RFK falsely claims Trump wants to extend Ukraine war based on edited clip about Biden border bill negotiations

A deceptively edited clip of former President Donald Trump's remarks from a Nevada campaign speech has been making the rounds on social media and was shared by Democrat presidential hopeful Robert F Kennedy Jr. The claim accompanying the clip is that Trump wants to fund and extend the war in Ukraine, which could not be further from the truth of what he said.

Trump has promised to end the Russia Ukraine war within 24 hours of winning the 2024 election. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky is reportedly "stressed" about it.

During his presidency, Trump slowed the border crossings to a crawl, with less than half a million apprehensions during his final year in office. Biden has seen over 2 million year on year.

"I will immediately end the war, not prolong it by dragging other countries into wasting their money along with ours. We need to stop spending hundreds of billions on a proxy war and invest in our own country," Kennedy said. He assumed, based on this short clip, that Trump was talking specifically about extending the war in Ukraine—he was actually talking about border security and the fact that Biden refuses to take action on securing America's border unless Congress approves more money for his pet war in Europe.

Here's what Trump really said about the border, national security, and the border bill that Biden has demanded before he will take action to put a stop to the massive flow of illegal immigrants crossing the US-Mexico border. Trump signed executive orders to close the border and build a border wall. During his first days in office, Biden reversed all of those with his own executive orders, opening the border to all comers. Now, he claims he needs Congress to pass a bill and will only act on the border if he gets funding for Ukraine.

"The bill Biden's gushing out and pushing out, is not designed to stop illegal immigration. It's designed to continue the invasion of America while sending billions of dollars to Ukraine and other countries," Trump said, before discussing Ukraine.

"Ukraine is an interesting case, people always want to know my feeling. Number one: we're in for $200 billion plus, and the European nations are referred $20 billion. And it's more important for them. And don't you think they should equalize? Nobody asks them," Trump said.

"It's like I did with a NATO," he continued, bringing up his record as president when he demanded that the European countries share the burden for their own defense. "I said, we're spending, we're paying for NATO. And we don't get so much. And you know, I hate to tell you this about NATO," he told the crowd, "If we ever needed their help. Let's say we were attacked, I don't believe they'd be there. I don't believe it. I know that people. I know them, I can tell you country by country who wouldn't be there. But I don't believe that be there. But I took care of NATO, you gotta pay your bills. If you don't pay your bills, we're not going to be there to support you. And the following day, the money came rolling into NATO. But the European nations, if you add them up, the economy's about the same size as the US Believe it or not, a lot of people are surprised you add them all up. And they are in for about $20 billion for $200 million because we're stupid. All we have to do is say pay. Nobody ever says to them pay, you don't even hear that. I say pay, and they'll pay. You have to be equalized." This is not an encouragement of more US spending, but a plan to spend less.

After that explanation of the problems with NATO and how much the US spends for European defense across the board, Trump returned to his primary concern, the border bill that House Speaker Mike Johnson declared would be "dead on arrival" once it makes its way from the Senate to the US House.

"The voter bill, the monstrosity that we're dealing with 2 million illegals crossed the border every single year in the past, and now that number is changing to maybe 8 times that amount. We cannot let this happen to our country," he said unequivocally.

"As the leader of our party, there is zero chance I will support this horrible open borders betrayal of America. It's not gonna happen. And I'll fight it all the way."

Trump said the lack of US border security "is the single greatest threat to our country right now."

"The fact is that if Joe Biden truly wanted to secure the border, he doesn't really need a bill, I didn't need a bill. I did it without a bill, I did it with the current laws. I used border patrol. I didn't need lots of different things. It's not that complicated. You say 'I don't want the people coming in,' they say 'yes, sir.' There won't be any people coming in. And that's what we did. It's not that complicated."

Trump said that if Biden reimposed the executive orders he signed during his time in office, the problem would be much closer to being solved.