Follow us on social

Screenshot-2023-05-11-at-6.34.35-am

Trump tells CNN town hall: 'I want everyone to stop dying' in Ukraine

The Republican-friendly audience applauded when he said he 'would talk' to Putin and Zelenksy and end the war 'in 24 hours'

Analysis | Europe

Former President Donald Trump, who is running to win his seat back from current President Joe Biden, told a friendly audience of Republican voters last night that Russian president Vladimir Putin "made a tremendous mistake" by invading Ukraine last year.

When asked who he thought would win the current war, he told his interviewer, CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins, “I want everybody to stop dying. They’re dying. Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done in 24 hours.”

When asked how he would stop the war in 24 hours he said "I'll meet with Putin, I'll meet with Zelensky, they both have strengths and they both have weaknesses and in 24 hours it will be done."

Pressing him, Collins asked repeatedly, "But you won't say you want Ukraine to win this war?" Trump ignored the question, saying "I want Europe to put up more money."

Perhaps not surprisingly, the audience, which on a range of subjects, including his unapologetic responses to questions about January 6 and his recent sexual abuse conviction in civil court, applauded the president during this exchange. In poll after poll, Republicans have diverged from Democrats on this issue, including this most recent Pew survey on U.S. support for Ukraine, which found that less than half of Republicans trust Ukrainian President Zelensky to "to the right thing" on foreign affairs, and 70 percent saying Washington should focus instead on what is happening here at home.

If last night was any indication, Trump, who is the only declared Republican candidate for 2024 to come out forcefully against the current U.S. policy in Ukraine, plans to pursue that line, and it is resonating with rank and file Republicans — at least his base, which political analysts say is still formidable despite Trump's legal troubles and past performance as president. The other GOP contenders have displayed a conventionally hawkish view on the Ukraine, even criticizing Biden for not doing more, which Trump has suggested might actually lead to nuclear war.

Trump's notion of ending the war "in 24 hours" is certain to draw guffaws, even if his desire to end the war through "talking" is in the right place.

"It is highly unlikely that Trump will, as he claims, be able to end the war in Ukraine 'in 24 hours,'" noted my Quincy Institute colleague George Beebe.

"At this stage, simply getting Ukraine and Russia to the negotiating table will likely require extensive, tough-minded multilateral diplomacy coordinated between Washington, NATO partners, and perhaps even Beijing."  

When Trump was asked whether he supported sending more weapons and aid to Ukraine (Washington has already allocated over $113 billion, and of that, has now sent nearly $37 billion in weapons as of this week), he said, “we’re giving away so much equipment, we don’t have ammunition for ourselves right now. We don’t have ammunition for ourselves we’re giving away so much.”

When Collins pressed him to say whether Putin is a war criminal (the International Criminal Court has issued warrants for his arrest), Trump said:

"If you say he’s a war criminal it’s going to be a lot tougher to make a deal to make this thing stopped. If he’s going to be a war criminal, people are going to grab him and execute him, he’s going to fight a lot harder than he’s fighting under the other circumstance.”

Trump called Putin “a smart guy,” but said the Russian leader “made a tremendous mistake.”

“Of course he’s smart. They want you to say he’s a stupid person. He’s not a stupid person and he’s very cunning. Putin made a bad mistake in my opinion.”

“His mistake was going in. He would have never gone in if I was president.”


CNN Town Hall with Donald Trump (May 19, 2023) CNN Screenshot.
Analysis | Europe
Rand Paul Donald Trump
Top photo credit: Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) (Shutterstock/Mark Reinstein) and President Trump (White House/Molly Riley)

Rand Paul to Trump: Don't 'abandon' MAGA over Maduro regime change

Washington Politics

Sen. Rand Paul said on Friday that “all hell could break loose” within Donald Trump’s MAGA coalition if the president involves the U.S. further in Ukraine, and added that his supporters who voted for him after 20 years of regime change wars would "feel abandoned" if he went to war and tried to topple Nicolas Maduro, too.

President Trump has been getting criticism from some of his supporters for vowing to release the files of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and then reneging on that promise. Paul said that the Epstein heat Trump is getting from MAGA will be nothing compared to if he refuses to live up to his “America First” foreign policy promises.

keep readingShow less
Trump ASEAN
Top photo credit: U.S. President Donald Trump looks at Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., next to Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim when posing for a family photo with leaders at the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, October 26, 2025. Vincent Thian/Pool via REUTERS

‘America First’ meets ‘ASEAN Way’ in Kuala Lumpur

Asia-Pacific

The 2025 ASEAN and East Asia Summits in Kuala Lumpur beginning today are set to be consequential multilateral gatherings — defining not only ASEAN’s internal cohesion but also the shape of U.S.–China relations in the Indo-Pacific.

President Donald Trump’s participation will be the first by a U.S. president in an ASEAN-led summit since 2022. President Biden skipped the last two such summits in 2023 and 2024, sending then-Vice President Harris instead.

keep readingShow less
iran, china, russia
Top photo credit: Top image credit: Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov and and Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi shake hands as Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu looks on during their meet with reporters after their meeting at Diaoyutai State Guest House on March 14, 2025 in Beijing, China. Lintao Zhang/Pool via REUTERS

'Annulled'! Russia won't abide snapback sanctions on Iran

Middle East

“A raider attack on the U.N. Security Council.” This was the explosive accusation leveled by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov this week. His target was the U.N. Secretariat and Western powers, whom he blamed for what Russia sees as an illegitimate attempt to restore the nuclear-related international sanctions on Iran.

Beyond the fiery rhetoric, Ryabkov’s statement contained a message: Russia, he said, now considers all pre-2015 U.N. sanctions on Iran, snapped back by the European signatories of the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA) — the United Kingdom, France, Germany — “annulled.” Moscow will deepen its military-technical cooperation with Tehran accordingly, according to Ryabkov.

This is more than a diplomatic spat; it is the formal announcement of a split in international legal reality. The world’s major powers are now operating under two irreconcilable interpretations of international law. On one side, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany assert that the sanctions snapback mechanism of the JCPOA was legitimately triggered for Iran’s alleged violations. On the other, Iran, Russia, and China reject this as an illegitimate procedural act.

This schism was not inevitable, and its origin reveals a profound incongruence. The Western powers that most frequently appeal to the sanctity of the "rules-based international order" and international law have, in this instance, taken an action whose effects fundamentally undermine it. By pushing through a legal maneuver that a significant part of the Security Council considers illegitimate, they have ushered the world into a new and more dangerous state. The predictable, if imperfect, framework of universally recognized Security Council decisions is being replaced by a system where legal facts are determined by political interests espoused by competing power blocs.

This rupture followed a deliberate Western choice to reject compromises in a stand-off with Iran. While Iran was in a technical violation of the provisions of the JCPOA — by, notably, amassing a stockpile of highly enriched uranium (up to 60% as opposed to the 3.67% for a civilian use permissible under the JCPOA), there was a chance to avert the crisis. In the critical weeks leading to the snapback, Iran had signaled concessions in talks with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Cairo, in terms of renewing cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s inspectors.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.