The Art of the Deal or Art of War?
New York Times
By Katie Rogers
Katie Rogers is a White House reporter. She reported from Washington.
June 7, 2026
President Trump, who campaigned on a central promise to keep the United States out of overseas wars, denied in an interview aired on Sunday that he’d ever made the pledge.
“I didn’t guarantee no war,” Mr. Trump said in a lengthy interview with Kristen Welker, the host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” taped during his trip to Wisconsin on Friday. “Why would I have built the strongest military in the world?”
Speaking about the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran, he continued: “So when you say I promised, I didn’t promise anything. I don’t like these endless wars. This is not an endless war. We’ve been doing this for three months.”
He did promise. As a candidate in 2024, Mr. Trump repeatedly pledged not to involve the United States in war, including on the night he won the election. “They said, ‘He will start a war,’” Mr. Trump said during his victory speech. “I’m not going to start a war. I’m going to stop wars.”
