Trump wrongly claims no president before him ever ended a war

During a White House visit from Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President Donald Trump expanded on his oft-repeated boast about ending multiple wars and made an even bolder assertion: that no president had solved even one war before him.

Trump said Oct. 17 that people tell him, “‘Sir, if you solve one more, you’re going to be known as a peacekeeper.’ So to the best of my knowledge, we’ve never had a president that solved one war, not one war. (George W.) Bush started a war (in Iraq). A lot of them start wars, but they don’t solve the wars. They don’t settle them, and especially when they’re not, when they have nothing to do with us.”

Trump is ignoring at least two instances of presidents personally overseeing negotiations that ended other countries’ wars, plus several others in which presidents’ designated diplomats successfully reached peace agreements following negotiations.

“Like a lot of Trump’s statements, it massively exaggerates what he’s done, while ignoring any history of what other presidents have done,” said David Silbey, a Cornell University military historian.