There are many presidents who eventually betray a campaign pledge after winning elections and becoming office. That is not even how long Donald J. Trump will wait. As soon as he takes the oath of office, he will violate a key campaign pledge.
Mr. Trump often made the dramatic but unrealistic promise that he would mediate an end to the bloodshed in Ukraine within 24 hours while campaigning for a comeback to power in the fall. He would do it before to taking the oath of office as president, and not simply in a day.
At a rally in June, Mr. Trump declared, “I will have the terrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled before I even get to the Oval Office, shortly after we win the presidency.” During his September televised debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, he declared, “I will settle it before I even become president.” In an October podcast, he reiterated his pledge to resolve the Russia-Ukraine conflict while serving as president-elect.
This was not a casual remark or an isolated incident that he did not repeat. It was a mainstay of his public discourse on the largest European land battle since the collapse of Nazi Germany. But in addition to breaking his word, he hasn’t taken any significant steps to end the conflict since winning the election in November, and the fighting will continue until after noon on Monday, when President-elect Trump takes office once more.
In an interview, Connecticut Democrat Senator Richard Blumenthal stated, “Bombast cannot end wars.” “And his inability to comprehend that Ukrainians will only reach a settlement if they are present at the negotiating table is the missing piece in his thinking.”
Of course, exaggeration is nothing new to Mr. Trump. The bold claim that he could quickly, simply, and alone stop the conflict with a “snap of his fingers” was consistent with Mr. Trump’s long-standing I-alone-can-fix-it persona, which he loves to project to the public.
However, throughout the course of over ten years in national politics, lofty promises have been abandoned and hyperbole has often collided with reality. Furthermore, Mr. Trump continues to push forward with no apparent repercussions, although other presidents who breached promises paid a price (just ask George H.W. Bush about reading his lips on taxes).
For example, he never finished his much-discussed border wall, much less had Mexico foot the bill. He did not reduce the national trade imbalance or eliminate the federal budget deficit. A lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, which he said would be “not as difficult as people have thought over the years,” was not established by him. Obamacare was not repealed and replaced by him. He failed to increase economic growth to “four, five, and even six percent.”
