Republican presidential primary

On Saturday, Donald Trump stood out among Republican presidential candidates when he offered an initial statement that was relatively noninterventionist in reaction to the Hamas attack that occurred that day. But, later on Saturday, Trump, speaking at a campaign event in Waterloo, Iowa, confirmed that he, just like the rest of the field, is committed to advancing the United States government supporting Israel in the rising conflict. At the campaign rally Trump commented:

In a post last week, I pondered whether Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis would stand up against talk by frontrunner Donald Trump, and several other Republican presidential primary candidates, favorable to the United States going to war against Mexico.A week later, it appears the answer is “no.” Instead of opposing the call for war on Mexico, DeSantis is advocating for it.The DeSantis campaign released this week a position paper titled “Mission: Stop the Invasion — No Excuses.” It includes the following statement of a commitment by DeSantis that puts him squarely in the camp of

On April 10, I wrote about Republican presidential candidates being open to pursuing war on Mexico — sending the US military into Mexico to fight drug cartels despite the opposition of the Mexico government to such intervention. Mexican-American War II advocates, I noted, included candidates Donald Trump, Asa Hutchinson, and Vivek Ramaswamy. It turns out the list of Republican presidential candidates open to such US military action is longer.

On February 8, I wrote about indications that Donald Trump may run as the peace candidate in the 2024 Republican presidential primary. Concluding, I commented, “We’ll see if Trump follows through with this campaign strategy.” This week, the Trump campaign released a new video of Trump speaking about matters related to war and peace. The video indicates that Trump is indeed following through on that peace candidate campaign strategy.

A Monday article at Politico makes the case that Donald Trump will likely be running as the peace candidate among individuals vying to be the 2024 Republican presidential nominee. The article’s authors — Meridith McGraw, Natalie Allison, and Gary Fineout— write:

Those close to Trump’s campaign operation say he plans to try and paint himself as an anti-war dove amongst the hawks. They believe doing so will resonate with GOP voters who are divided on, but growing wary of, continued support for Ukraine in its war with Russia.