At an impromptu press conference at Mar-a-Lago on Monday, President-elect Donald Trump expressed his desire to end the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East as quickly as possible, suggesting he would call on some. for fighters to make meaningful commitments.
“We’ve been doing our best and we’ll see what happens,” Trump said. “Since the elections, I have been working every day to make the world a little calmer, to get rid of wars.”
Trump has previously insisted that it would only take 24 hours to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, which has now lasted more than 1,000 days. But he said on Monday that this would be “more difficult” to resolve in the Middle East than the conflict rooted in the century-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“I find that more difficult,” Trump said, before decrying the Biden administration’s decision in recent weeks to loosen restrictions on Ukraine’s use of American-supplied weapons, allowing Kyiv to strike deeper into Russian territory.
President-elect Donald Trump delivers remarks at Mar-a-Lagon in Palm Beach, Florida, on December 16, 2024.
Brian Snyder/Reuters
“I don’t think that should have been allowed,” he said. “Certainly not a few weeks before I took it myself.
Trump then said he could reverse the decision, which “I thought was a very stupid thing to do.”
The president-elect also suggested Kyiv hoped to cede land to Russia as part of a negotiated peace, a departure from the Biden administration’s longstanding policy that Ukraine should focus on any discussion of territorial concessions to end the war.
“All those cities are devastated,” he said. “It’s nice to say they want their land back, but the cities are largely destroyed.”
Trump said he would speak with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy before weighing how much land Ukraine would have to cede, but said it was still possible a deal could be reached to end the war before he enters the White House.
He also spoke vividly of the devastation caused by the war, without specifically blaming Moscow for having caused it.
“It’s a carnage we haven’t seen since the Second World War. It has to be stopped. And I’m doing it to stop it,” he said.
On Syria’s Assad: ‘We have to get on with our lives’
ABC’s President-elect Selina Wang also asked the Kremlin about former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, who fled to Russia to escape the rebels.
“Well, I didn’t think of that. I think we have to get on with our lives. I have to see what happens,” Trump replied.
The president-elect said he is already actively involved in other Middle East issues, saying he had a “very good conversation” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the weekend.
Fierce debate over Israeli hostages in Gaza
Trump also repeated his demand in a post on his Truth Social site earlier this month that all hostages held in Gaza be released before he takes office, saying there will be “HELL TO PAY” otherwise.
When asked what the consequences would be if Hamas did not release all those arrested at that point, Trump replied “they will have to determine what that means.”
“But that means it won’t be pleasant,” he added.
Some progress in the Gaza ceasefire
Trump’s remarks signaled that the State Department and some Israeli officials are making progress on a limited deal to exchange some of the hostages held by Hamas for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza.
According to two US officials familiar with the negotiations, Hamas has shown a greater willingness to compromise in recent days — indicating that it will temporarily accept the presence of some Israeli forces in the enclave during a ceasefire. The group has also provided information on some hostages that Hamas said it would release as part of a deal, they added.
“We are working as hard as we know how to do at this point, and we believe we can reach an agreement,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Monday. “It is up to Hamas and Israel to accept and overcome these final conditions. And I can’t in good conscience tell you to be here and say that will happen, but it should happen.”
