Donald Trump says he could end Ukraine war in a day

The former US President is notorious for exaggerating but his latest vow at “MAGApalooza” could be the biggest one yet.

Donald Trump won’t have everything his own way in the next Republican fight for the White House, as a growing number of contenders jockey for position in the bitter battle.

Donald Trump has claimed he could end the Russia-Ukraine war within 24 hours if re-elected to the US presidency.

The controversial former US leader made the outlandish claim at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, an unofficial campaign launch for his 2024 presidential bid.

“I will get the problem solved, and I will get it solved in rapid order,” Mr Trump said.

“It would take me no longer than one day.”

American voters, Mr Trump said, were tired of “entrenched political dynasties in both parties, rotten special interests, China-loving politicians” and supporters of “endless foreign wars.” “We’re going to have Word War III if something doesn’t happen fast,” he cautioned in a section voicing disapproval for US aid to Ukraine.

“I am the only candidate who can make this promise: I will prevent World War III.”

Mr Trump spoke for around 100 minutes to close out the four-day CPAC, a short hop down the Potomac River from the nation’s capital Washington.

CPAC was until recently the premier gathering of conservative thought leaders in America- but it has been swallowed whole by Mr Trump’s far-right “Make America Great Again” movement, with pundits referring to the event lately as “MAGApalooza.”

Former US President Donald Trump speaks during the 2023 Conservative Political Action Coalition (CPAC) Conference. Picture: AFP

SHOCK POLL: TRUMP STILL FRONTRUNNER

Former US President Donald Trump has won the Conservative Political Action Conference’s straw poll by a wide margin on Saturday — proof, his supporters said, that he remains the Republican party’s formidable and favourite frontrunner as the 2024 Republican primaries loom.

Mr Trump was the preferred candidate of 62 per cent of attendees who voted in the right-wing annual poll. As he has in past years, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis came in second place with 20 per cent per cent support.

Two other declared Republican candidates, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, garnered 3 and 1 per cent of the vote respectively — and Michigan businessman Perry Johnson, who ran a Super Bowl ad for his longshot campaign for the GOP nomination came in third with 5 per cent of the vote.

Political souvenirs are sold during the 2023 Conservative Political Action Coalition (CPAC). The CPAC poll showed Trump as the vastly preferred Republican candidate. Picture: AFP

The poll results came shortly before Mr Trump was scheduled to take the stage for a raucous keynote address on Saturday evening.

The speech was expected to contain a blistering attack on Bush-era Republicans and a warning that unlimited aid to Ukraine could result in a global World War III.

Insiders also anticipated Mr Trump to issue a conservative call to arms, urging CPAC loyalists to back his third White House run in 2024.

The annual convention, which met this year in Maryland, has been markedly diminished. Major sponsors and speakers withdrew in recent weeks in the wake of allegations that CPAC boss Matt Schlapp groped a male staffer who was working on the senate campaign of Herschel Walker in Georgia.

Schlapp, who has denied the allegation, was later served with a lawsuit from the anonymous accuser.

Top Republicans, including former Vice President Pence, Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, and DeSantis were not in attendance.

Representatives for the popular Florida governor — who has addressed CPAC in the past — declined to comment on why Mr DeSantis was absent this year.

TRUMP CONTENDER PLAYING BY THE BOOK

It comes as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis released his book “The Courage to be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival.”

Among wealthy donors and conservative activists, DeSantis is regarded as the Republican Party’s best chance to move on from Donald Trump in 2024, a claim that was only enhanced last November when he romped to a second term, leading the traditional battleground state.

Since then, he has waged a shadow campaign for the party’s presidential nomination, rather than leaping headfirst into a fight with the former president who says DeSantis “got elected because of me”.

“He was dead, he was leaving the race,” Trump said of his 2018 gubernatorial run in Florida.

“He begged me, begged me for an endorsement. He was getting ready to drop out … he said, ‘If you endorse me, I’ll win’, and there were tears coming from his eyes.”

Ron DeSantis is testing the waters on a presidential run. Picture: Giorgio Viera/AFP

While DeSantis’s book offers a less dramatic version of those events, and plays down the ultimate importance of Trump’s endorsement, that moment was a turning point in the political career of the Yale and Harvard-educated lawyer and military officer. It helped put him in the Governor’s Mansion in Tallahassee and could now take him all the way to the White House.

In the course of 288 pages, DeSantis outlines his popular agenda in Florida, the state where he proclaims “woke goes to die”.

He takes readers inside his fight with Disney, one of the state’s biggest employers, when the entertainment giant challenged him over what critics called his “Don’t Say Gay” legislation to restrict how sexual orientation and gender identity are dealt with in schools.

Trump was the first Republican to enter the race for the party’s 2024 nomination. Picture: Rebecca Droke (AFP)

He attacks the “heavy-handed public health interventions” implemented during the pandemic and proudly spruiks his efforts to push back against lockdowns and mandates, fast-tracking Florida’s reopening and turning it into a “citadel of freedom in the United States”.

And he blasts the “so-called deep state” in the “unaccountable fourth branch of government”: the bureaucrats “almost entirely from the coastal, college-educated, self-appointed elite”.

“The Florida blueprint is a simple formula: be willing to lead, have the courage of your convictions, deliver for your constituents, and reap the political rewards,” DeSantis writes.

“This is a blueprint for America’s revival. We’ve shown it can be done.”

It is a blueprint that Republican insiders happily call “Trump without the crazy”, and it is one they believe DeSantis can replicate in the party’s primaries and the general election.

That said, DeSantis’s book steers clear of issues that will be central to the presidential campaign, such as his views on Medicare and Social Security. As a congressman, DeSantis backed Republican resolutions to curtail taxpayer-funded spending on entitlements, a potential weakness both Trump and President Joe Biden have already sought to exploit.

It also barely mentions abortion – the issue that helped the Democrats avert a Republican red wave in last year’s midterm elections – or any substantive foreign policy positions.

DeSantis also pulls his punches on the former president himself, just as he has done publicly since Trump dubbed him “Ron DeSanctimonious” on the eve of his election win in November and then threatened to “tell you things about him that won’t be very flattering”.

Last month, Trump fuelled unsubstantiated rumours that DeSantis groomed high school girls with alcohol during his days as a teacher. Even then, the 44-year-old remained unmoved.

“He used to say how great of a governor I was,” DeSantis said.

“Then I win a big victory and all of a sudden, you know, he had different opinions. So you can take that for what it’s worth.”

DeSantis celebrates his re-election in November with wife Casey and children Madison, Mason and Mamie. Picture: Giorgio Viera (AFP)

With a long campaign ahead to fight the former president, DeSantis has instead chosen to prioritise introducing himself on the national stage, using his book release to kick off a blitz of media interviews, fundraisers and appearances in primary battleground states.

Before formally throwing his hat in the race, DeSantis will need to demonstrate that his momentum within the Republican Party can extend beyond Florida.

Despite his popularity, he is not regarded as the most charming politician. In a scathing review, The New York Times said his book “reads like a politician’s memoir churned out by ChatGPT”, while The Washington Post reported he was “stilted in one-on-one conversations and sometimes struggles to make small talk” while gladhanding with voters.

To DeSantis’s allies, such criticisms will be no surprise from what he calls the “arrogant, stale and failed ruling class” including media outlets, tech giants, universities and big business.

That said, for all his flaws, Trump was never lacking in charisma. Will Trump without the crazy be enough to take DeSantis all the way? We’re about to find out.

Originally published as Donald Trump says he could end Ukraine war in a day