENGTH or WEAKNESS, COMPETENCE or INCOMPETENCE, peace and prosperity or war and no war.\u201d Then, in one of the highest-profile speeches of the campaign, his July 2024 address to the Republican National Convention, he said<\/a>, \u201cWith our victory in November, the years of war, weakness, and chaos will be over. I don\u2019t have wars.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n He made the promise<\/a> even more directly during an August 2024 rally speech in the swing state of Pennsylvania, saying: \u201cUnder Trump, we will have no more wars, no more disruptions, and we will have prosperity and peace for all.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump reprised<\/a> the pledge in an August 2024 interview with Adin Ross, an online personality popular with young men. After saying there were no wars during his first administration, he promised, \u201cAnd we won\u2019t have wars again.\u201d (Expressing concern about the final months of the Biden administration, he added, \u201cBut we could have a war before we even get there. That\u2019s the problem.\u201d)\n <\/p>\n

\n At a rally that month in another hotly contested state, North Carolina, Trump approvingly cited<\/a> Viktor Orb\u00e1n, then the prime minister of Hungary, as supposedly having said, \u201cMake sure that Trump gets re-elected president and you\u2019re not going to have any more wars.\u201d The audience applauded; Trump himself reiterated moments later, \u201cNo more wars. No more disruptions. We will have prosperity and we will have peace.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump told versions of the Orb\u00e1n story at numerous other events. For example, in the swing state of Wisconsin in October 2024, he said<\/a>, \u201cViktor Orb\u00e1n said, \u2018If Trump comes back, you won\u2019t have any wars. You won\u2019t have any wars.\u2019 And he\u2019s about as tough as they get, and he said it loud and clear and he said why. But you won\u2019t have any wars.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump made a clear promise that he would not start a war even in his victory address in November 2024, when he no longer had to persuade voters to elect him. He said<\/a> in that high-profile speech: \u201cFour years, we had no wars, except we defeated ISIS. \u2026 They said, \u2018He will start a war.\u2019 I\u2019m not going to start a war, I\u2019m going to stop wars.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n It is true that Trump\u2019s 2024 campaign rhetoric about war was often at least slightly more nuanced \u2013 or, less generously, slightly more muddled.\n <\/p>\n

\n At one prominent event, an October 2024 rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City,\u202fhe confusingly bounced back and forth<\/a> between promising there would be no new US wars if he became president again and saying that war could happen.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe sort of need (domestically manufactured) steel in this country. Like, we\u2019re not going to go to war with me as your president. But if we \u2013 on the long shot that we do, we don\u2019t want to say, \u2018We need steel. Can we get it from China? Or can we get it from someplace else?\u2019 You know, it\u2019s always a possibility. But I will tell you, you\u2019re not going to have a war with me, and you\u2019re not going to have a third World War with me,\u201d he said. \u201cThat I can tell you.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In June 2024 remarks to young supporters in the swing state of Arizona, he said<\/a>, \u201cSo we are going to make sure there\u2019s no wars.\u201d But then he arguably backtracked a little, saying, \u201cWe don\u2019t want to have wars. I call them endless wars. I call them wars where people don\u2019t even want us involved.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n At various other moments during the campaign, Trump pledged to end \u201cendless\u201d wars<\/a> or prevent \u201cWorld War III<\/a>\u201d; that\u2019s not quite the same as saying he would avoid all wars. He also made a variety of comments that sounded broadly anti-war but didn\u2019t include overt assurances not to involve the US in any future wars. For example, he said<\/a> the country doesn\u2019t<\/a> \u201cneed\u201d wars, denounced<\/a> \u201cwarmongers,\u201d pledged<\/a> to be a \u201cpeacemaker,\u201d and frequently<\/a> boasted<\/a> that he had no wars in his first term (sometimes citing the inherited fight against ISIS as the one exception).\n <\/p>\n

\n People can have a reasonable debate about whether these kinds of comments were likely to be interpreted by some voters as a promise not to get the country involved in wars in a second term. For the purpose of debunking Trump\u2019s \u201cI didn\u2019t promise anything\u201d claim to NBC, though, the debate is irrelevant \u2013 because, again, the record shows that Trump explicitly made a no-future-wars promise multiple times.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump told a bunch of lies before he abruptly walked out of an interview that aired…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":723313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-723312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=723312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/723313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=723312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=723312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=723312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}