Former President Donald Trump told Iowans Monday night that he is the only candidate who could “prevent World War III” as the war between Russia and Ukraine rages on.
“Standing before you today, I am the only candidate who can make this promise: I will prevent World War III,” he said, speaking in Davenport.
Trump pledged to have a deal reached between Russia and Ukraine as president-elect before his term even starts if he wins in 2024.
“Before I arrive at the Oval Office, shortly after I win the presidency, I will have the disastrous war between Russia and Ukraine settled,” he vowed. “It would take 24 hours if it’s not done before then.”
He added that he believes the war would never have occurred if he were in the Oval Office. In Trump’s eyes, the Biden Administration’s disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, which resulted in the deaths of 13 American servicemembers, showed weakness to Russian President Vladamir Putin and marked an opening for him to invade Ukraine .
“When Putin looked at that, he said, ‘This is my chance. These people are incompetent. This is my chance,'” the 45th president said.
In his view, the Biden Administration could catapult America into a third world war:
But with this Administration, you could end up in World War III because they don’t speak right, they don’t send the messages out right. They act tough when they should act nice, they act nice when they should act tough. Honestly, they don’t know what the hell they’re doing. We’re going to end up in a world war over this stuff.
Trump emphasized that a third world war would likely be nuclear, and subsequently catastrophic on a global scale:
I had people come down from MTI and tell me about nuclear. The power is so enormous, so this is not like the Second World War where we had army tanks and rifles, and we go after each other; this is a level that will possibly end the world, and we have people that don’t know what they’re doing.
The 45th president also told Iowans that he would “immediately end the invasion of our southern border” and pledged to continue to take on the left, globalists, and establishment Republicans.
He said:
We stand up to the globalists; we stand up to the Marxists. Remember I said we would never have socialism? That train left socialism a long time ago, never even stopped at the station. We stand up to the crooked Democrat prosecutors all over the country… Nobody’s ever weaponized like this group of people. They’re maniacs. We stand up to the RINOs, Communists, and the anti-energy extremists. We stand up to the open-borders fanatics, and the pro-china special interests, and the fake news media of which we have quite a bit of right here. We put workers first. We put farmers first, and above all, we put America first.
Trump remains the front-runner in the Republican primary field. A Morning Consult poll released Tuesday shows Trump leading his next closest potential competitor, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), by 24 percentage points in a crowded field. Thus far, only former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy have joined Trump as candidates in the GOP primary field.
The survey was conducted from March 10-12 and sampled 3,556 potential GOP primary voters. The margin of error is plus or minus two percentage points.
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