After President Donald Trump told a “bunch of lies” on “Meet the Press” — abruptly cutting off the interview and walking out — CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale zeroed in on one of the most consequential: Trump’s claim that he never promised any wars in his second term.

“First of all, I didn’t guarantee no war,” Trump told NBC’s Kristen Welker. “So when you say I promised – I didn’t promise anything. I don’t like these endless wars. This is not an endless war.”

On Monday, Dale served up half a dozen examples from the 2024 campaign when Trump said there would be no wars, and several times when he hedged but also declared there would be no wars.

“Trump repeatedly promised in 2024 that the US would not have any wars during his second presidency,” Dale reported. “Though it’s true that he often deployed some nuance on the subject – for example, vowing to end ‘endless’ wars or prevent ‘World War III’ – he unequivocally pledged on other occasions that the US wouldn’t get involved in wars, period.”

In June 2024, as Dale noted, candidate Trump wrote on Truth Social, “As every American saw firsthand, this election is a choice between strength or weakness, competence or incompetence, peace and prosperity or war and no war.”

The following month at the Republican National Convention, Trump declared, “With our victory in November, the years of war, weakness, and chaos will be over. I don’t have wars.”

“Under Trump, we will have no more wars, no more disruptions, and we will have prosperity and peace for all,” he said in August 2024.

That same month, Trump “approvingly” cited then-Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Dale wrote, who Trump claimed to have said: “Make sure that Trump gets re-elected president and you’re not going to have any more wars.”

Trump himself “reiterated” moments later, “No more wars. No more disruptions. We will have prosperity and we will have peace.”

In October, Trump revisited those remarks: “Viktor Orbán said, ‘If Trump comes back, you won’t have any wars. You won’t have any wars.’ And he’s about as tough as they get, and he said it loud and clear and he said why. But you won’t have any wars.”

Dale continued, pointing to Trump’s “clear promise” in his November 2024 victory address.

“Four years, we had no wars, except we defeated ISIS,” Trump said. “They said, ‘He will start a war.’ I’m not going to start a war, I’m going to stop wars.”

Dale concluded that people “can have a reasonable debate about whether these kinds of comments were likely to be interpreted by some voters as a promise not to get the country involved in wars in a second term,” but, as for Trump’s “I didn’t promise anything” claim, “the record shows that Trump explicitly made a no-future-wars promise multiple times.”

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As President Donald Trump’s Iran war enters its fourth month, a prominent retired Lt. General is pressing the commander-in-chief to level with U.S. troops in the Middle East and tell them whether a plan exists.

Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling (Ret.) served as commander of U.S. Army Europe from 2011 to 2012. He also served in Iraq.

Writing at The Bulwark, Hertling pointed to President Trump’s explosive “Meet the Press” interview from Sunday, citing his remarks that it “costs us very little” to keep troops where they are.

“I think we’ll keep them there until such time as we have a completion,” Trump told NBC’s Kristen Welker. “And when we have a completion, you will see things like you’ve never seen.”

Hertling says that while the president may not have intended more than quick remarks, those remarks “land differently” for America’s military families, deployed service members, and allies. He warns, “comments from senior leaders matter.”

“They raise questions that should have been answered long ago,” says Hertling. “Is there a plan? Is there a timeline? Has a decision been made? Has anyone informed the commanders and troops whose lives will be affected as to whether they might stay or go?”

There was also Trump’s remark that he doesn’t define whether his Iran excursion is an actual war: “I don’t think about it. I just do what I have to do.”

Hertling recounted his time in Iraq, when his division had been in combat for a year and was planning to return home. One-third of the 20,000 troops had already left, but when the “security situation deteriorated” and violence increased “dramatically,” rumors quickly spread that the troops might be forced to cancel their return home and extend their stay.

“Soldiers began asking questions: Were we staying? For how long? What did this mean for families already preparing for our return?” he wrote. “Eventually, the decision came through official channels: The division would remain in Iraq. Even the soldiers who had already returned home would have to come back.”

While the “disappointment was searing,” troops and their families understood, because the decision to stay “was tempered by mission clarity.”

“The mission had changed because conditions on the ground had changed,” he explained. “The decision came through the chain of command. Commanders explained the operational realities. Soldiers understood the purpose, even if they didn’t like the outcome. Nobody celebrated the extension, but most accepted it because they understood why it was necessary.”

America’s soldiers can take bad news, says Hertling. They can handle “hardship, separation, and danger far longer than most people imagine—as long as the mission is clear and they know all the sacrifice is worth it.”

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A judge on Friday tossed out a lawsuit brought by the Kennedy Center against an artist who withdrew from a performance after the organization’s board voted to add President Donald Trump’s name to the venue, The Washington Post reports.

The artist, jazz musician Chuck Redd, pulled out over what he called “the defiant and illegal name change happening to the Kennedy Center,” according to the Post.

But, as D.C. Superior Court Judge Tanya Jones Bosier found, Kennedy Center officials had not made a legally binding agreement with Redd, and there could be no breach of contract claim as a result.

“There’s no dispute that he did not sign the 2025 agreement,” the judge said.

In a statement, Redd’s attorney, Lisa Banks, said Redd had been sued “because he publicly and rightly objected to adding Donald Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center, a living memorial to former President John F. Kennedy.”

Banks called the lawsuit “political retribution, pure and simple, by the Trump Kennedy Center,” and said that “the Court correctly saw it as such in dismissing the case with prejudice.”

According to the Post, after Redd withdrew, then-Kennedy Center president Richard Grenell said in a letter to Redd, “This is your official notice that we will seek $1 million in damages from you for this political stunt.”

In December, Redd told the Associated Press, “When I saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building, I chose to cancel our concert.”

On Thursday, the general counsel for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts ordered Trump’s name to “immediately” be removed from the building after a federal judge found adding the president’s name to the Center was unlawful, The New York Times reported.

“The memo gave staff members detailed instructions on the materials that needed to be updated, including social media accounts, email signatures and voice mail messages,” the Times reported. “It specified that outdoor and indoor signage with the barred name must be altered by June 12.”

Late last month, a federal judge ordered that President Donald Trump could not rename the Kennedy Center, nor could he close it for what the Trump administration said were two years of renovations.

“The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so,” the judge wrote, CNBC reported. “Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.”

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