President Donald Trump, pressed on his previous promises to avoid new wars, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview that aired June 7 he “didn’t guarantee no war” — a claim that contradicts a years-long pattern of statements in which he repeatedly said he would not start wars and boasted of having kept the U.S. out of new conflicts.
The exchange, which came as the United States remains engaged in military operations against Iran that began in March, highlights the gap between Trump’s current characterization of his past pledges and the record of public statements he made as a candidate and during his first term. The White House website credits Trump with “putting a stop to endless wars.”
NBC’s Kristen Welker asked Trump about his previous pledges to refrain from starting wars. “Mr President, in your first term, you held to that promise, and it was so fundamental to who you were as a candidate, to a first-term president,” she said. “What changed? Because you insisted no new wars.”
“I didn’t guarantee no war,” Trump interjected. “Why would I have built the strongest military in the world? I built our military.”
His response sharply contradicts previous comments he has made over the years.
In his November 2024 victory speech, Trump said: “We want to have security. We want to have things be good, safe. We want great education. We want a strong and powerful military. And ideally, we don’t have to use it. You know, we had no war – four years, we had no wars, except we defeated Isis. We defeated Isis in record time, but we had no wars. They said: ‘He will start a war.’ I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.”
During a campaign rally at State College, Pennsylvania, Trump said: “We had no wars. We had peace through strength. It was a great thing, peace through strength, and that’s it. You don’t have to send your kids out to war, have your kid blown up for a country that you’ve never heard of and that doesn’t want anything to do with you anyway. But I will not send you to fight and die in a foolish, never-ending foreign war.”
In a campaign stop with streamer Adin Ross during the 2024 election, Trump claimed “the only war” which took place on his watch during the first Trump administration had “started long ago,” against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. “And we defeated – I defeated – them in a very short amount of time, very quickly,” he said. “And we had no wars under the Trump administration, and that’s a great thing, you know. That’s a really great thing. It was I think 82 years since that’s happened. And we won’t have wars again. But we could have a war before we even get there. That’s the problem.”
At the CPAC convention, Trump said: “I was the only president in modern history who did not have any new wars. No new wars. I finished some old wars. Remember when the Democrats and my Republican opponents would often look at me during the debates or whatever and they’d say: ‘No, no, he’s going to bring us into world war III.’ Because it’s a personality type. No, I had the personality type that kept us out of wars because people knew that they weren’t going to mess around here. That’s why I rebuilt our military. We were strong. We were safe.”
At a rally in Old Forge, Pennsylvania, Trump asked attendees: “Remember we’re going to be in war with North Korea? Remember? It’s going to be a war? Right, congressman? There’s going to be a war … No, it would have been a war if you had Hillary Clinton. Would’ve been a war if Obama were allowed to stay any longer. He thought there was going to be a war. Where’s the war? I don’t see the war. Maybe things happen. You don’t know. But there’s been no war. Nobody killed. He would have lost 25, 30 million people. I kept us out of new wars. Everyone said: ‘Oh, Trump, it’s his – he’ll be in a war his first week.’ Instead of that, I got you out of wars.”
Trump has made anti-war statements for over a decade. During a 2015 Republican presidential primary debate in South Carolina, he attacked the record of former President George W. Bush, who led the U.S. “war on terror” across Afghanistan and Iraq after the 9/11 attacks.
“Obviously – the war in Iraq was a big, fat mistake, all right? Now, you can take it any way you want,” said Trump. “The war in Iraq, we spent $2tn, thousands of lives, we don’t even have it. Iran is taking over Iraq with the second-largest oil reserves in the world. Obviously it was a mistake. So George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes. But that one was a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq.”
MSI previously reported on Trump’s shifting stance regarding the war with Iran. On April 2, Trump said U.S. forces would “finish the job” in Iran soon, and on March 1, he said the U.S. had begun “major combat operations” in Iran.