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It’s no secret that Donald Trump repeatedly promised voters that he’d end the devastating war in Ukraine before he was sworn in a for a second term, and he failed. The Republican similarly promised the public that he’d resolve the crisis “within 24 hours” of returning to the White House, and he failed.
In fact, by some accounts, Trump didn’t even try to keep his promise.
Nearly two months later, The Associated Press reported on his new explanation for ignoring his vow.
President Donald Trump said Friday that he was “being a little bit sarcastic” when he repeatedly claimed as a candidate that he would have the Russia-Ukraine war solved within 24 hours — and even before he even took office.
Trump was asked about the vow he repeatedly made on the campaign trail during an interview for the “Full Measure” television program as his administration is still trying to broker a solution 54 days into his second term.
“Well, I was being a little bit sarcastic when I said that,” Trump said in a clip released ahead of the episode that aired over the weekend.
The obvious problem with this is that it’s plainly false. Then-candidate Trump repeated the vow, in apparent seriousness, throughout the campaign season — without a hint of humor or sarcasm.
The less-obvious problem is that the president keeps using the word “sarcastic,” but he doesn’t appear to know what it means.
About a year ago, for example, the Republican accidentally conflated House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi with former Ambassador Nikki Haley, and instead of simply acknowledging the fact that he’d misspoken, he instead insisted that he was being “sarcastic” when he made the error.
It was not the first time. In 2020, for example, after the president suggested injecting Covid patients with disinfectant, Trump responded to public ridicule by saying the comments were intended to be “sarcastic.” He was obviously lying.
But it was a familiar lie. When Trump argued publicly that Barack Obama was “the founder of ISIS,” he later defended the rhetoric by saying it was “sarcasm.” In 2014, he referred to Jimmy Carter as the “late, great Jimmy Carter,” adding soon after that he was “just being sarcastic.”
The president also said that he wanted White House officials to treat him the way North Korean officials treat Kim Jong Un. When reporters pressed for some kind of explanation for what he meant, Trump said: “You don’t understand sarcasm.” (The video of his original comments makes clear he wasn’t being sarcastic.)
In 2019, Trump reflected on his 2016 call for Russia to intervene in the elections on his behalf, telling a CPAC audience that it was another example of him being “sarcastic.”
A year later, Trump confused Nobel Prizes with the Pulitzer Prize, only to defend the comments by claiming — you guessed it — that it was an example of “sarcasm.”
To borrow a line from “The Princess Bride,” the president keeps using the word “sarcastic,” but I don’t think it means what he thinks it means.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.