Early on in his latest campaign for president, Donald Trump unveiled a headline-grabbing campaign promise on Ukraine.
“If I’m president, I will have that war settled in one day,” Trump told CNN at a candidate town hall in May 2023.
“Twenty-four hours,” he said.
It was a bold declaration. And it became so ubiquitous on the campaign trail that it was eventually unremarkable when Trump would repeat the claim. In fact, Trump has promised to end the war on Day One at least 33 times since Jan. 2023 — or upped the ante by saying he’d actually settle the war before his return to the Oval Office. His commitment to end the war on his first day actually became his most consistent promise of the 2024 campaign.
In that time, much of the Republican Party soured on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s repeated requests for U.S. funds to defend itself from Russia’s incursion. The so-called “America First” movement calcified among conservatives in Congress, with Republicans demanding that funds going toward Ukraine’s defense be used domestically. And one of the chief architect’s of that ideology, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, went so far as to try stripping Speaker Mike Johnson’s gavel over his support for Ukraine aid.
But with Trump’s Day One just five days away — and a settlement in Ukraine not even rumored to be forthcoming — Republicans are moving the goalposts. Or, in Greene’s case, she’s redefining the playing field.
Greene told NOTUS that the media was wrong to think Trump wanted to end the war on his first day back in office.
When NOTUS asked if she thought Trump settling the war on Day One was still possible, she claimed that wasn’t actually Trump’s promise.
“I think you need to understand language,” Greene said. “And everyone else in America understands that language.”
“I don’t think the media pressing Day One is specifically ‘Day One,’” she said. “But he’s talking about that as one of his first roles as president, and there are many. He’s going to be writing hundreds of executive orders. But yes, ending that war is important.”
Greene added that it was “a useless effort” for the media to try to “hold President Trump’s feet to the fire.”
“Because President Trump will be the one that ends that war where the Democrats and Joe Biden fail,” she said.
Biden has tried to hasten Ukraine’s counteroffensive by authorizing the use of long-range missiles into Russia in November. Biden also approved $6 billion in aid for Ukraine last month, milking the last drops of the $61 billion tranche Congress approved in April.
Still — nearly three years since its start — the war in Ukraine continues.
As Trump prepares his return to the White House, he recently met with Zelenskyy. The two men have a notoriously fraught relationship beginning with Trump’s first impeachment hearings and continuing with a Republican-led congressional inquiry into the Ukrainian president’s preelection campaign visit to Pennsylvania with surrogates for Kamala Harris.
But these days, Zelenskyy seems to be cozying up to the president-elect, with a visit to Mar-a-Lago on Sept. 26. They also had a phone call on Nov. 8, days after the election. Russian President Vladimir Putin also said he is “open” to a meeting with the soon-to-be president.
Despite the meetings and potential meetings, Trump’s advisers see a settlement by Jan. 20 as ambitious at best. Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, said last week that a resolution might be possible in Trump’s first 100 days.
“Let’s set it at 100 days,” Kellogg told reporters. “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.”
The 100 day benchmark would give Trump more wiggle room to engage with Zelenskyy and Putin. Trump has signaled that part of those negotiations would involve use future aid to Ukraine as leverage to pressure Russia to end the war.
When NOTUS asked moderate Republican Rep. Don Bacon whether Trump would hit his Day One goal, he referenced Kellogg’s remarks, saying he heard “it probably takes 100 days now.”
“I’m more into the big picture,” Bacon said. “I want a free, independent Ukraine, and I just — I don’t know how he’s going to end it in a day or 100 days. But it’s got to be on Ukraine’s terms.”
Rep. Darrell Issa was more blunt. When asked if he thinks Trump would end the war by his first day, he was clear: “No.”
“Ukraine is just a little too complicated,” he said. “Just dealing with Putin is probably going to be his first big challenge.”
Trump transition spokesperson — and incoming White House press secretary — Karoline Leavitt said that Trump has “repeatedly stated that a top priority in his second term will be to quickly negotiate a peaceful resolution to the Russia-Ukraine war.”
“He will do what is necessary to restore peace and rebuild American strength and deterrence on the world stage,” she said.
Many of the GOP’s top Ukraine hawks in Congress — like Rep. Joe Wilson, who unfailingly wears a Ukrainian flag pin around Capitol Hill — have told NOTUS they do see Trump as an ally of Ukraine, despite the president’s repeated calls to cut off aid and his constant criticism of Zelenskyy. They see Trump’s dealmaking record and apparent willingness to play hardball with Ukraine as a key to resolving the conflict.
Still, Republicans like Wilson cast doubt on the first-day settlement.
He said Trump’s effort to end the war on Day One “sadly, is not going to be successful.”
“The president’s going to try, and I appreciate him trying, because it is a meat grinder,” Wilson, a senior member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, told NOTUS.
Speaker Johnson told NOTUS he has not talked to Trump “in great depth about the Ukraine situation” other than his public vision to settle the war. But Johnson wouldn’t commit to Trump solving the situation on Day One.
“We’re all very hopeful,” he said. “He’s been very resolute on the issue, and it is certainly a game changer to have him back in the White House. We’ll see how it develops.”
Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Rep. Brian Mast was also open-minded about a first-day settlement. “I see everything as possible with this president that dreams bigger than everybody,” he told NOTUS.
“His initial steps have already taken place,” Mast said. “It goes to his ethos, his attitude and philosophy toward life, which every foreign intelligence agency is acutely aware of.”
That’s not an uncommon argument on Capitol Hill, where some conservatives in Congress who oppose the war remain optimistic that the mere image of Trump in the White House would shock Putin into some kind of submission.
“We have a weak, beta male, passive president,” Rep. Eric Burlison told NOTUS of Biden. “Trump is going to come in. He can’t be pushed around. I think that Putin understands that and respects that. He has to respect that.”
When asked to respond to Burlison’s comments, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates just sent NOTUS a Business Insider article mentioning Burlison titled, “These 9 House Republicans voted against a resolution condemning the Russian abduction of Ukrainian children.”
Rep. Ralph Norman — another Ukraine aid skeptic — told NOTUS he’s also hoping for a resolution on Day One, but left the door open for more time.
“If it’s five days, if it’s 110 days, still he’s putting the marker down,” Norman said, adding that, “It’s like Greenland and Canada; it takes time.”
But with Trump’s goal to end the war in Ukraine diplomatically, there’s perhaps just one member of Congress who will soon have real authority to oversee the end of the war and have his finger on the pulse of a timeline: Sen. Marco Rubio.
Rubio is poised to be confirmed as Trump’s secretary of state in the coming weeks, and he told NOTUS that Trump wants “what everyone should want, which is to end the hostilities.”
But pressed if he thinks Trump would actually be able to do that on or before Day One, Rubio was less certain.
“We’re gonna find out,” he said.
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Riley Rogerson is a reporter at NOTUS.
John T. Seward is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.