Assistance from Claude AI. For a summary of the interview, see Trump’s Wide-Ranging POLITICO Interview: Ukraine Peace Deal Stalled, Europe “Decaying,” and Domestic Policy Battles.
Ukrainian Military Casualties: “Last Month They Lost 27,000 Soldiers”
Verdict: Unverifiable and Likely Inflated
President Trump claimed that Ukraine lost twenty-seven thousand soldiers in a single month, but this figure cannot be verified through publicly available data and appears significantly inflated compared to estimates from military analysts and government sources. Understanding casualty figures in the Ukraine war requires recognizing that both Russia and Ukraine treat their military losses as state secrets, making definitive numbers impossible to obtain.
The challenge with verifying this claim is that neither government releases regular, detailed casualty reports. Ukraine has been particularly cautious about disclosing losses to maintain morale and operational security. Western intelligence agencies occasionally provide estimates, but these come with wide ranges and significant uncertainty. The Ukrainian government reported in February 2025 that total military deaths since the start of the full-scale invasion were around eighty thousand, though some Western estimates placed the figure higher. If we accept even the higher estimates of total Ukrainian casualties across nearly three years of intense fighting, twenty-seven thousand losses in a single month would represent an extraordinarily high proportion of total casualties.
To put this in context, even during the most intense periods of fighting—such as the battles for Bakhmut or the 2024 summer offensive—military analysts estimated monthly Ukrainian casualties (killed and wounded combined) in the range of several thousand to perhaps ten thousand, not twenty-seven thousand killed alone. The distinction between killed in action and total casualties (which includes wounded) is crucial here. Trump’s statement specifically mentions soldiers lost, which typically means killed, not wounded.Based on the available data, Trump’s claim appears significantly inflated. President Zelenskyy himself stated in February 2025 that total Ukrainian military deaths since the beginning of the full-scale invasion stood at approximately forty-six thousand. Western intelligence estimates generally place total Ukrainian deaths throughout the entire war in the range of sixty thousand to one hundred thousand. If twenty-seven thousand Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in a single month, this would represent more than half of Ukraine’s total military deaths across nearly three years of intense combat—an impossibility given the cumulative nature of casualty statistics.
The confusion may stem from mixing different categories of casualties. Military analysts distinguish between soldiers killed in action and total casualties, which includes both killed and wounded. Even counting total casualties, research by political scientist Neta Crawford estimated an average of approximately 7,700 people killed per month across all sides (Russian, Ukrainian, and civilian) by mid-2025—far below Trump’s single-country, single-month figure. The highest estimates for combined Ukrainian killed and wounded in particularly intense months reach several thousand, not twenty-seven thousand killed alone.
References:
Crawford, N. (2025, July). Casualty estimates for the Ukraine war. Costs of War Project, Watson Institute, Brown University.
Zelenskyy, V. (2025, February). Ukrainian military casualty announcement. Office of the President of Ukraine. Retrieved from Russia Matters compilation of casualty estimates. https://www.russiamatters.org/news/russia-ukraine-war-report-card/russia-ukraine-war-report-card-nov-19-2025
BBC Russian & Mediazona. (2025, November 29). Verified Russian military deaths in Ukraine war surpass 150K. The Moscow Times. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/11/29/verified-russian-deaths-in-ukraine-war-surpass-150k-independent-tally-a91279
Center for Strategic and International Studies. (2025, June). Ukraine conflict casualty estimates. Retrieved from Russia Matters War Report Card. https://www.russiamatters.org/news/russia-ukraine-war-report-card/
Biden Giving Ukraine $350 Billion
Verdict: False
Trump claimed that President Biden gave Ukraine three hundred and fifty billion dollars, but this figure is dramatically inflated—more than double the actual amount of total U.S. support. Understanding the real numbers requires distinguishing between different types of aid and recognizing that assistance comes in multiple forms beyond simple cash transfers.
According to official U.S. government records and congressional budget tracking, the total amount of aid allocated to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 through the end of the Biden administration in January 2025 was approximately one hundred seventy-five to one hundred eighty-three billion dollars. This total includes military assistance, economic support, humanitarian aid, and operational costs. The military assistance component specifically—which is what most people think of when discussing aid to Ukraine—totaled approximately sixty-six to sixty-nine billion dollars by January 2025.
The distinction between “allocated” and “disbursed” also matters here. When Congress allocates funding, it makes money available for specific purposes, but agencies don’t necessarily spend all of it immediately. Of the roughly one hundred eighty-three billion allocated, only about eighty-three billion had actually been disbursed by late 2024. Some military aid also comes through Presidential Drawdown Authority, where the president transfers existing military equipment from U.S. stockpiles rather than purchasing new items—the value assigned to these transfers represents the replacement cost of the equipment, not actual cash given to Ukraine.
Additionally, a significant portion of the funding doesn’t go directly to Ukraine at all. Much of it funds U.S. military operations in Europe, supports NATO allies who have sent their own equipment to Ukraine, pays for refugee assistance, and covers administrative costs for managing the assistance program. For example, the U.S. uses Foreign Military Financing to reimburse NATO countries that donated equipment from their own arsenals, essentially replenishing allied stockpiles rather than directly supplying Ukraine.
Trump’s figure of three hundred fifty billion dollars appears to have no basis in any official accounting of U.S. assistance to Ukraine. Even the most expansive calculations—including all forms of support over the entire period of conflict—fall well short of this amount. The actual spending represents a substantial commitment, but overstating it by nearly a factor of two creates a misleading picture of U.S. policy and expenditures.
References:
U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs. (2025, January). U.S. security cooperation with Ukraine. https://www.state.gov/bureau-of-political-military-affairs/releases/2025/01/u-s-security-cooperation-with-ukraine
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. (2024). Congressionally approved Ukraine aid totals $175 billion. https://www.crfb.org/blogs/congressionally-approved-ukraine-aid-totals-175-billion
USAFacts. (2024). How much money has the US given Ukraine? https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-money-has-the-us-given-ukraine-since-russias-invasion/
UK House of Commons Library. (2025, January 9). Military assistance to Ukraine (February 2022 to January 2025). Research Briefing CBP-9477. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9477/
“Zero People Coming Through Our Borders Now, Zero, Seven Months”
Verdict: False
Trump’s claim that “no people” are coming through U.S. borders—specifically saying “zero, seven months”—is demonstrably false, though it reflects a dramatic reduction in illegal border crossings compared to the previous administration. Understanding what’s actually happening requires distinguishing between three different metrics that often get conflated in political rhetoric: attempted crossings, apprehensions, and releases into the interior of the country.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data, Border Patrol apprehensions at the southwest border since Trump took office in January 2025 have averaged under ten thousand per month through November 2025. While this represents a historic low and a dramatic 93-95% decrease compared to the same months in 2024, it is definitively not zero. Specific monthly figures include 7,181 apprehensions in March, 8,383 in April, and 8,725 in May. By November 2025, total enforcement encounters along the southwest border since January 21 stood at 117,105—far from zero, though substantially lower than the monthly average of 185,625 during the Biden administration.
The confusion in Trump’s statement appears to stem from mixing different categories of border statistics. What has been zero for seven consecutive months is not border crossings or apprehensions, but rather releases of apprehended individuals into the United States. This distinction is crucial. CBP still encounters and apprehends hundreds of people daily who attempt to cross the border illegally. In February 2025, for example, nationwide apprehensions averaged approximately 330 per day, which CBP characterized as “the lowest nationwide average apprehensions in CBP history.” By November, daily apprehensions had dropped even further. However, these apprehended individuals are being detained and processed for deportation rather than being released into the U.S. interior to await immigration court proceedings—a practice that was common during the Biden administration.
The “zero releases” metric represents a significant policy shift in how apprehended individuals are handled, but it’s fundamentally different from having zero border crossings. People are still attempting to enter illegally and being caught—just at much lower rates than in previous years, and with different consequences upon apprehension. The Trump administration has implemented strict enforcement measures that appear to have created a strong deterrent effect, reducing the number of crossing attempts dramatically. But claiming zero crossings is an exaggeration that misrepresents the data, even while the reduction in crossings and the elimination of releases both represent substantial changes from Biden-era policies.
References:
U.S. Customs and Border Protection. (2025, March). CBP releases March 2025 monthly update. https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-releases-march-2025-monthly-update
U.S. Customs and Border Protection. (2025, May). CBP releases May 2025 monthly update. https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/cbp-releases-may-2025-monthly-update
U.S. Customs and Border Protection. (2025, December 4). Border crossings once again at a record low in November 2025. https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/national-media-release/border-crossings-once-again-record-low-november-2025
U.S. Department of Homeland Security. (2025, December 4). Border crossings once again at a record low in November 2025. https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/12/04/border-crossings-once-again-record-low-november-2025
Trump’s Claim of Settling Eight Wars
Verdict: Unverifiable and Highly Questionable
Trump’s claim to have settled eight wars requires careful examination because it involves a mix of genuine diplomatic achievements, temporary ceasefires, longstanding disputes that weren’t actually wars, and conflicts where Trump’s role is disputed. Understanding this claim means distinguishing between what constitutes ending a war versus brokering a ceasefire, resolving a diplomatic tension, or facilitating a transactional agreement.
The conflicts Trump appears to reference include arrangements involving Israel-Iran, India-Pakistan, Thailand-Cambodia, Armenia-Azerbaijan, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt-Ethiopia, Serbia-Kosovo, and the Gaza ceasefire. The immediate problem is that several of these situations did not involve active warfare at the time of U.S. intervention. The Egypt-Ethiopia dispute centers on a hydroelectric dam and water rights—a serious diplomatic tension but not an armed conflict. Serbia and Kosovo have not been in direct military conflict since the late 1990s, though Trump did help broker an economic normalization deal during his first term.
For the conflicts that did involve active fighting, the outcomes are mixed and the durability questionable. The Thailand-Cambodia agreement, announced in July 2025 following a five-day border clash that killed over forty people, fell apart within weeks with renewed violence and Thai airstrikes on Cambodia by August. The Rwanda-DRC agreement signed in June was supposed to end three decades of conflict, but fighting has continued with hundreds of civilians killed since the deal’s signing. More than one hundred armed groups still operate in eastern Congo competing for resources and territory, and the fundamental drivers of conflict—ethnic marginalization, land disputes, weak governance—received little attention in the Washington agreement.
The India-Pakistan ceasefire announced in May following brief fighting over Kashmir presents another complication. Pakistan credited Trump’s mediation and nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize, but India explicitly rejected the claim that U.S. diplomacy played a significant role, stating that Indian pressure on Pakistan drove the de-escalation. When the parties to a supposed peace agreement disagree about whether the mediator actually mediated, it casts doubt on credit-claiming.
The Israel-Iran situation adds a layer of paradox. Following Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025, the United States itself conducted airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities before Trump announced a ceasefire on June 23 after twelve days of fighting. Foreign policy experts question whether a party that actively participated in a conflict—bombing one side—can legitimately claim to be an impartial peace broker who “ended” that same war. The ceasefire appears to be holding as a tactical pause, but underlying tensions remain unresolved, and the extent of damage to Iran’s nuclear program is disputed.
The Armenia-Azerbaijan agreement signed in August represents perhaps Trump’s most substantial diplomatic achievement on this list. The two countries agreed to open the Zangezur corridor connecting Azerbaijan to its exclave of Nakhchivan, ending decades of dispute over the territory. The corridor, renamed the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity,” will be administered by the United States, which secured ninety-nine-year investment rights in the area. However, even this deal is fundamentally transactional, with U.S. economic interests as a central component rather than a pure humanitarian peace effort.
Several academic experts and foreign policy analysts have characterized Trump’s approach as “peace theater” or “transactional peacemaking” where trade leverage, tariff threats, and access to natural resources form the basis of agreements rather than addressing root causes of conflict. For example, Trump threatened Cambodia and Thailand with thirty-six percent tariffs to pressure ceasefire acceptance, and the Rwanda-DRC deal prominently features U.S. access to Congolese rare earth minerals.
Trump’s claim also ignores historical precedent. Theodore Roosevelt won the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for mediating the end of the Russo-Japanese War. Jimmy Carter personally oversaw negotiations that produced the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty at Camp David. The George W. Bush administration’s Secretary of State Colin Powell oversaw negotiations that ended Sudan’s civil war in 2005. Trump’s statement in the interview that “we’ve never had a president that solved one war, not one war” is factually incorrect.
The most generous interpretation of Trump’s claim is that his administration has been actively involved in multiple ceasefire and diplomatic efforts, some of which have reduced immediate violence even if they haven’t produced lasting peace or addressed fundamental conflicts. The least generous interpretation is that he’s conflating diplomatic disputes with wars, claiming credit where it’s disputed, and celebrating transactional deals that prioritize U.S. economic access over sustainable peace as war-ending achievements.
References:
Axios. (2025, October 10). Nobel Peace Prize: Trump says he ended “8 wars.” Here’s what he means. https://www.axios.com/2025/10/10/gaza-trump-wars-ended-israel-nobel-prize
CBS News. (2025, August). Trump says he’s ended 6 or 7 wars. Here’s what the record shows. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-ended-6-or-7-wars-what-record-shows/
FactCheck.org. (2025, August). Addressing Trump’s claims about ending multiple wars. https://www.factcheck.org/2025/08/addressing-trumps-claims-about-ending-multiple-wars/
PolitiFact. (2025, October 17). President Donald Trump said he’s the first US president to solve a war. Pants on Fire! https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2025/oct/17/donald-trump/president-wars-ended-us-roosevelt-carter/
Peace Research Institute Oslo. (2025, August). Trump says he has ended six wars in six months. As a peace researcher, I’m scratching my head. https://www.prio.org/comments/1808
The Conversation. (2025). Did Trump really resolve six conflicts in a matter of months? We spoke to the experts to find out. https://theconversation.com/did-trump-really-resolve-six-conflicts-in-a-matter-of-months-we-spoke-to-the-experts-to-find-out-262906
NATO Spending Increase from 2 to 5 Percent
Verdict: Partially True but Misleading
Trump’s claim that he “raised” NATO defense spending “from 2 percent to 5 percent” and that allies “are paying” five percent contains both truth and significant misrepresentation. The reality involves understanding the difference between a commitment to meet a target in the future versus actually spending that amount now, as well as recognizing the trajectory of NATO spending increases over the past decade.
The two percent figure Trump references comes from a 2014 NATO guideline established after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, in which alliance members pledged to spend at least two percent of their gross domestic product on defense. When Trump first took office in 2017, only three NATO countries met this target. Trump made NATO spending a central issue of his first presidency, repeatedly criticizing allies for not contributing their fair share and at times even threatening to reconsider U.S. commitment to the alliance. His pressure did have an effect—by 2024, approximately twenty-two of thirty-two NATO members were meeting or exceeding the two percent target, representing substantial progress.
The five percent figure represents a new commitment announced at the NATO summit in The Hague in June 2025. NATO allies agreed to increase defense spending to five percent of GDP by 2035—a decade in the future from the time of the agreement. This five percent breaks down into 3.5 percent for core defense spending and 1.5 percent for security-related infrastructure such as roads, bridges, airfields, and ports that support military mobility. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte credited Trump’s leadership for achieving this commitment, and it does represent a historic increase in the alliance’s spending goals.
However, Trump’s statement that allies “are paying” five percent is categorically false. The five percent target is a future goal with a 2035 deadline, not current spending. As of 2024, even meeting the two percent target remained a challenge for about one-third of NATO members. The United States itself spent approximately 3.4 percent of GDP on defense in 2024—well below the five percent Trump now demands of allies. For the U.S. to reach five percent would require increasing the Pentagon budget from roughly $842 billion to over $1 trillion.
The distinction matters because Trump’s phrasing creates the impression that NATO allies are currently contributing five percent of their GDP to defense, which would represent roughly $1 trillion in additional annual spending that doesn’t exist. What actually happened is that allies agreed to work toward this goal over the next decade. Whether they will actually achieve it remains to be seen—previous NATO spending commitments have taken years longer than planned to materialize, and some countries like Spain and Canada have expressed doubt about their ability to reach such high levels.
Trump does deserve credit for maintaining pressure on NATO allies to increase defense spending, both during his first term and his second. The trajectory from three countries meeting the two percent target in 2017 to twenty-two countries in 2024, and now to a commitment for all countries to reach five percent by 2035, reflects genuine change in European defense policy driven partly by Trump’s approach and partly by the security threat posed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But claiming that allies are currently paying five percent when they’ve only agreed to try to reach that level over the next decade constitutes a significant exaggeration of current reality.
References:
CNBC. (2025, June 25). NATO allies agree to higher 5% defense spending target. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/06/25/nato-allies-agree-to-higher-5percent-defense-spending-target.html
Peterson Institute for International Economics. (2025). Trump’s five percent doctrine and NATO defense spending. https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/2025/trumps-five-percent-doctrine-and-nato-defense-spending
Stars and Stripes. (2025, January 23). Trump calls for increase in NATO spending that could drive Pentagon budget beyond $1 trillion. https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2025-01-23/nato-defense-spending-trump-russia-16581546.html
Euronews. (2025, June 5). Most NATO members endorse Trump’s demand to up defence spending to 5% of GDP, Mark Rutte says. https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/06/05/most-nato-members-endorse-trumps-demand-to-up-defence-spending-to-5-of-gdp-mark-rutte-says
Rubio, M. (2025, July 10). Trump defense deal with NATO is a big, beautiful win for America. U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Italy. https://it.usembassy.gov/marco-rubio-trump-defense-deal-with-nato-is-a-big-beautiful-win-for-america/
POLITICO Receiving “$8 Million from Obama”
Verdict: False and Misleading
Trump claimed that POLITICO received “$ 8 million from Obama to keep it afloat” and characterized it as an “extremely unfriendly publication.” POLITICO’s editor’s note in the transcript directly addresses this claim, explaining that Trump “appears to be referring to POLITICO Pro subscriptions that the Trump administration canceled earlier this year as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s effort to trim government spending. POLITICO received no government grants or subsidies.”
This clarification reveals the actual situation. POLITICO Pro is a subscription-based news service that provides specialized policy and political coverage to government agencies, corporations, advocacy groups, and other organizations that need detailed information about federal policymaking. Government agencies purchasing these subscriptions for their staff is a normal business transaction, no different from an agency subscribing to legal databases, financial information services, or other professional resources needed for policy work.
The Obama administration, like other administrations, purchased POLITICO Pro subscriptions as part of regular government operations—this is not a grant, subsidy, or bailout to “keep POLITICO afloat.” These were paid subscriptions for a commercial news service, with POLITICO providing a product (detailed policy news and analysis) and the government agencies paying market rates for access to that information. The Trump administration itself maintained many of these same subscriptions during Trump’s first term before canceling some as part of cost-cutting efforts in his second term.
Characterizing subscription fees paid for actual services as government money given “to keep it afloat” fundamentally misrepresents the nature of the financial relationship. By this logic, any company that sells products or services to government agencies could be accused of being “kept afloat” by government money—including defense contractors, office supply companies, technology firms, and countless others that do business with federal agencies.
References:
Burns, D. (2025, December 9). Full transcript: POLITICO’s interview with Donald Trump. POLITICO. [Editor’s note within transcript]. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/09/donald-trump-fullinterview-transcript-00681693