Author’s note: This is the analysis of one round of the 2024 Presidential debate between Biden and Trump. It is linked from a more comprehensive article.
Question: Russian President Vladimir Putin says he’ll only end this war if Russia keeps the Ukrainian territory it has already claimed and Ukraine abandons its bid to join NATO. Are Putin’s terms acceptable to you?
Round 6: Russia’s War on the Ukraine
BASH: Let’s move to the topic of foreign policy. I want to begin with Russia’s war against Ukraine, which is now in its third year.
Former President Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin says he’ll only end this war if Russia keeps the Ukrainian territory it has already claimed and Ukraine abandons its bid to join NATO.
Are Putin’s terms acceptable to you?
TRUMP: First of all, our veterans and our soldiers can’t stand this guy. They can’t stand him. They think he’s the worst commander in chief, if that’s what you call him, that we’ve ever had. They can’t stand him. So let’s get that straight.
And they like me more than just about any of them. And that’s based on every single bit of information.
Non-responsive. The question was not about Biden’s veteran and military support, but about whether Trump would accept Putin’s terms.
Multiple uses of hyperbole. The worst commander-in-chief ever? Every single bit of information says that? Polling suggests that military voters have trended toward the left since 2009. Nor does it help Trump with military voters since he claimed he would deploy them in US cities and on the border. Nor does it help Trump’s case that he’s been labeled the worst commander-in-chief ever.
As far as Russia and Ukraine, if we had a real president, a president that knew – that was respected by Putin, he would have never – he would have never invaded Ukraine.
A lot of people are dead right now, much more than people know. You know, they talk about numbers. You can double those numbers, maybe triple those numbers. He did nothing to stop it. In fact, I think he encouraged Russia from going in.
Multiple ad hominems, including an open accusation that Biden “encouraged Russia” to invade, which is a lie. There is no evidence offered that Biden encouraged Putin to invade.
While there has been a lot of debate over the role of US policy in prompting the invasion (Putin thought Biden was more predictable, the US encouraged Ukraine to apply for NATO membership) Russia most likely would have invaded whoever was President because they believe Ukraine belongs to Russia. In fact, others have suggested Putin only invaded after the election because Trump was already weakening NATO.
Gross exaggeration. Trump asserts we can triple the number of deaths with no justification. The claim that Biden did nothing to stop it is a lie. Biden engineered $175 billion in aid to the Ukraine war effort, much of it with opposition from the Republican house.
Begs the question. Even if Biden’s weakness caused the invasion, that doesn’t mean Putin would have perceived Trump as stronger. To the contrary, in the past Trump has refused to promise support to Ukraine, an open invitation for Russia to continue.
I’ll tell you what happened, he was so bad with Afghanistan, it was such a horrible embarrassment, most embarrassing moment in the history of our country, that when Putin watched that and he saw the incompetence that he should – he should have fired those generals like I fired the one that you mentioned, and so he’s got no love lost. But he should have fired those generals.
No general got fired for the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country, Afghanistan, where we left billions of dollars of equipment behind, we lost 13 beautiful soldiers and 38 soldiers were obliterated. And by the way, we left people behind too. We left American citizens behind.
When Putin saw that, he said, you know what? I think we’re going to go in and maybe take my – this was his dream. I talked to him about it, his dream. The difference is he never would have invaded Ukraine. Never.
He’s repeating his claim about Afghanistan
The most embracing moment, hyperbole
Incompetence, ad hominem. Yes, Biden bears some blame for the withdrawal, but the government was struggling to reorganize after the Jan. 6 attack, and with the state department understaffed because Trump didn’t fill vacant positions, and Congress confirmed fewer nominees. It didn’t help that Trump handcuffed the administration’s plans for withdrawal.
False cause fallacy. If the withdrawal prompted Putin to move in, he took his time about it, since the invasion (Feb. 2022) occurred two years after the withdrawal (Feb. 2020).
And yet Trump admits he knew Putin wanted to invade Ukraine when he was President. And did nothing to stop him.
Just like Israel would have never been invaded, in a million years, by Hamas. You know why? Because Iran was broke with me. I wouldn’t let anybody do business with them. They ran out of money. They were broke. They had no money for Hamas. They had no money for anything. No money for terror.
The situation in Israel is irrelevant not only to the question about accepting Putin’s terms, it’s irrelevant to his irrelevant claims about Ukraine.
The assertion that Hamas invaded Israel because Trump crippled Iran is a causation fallacy, even if Trump’s claim he left them broke is true. But the claim is debatable. The arms embargo expired during Trump’s term, nor is there a link between lifting humanitarian sanctions and attacks on Israel, and China continued to support the Iranian economy despite the sanctions.
That’s why you had no terror at all during my administration. This place, the whole world is blowing up under him.
Irrelevant
Hyperbole
Lie. The Justice Department reported multiple terrorist terrorist attacks in the US alone during Trump’s term, and not just by Muslim extremists and not including mass shootings.
BASH: … I just want to go back to my original question, which is, are Putin’s terms acceptable to you, keeping the territory in Ukraine?
TRUMP: No, they’re not acceptable. No, they’re not acceptable.
But look, this is a war that never should have started. If we had a leader in this war – he led everybody along. He’s given $200 billion now or more to Ukraine. He’s given $200 billion. That’s a lot of money. I don’t think there’s ever been anything like it. Every time that Zelenskyy comes to this country, he walks away with $60 billion. He’s the greatest salesman ever.
And I’m not knocking him, I’m not knocking anything. I’m only saying, the money that we’re spending on this war, and we shouldn’t be spending, it should have never happened.
Gross exaggeration. He accuses Biden of leading the country along when, in fact, supporting Ukraine was an international effort. Europe, Japan, South Korea and Canada have all provided assistance, with EU countries combining to provide more than the US. Which suggests Biden is a better leader than Trump would like to acknowledge, since he didn’t forge any significant alliance during his term.
Ad hominem and red herring. Zelinsky may be the greatest salesman ever, but that doesn’t mean defending Ukraine was a con-job.
In fact, it’s a contradiction. Zelinski’s a great salesman, but Biden’s a con man?
That we spent $200 billion or more isn’t as big a lie as he’s told elsewhere, but he’s still wrong.
I will have that war settled between Putin and Zelenskyy as president-elect before I take office on January 20th. I’ll have that war settled.
People being killed so needlessly, so stupidly, and I will get it settled and I’ll get it settled fast, before I take office.
At first I thought, at last, he finally answered a question. Until his last statement that he will resolve the war before he takes office. Not only does he not say what terms he will accept, he doesn’t explain how he can resolve the war in an unofficial capacity. In essence, he backs out of his earlier response. So, I’m going with still non-responsive.
Trump’s claim that he will resolve the question as President-elect is close to collusion. This is exactly the illegal nonsensethat troubled his administration in 2016 and caused Mike Flynn to be prosecuted.
TRUMP: [Note: I’m moving this from the Israeli section of the debate because it belongs here.] Just going back to Ukraine for one second, we have an ocean separating us. The European nations together have spent $100 billion, or maybe more than that, less than us. Why doesn’t he call them so you got to put up your money like I did with NATO? I got them to put up hundreds of billions of dollars. The secretary general of NATO said Trump did the most incredible job I’ve ever seen. You wouldn’t – they wouldn’t have any – they were going out of business. We were spending – almost 100 percent of the money was – it was paid by us.
He didn’t do that. He is getting all – you got to ask these people to put up the money. We’re over $100 billion more spent, and it has a bigger impact on them, because of location, because we have an ocean in between. You got to ask them.
This is outright gaslighting (yes, gaslighting is a logical fallacy). He’s claiming credit for something Biden accomplished and he didn’t. There is no evidence Trump persuaded NATO allies to spend significantly more than they had earlier. And yet by his own admission, the EU ponied up $100 million for Ukraine (more than half of the US effort), which doesn’t include Japan and South Korea.
It’s also an outright contradiction. Before Biden’s answer on Israel, Trump claimed Biden was a con man for asking the US to spend money on the Ukraine. Now he’s saying Biden’s a sucker for not asking allies to pay even more. But if he was conning Congress, why should they pay?
Gross exaggeration and not true. NATO spending increased by billions, not hundreds of billions. But we can attribute most of the increased funding to Putin’s aggressive policies.
Biden accomplished what Trump never could. He brought together a significant alliance to support Ukraine, and he helped build an alliance to support Israel against missile attacks among G7 members.
False equivalency. Just because Europe is closer to Europe, it doesn’t mean they have more at stake.