Donald Trump, repeatedly asked whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war against Russia, would not directly answer the question.
“I want to stop the war,” Trump said instead at the presidential debate.
ABC News moderator David Muir asked again: “Just to clarify the question, do you believe it’s in the U.S.’s best interest for Ukraine to win this war?”
Trump, once more, did not answer the question head-on.
“It’s in the U.S. best interest to get this war finished,” Trump said. “Just get it done, negotiate a deal, because we have to stop all of these human lives from being destroyed.”
Trump pointed to his relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, repeating a counterfactual he’s used since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: that Putin would not have engaged in the war had he been president.
He also said that he has a good relationship with both Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“They respect me. They don’t respect Biden,” Trump said at the debate.
Kamala Harris quickly stepped into the void. “I believe the reason that Donald Trump says that this war would be over within 24 hours is because he would just give it up,” she said.
“I met with President Zelenskyy. I shared with him American intelligence about how he could defend himself,” Harris said.
Harris also reaffirmed her belief in NATO, an organization that Trump has critiqued for not “paying their fair share.”
“We understand the importance of the greatest military alliance the world has ever known,” she said.
Trump has repeatedly questioned U.S. support of Ukraine’s war effort, rallying many of his allied Republicans to vote against military aid. Congress has approved several multimillion-dollar military aid packages to assist the Ukrainian front lines.
Trump has consistently said that the spending in Ukraine is too high.
“President Trump believes European nations should be paying more of the cost of the conflict, as the U.S. has paid significantly more, which is not fair to our taxpayers,” Trump adviser Steven Cheung said in a statement back in March.
Harris meanwhile talked about her meetings with Zelenskyy and many of the current operations and agreements to support Ukraine, essentially backing a continuation of the Biden administration’s strategy in the region.
“Because of our support, because of the air defense, the ammunition, the artillery, the javelins, the Abrams tanks that we have provided, Ukraine stands as an independent and free country,” Harris said.
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John T. Seward is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.