Former President Donald Trump twice declined to say if he wants Ukraine to win the war against Russia, instead telling Tuesday night’s debate he wanted the fighting to end and would have the two countries’ leaders meet and work out a deal.
“I want the war to stop,” Trump said during his debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, after being asked two times if he wanted Ukraine to win the war. “That is a war that’s dying to be settled. I will get it settled before I even become president.”
Harris seized on Trump’s comments, saying President Vladimir Putin would be “sitting in Kyiv with his eyes on the rest of Europe” if Trump hadn’t lost to President Joe Biden in 2020. “I believe the reason that Donald Trump says that this war would be over within 24 hours is because he would just give it up.”
Trump’s comments are certain to fan concerns in Ukraine and among European leaders that he will cut back or even halt support for Ukrainian forces if he defeats Harris and retakes the presidency, even though support for Ukraine retains broad bipartisan backing.
The former president has repeatedly said that if elected he would end the war before taking office. He again declined Tuesday to say how he would do that except to say that he’d get Putin and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to meet.
“I’ll speak to one, I’ll speak to the other, I’ll get them together,” he said.
See also: What Trump 2.0 means for investors
The Ukraine exchange was one of several related to national security during Tuesday’s debate, with both using the lens of foreign policy and interactions with world leaders to portray each other as weak.
They traded familiar barbs on matters such as Israel and Afghanistan, blaming each other for the chaotic withdrawal from Kabul as the Taliban took over.
Harris repeated her stance that Israel has a right to defend itself in the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, though how it does so matters — a reference to the death toll that has surpassed 40,000 Palestinians. Trump shot back that a Harris presidency would risk starting World War III.
“If she’s president I believe that Israel will not exist within two years from now, and I’ve been pretty good at predictions,” Trump said.
Harris said she had travelled the world and “world leaders are laughing at Donald Trump”. Trump shot back that he had the support of Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who visited him in Florida in July, and called Biden a “weak, pathetic man”.
“Look, Viktor Orban said it, he said the most respected, most feared person is Donald Trump,” Trump said. “We had no problems when Trump was president.”
