Trump Special Envoy: No, We Won't Be Ending Ukraine War On 'Day One'
Donald Trump's incoming special envoy for Ukraine and Russia is tempering expectations about ending Russia's war on Ukraine, saying that the administration will try to end the war in the first 100 days of Trump's term, rather than in the first 24 hours Trump had repeatedly promised.
"Let's set it at 100 days and move all the way back and figure a way we can do this in the near term to make sure that the solution is solid, it's sustainable, and that this war ends so that we stop the carnage," Keith Kellogg, whom Trump appointed in November to advise him on the war in Ukraine, said in an interview on Fox News. "I think that's going to be very, very important to do. It's going to be important for our national security. It's a part of our vital national interests, and it's also good for Europe as well and the globe as well."
Kellogg’s comments are a major change from the Day One promise Trump made multiple times during the 2024 election campaign.
“They’re dying, Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done—I’ll have that done in 24 hours," Trump said during a CNN town hall in May 2023.
In September’s presidential debate—the one and only debate he had with Vice President Kamala Harris—Trump went even further, saying the war would be over even before he took the oath of office.
“That is a war that’s dying to be settled. I will get it settled before I even become president," Trump said.
Kellogg isn’t the only Trump administration official to say Trump can’t end the war in Ukraine on his first day in office.
Rep. Mike Waltz, the Florida Republican who is Trump’s incoming national security adviser, told ABC News on Sunday that Trump will end the war “in the coming months”—which is not Day One.
"I just don't think it's realistic to say we're going to expel every Russian from every inch of Ukrainian soil, even Crimea,” Waltz said.
Ultimately, ending the war in Ukraine in one day is only the latest campaign promise Trump is backtracking on.
In December, Trump tried to temper expectations on lowering grocery prices—possibly the main reason why he won a second term in the first place. "It's hard to bring things down once they're up. You know, it's very hard," Trump said in an interview with Time magazine.
Of course, Trump’s plan to impose tariffs on all of the country’s imports is expected to raise grocery prices.
And Vice President-elect JD Vance backtracked on Trump’s promise to pardon all of the people who pleaded guilty or were convicted for storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
"If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn't be pardoned, and there's a little bit of a gray area there,” Vance said in a Sunday appearance on Fox News.
To be sure, not pardoning violent insurrectionists is a good thing.
But it’s nevertheless another campaign promise Trump and his administration are reneging on before they take office.
In a December interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, Trump said he would be pardoning the insurrectionists on Day One.
"Look. I know the system. The system's a very corrupt system. They say to a guy, 'You're going to go to jail for two years or for 30 years.' And these guys are looking, their whole lives have been destroyed," Trump said.
When asked if that means he will pardon them, Trump said, "Yeah, I'm going to look at everything. We're going to look at individual cases."
Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.
