Trump claims he ‘didn’t guarantee’ no US wars. Here’s what he’s actually said

 

Explainer

Trump claims he ‘didn’t guarantee’ no US wars. Here’s what he’s actually said

 

US president for years has repeatedly suggested – and said outright – that he would not take the country to war

 

George Chidi

Mon 8 Jun 2026 15.19 EDT

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/08/what-trump-actually-said-no-war-promise

 

Donald Trump has forcefully denied he ever promised not to draw the US into war, having spent years pledging to avoid doing just that.

 

The US president’s own biography on the White House website credits him with “putting a stop to endless wars” – raising questions about the US-Israel war on Iran, which he launched, with no end currently in sight.

 

NBC’s Kristen Welker pressed Trump in a Meet the Press interview that aired Sunday 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.

 

1. 6 November 2024

“We want to have security,” Trump said, accepting his victory in the 2024 US presidential election. “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.”

 

2. 5 October 2024

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“We had no wars,” Trump said during a campaign rally at State College, Pennsylvania. “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.”

 

3. 5 August 2024

In a campaign stop with controversial Kick 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.”

 

4. 4 March 2023

“I was the only president in modern history who did not have any new wars.” Trump said at the CPAC convention. “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.

 

He continued: “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.”

 

5. 20 August 2020

“Remember we’re going to be in war with North Korea? Remember? It’s going to be a war? Right, congressman?” Trump asked at a rally in Old Forge, Pennsylania. “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.”

 

He added: “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.”

 

6. 13 February 2016

Trump has made anti-war statements for over a decade. Facing off with Jeb Bush, a former Florida governor, in a Republican presidential primary debate in South Carolina, he attacked the record of his brother, president George W Bush, who led the US “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.”