Before Donald Trump abruptly ended his latest “Meet the Press” interview, NBC News’ Kristen Welker asked the president to reconcile his pre-election assurances about not starting new wars with his decision to start a war with Iran. The host started to ask, “Did you break that promise to the American …” when the Republican interrupted to say, “No.”

Welker pressed forward, adding, “So you’re saying you didn’t break your promise. And yet, 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. What changed, because you insisted ‘no new wars’?”

Trump replied, “First of all, I didn’t guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world?” (As the exchange continued, the president tried to defend his position by referring to the stock market and then pivoted to attacking Welker’s professional integrity.)

Let’s not brush past the rhetorical question the president posed. Indeed, the Republican seemed to suggest he had increased defense spending precisely because he intended to go to war, which is quite an admission. It also reflects the mindset of someone desperate to rebrand the Department of Defense as the “Department of War.”

But the underlying point is just as important, if not more so, since Trump’s record is unambiguous.

Trump: "I didn't guarantee no war."Trump guaranteeing no more wars:

— The Bulwark (@thebulwark.com) 2026-06-07T16:26:26.795Z

Throughout the 2024 election cycle, Trump and his team went to bizarre lengths to present the Republican as the “peace” candidate who would “expel the warmongers” from the federal government and lead as a “peacemaker,” while rascally Democrats prepared to lead us into war. Common sense might have suggested any thinking adult would know better than to believe such obvious nonsense, but some voters accepted these absurdities at face value and cast their ballots accordingly, optimistic that the GOP nominee would pursue a foreign policy rooted in restraint.

In other words, many Americans believed Trump when he told voters, among other things, “I’m going to be the one that keeps you out of war”; “we’re not going to have war in the Middle East”; and “they said, ‘You will start a war.’ I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.”

Under the circumstances, the president could at least try to make the case to the nation that despite what he said on the campaign trail, he concluded it was in the nation’s best interest to go to war anyway. To be sure, that wouldn’t be an easy sell under the circumstances, but it would at least be an honest response when pressed on his pre-election promises.

But that’s not the path the Republican has chosen. Instead, the candidate who promised not to launch a war has been reduced to “I didn’t guarantee ‘no war,’” as if we don’t remember the events of two years ago.

I’m reminded of a George Orwell quote from “1984” that I emphasized in my book about GOP efforts to rewrite recent history: “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

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