Trump Seems To Confuse Ukraine and Iran: ‘They’re Defeated’

President Donald Trump seemed to confuse two different ongoing wars on Wednesday, telling CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that Ukraine was “defeated.”

The president spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday to discuss their respective wars. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office later that day that Putin seemed open to ending the four-year conflict with Ukraine “relatively quickly,” characterizing their discussion as a “good conversation.”

“I talked about Ukraine, and I talked a little bit about Iran. I talked about a few different subjects, mostly about Ukraine. And we had a very good conversation,” he said. “I think we’re going to come up with a solution relatively quickly, I hope.”

The president told press that the bulk of the conversation focused on Ukraine, weaving between discussion of both conflicts as he answered questions about the call.

“Well, we talked more about the war in Ukraine, but he would like to be of help. I said before you help me, I want to end your war,” he said. “So we had a good talk. I’ve known him a long time. I think he was ready to make a deal a while ago. I think some people made it difficult for him to make a deal. But we talked more about Ukraine.”

But when pressed by Collins about which war he believed would end first, Trump seemed to lose track of which war was where, confidently proclaiming that Ukraine’s navy was “underwater,” most of its missiles were “gone,” and their nameless money was “valueless” – a description more likely meant for his war in Iran.

“Which war would end first? I don’t know, maybe they’re on a similar timetable,” said Trump.

He continued:

I think Ukraine militarily, they’re defeated, okay. You wouldn’t know that by reading the fake news, but militarily, look, they’re navy– so they had 159 ships. Every ship is right now underwater. Typically, that’s pretty good. What do you think, Jared [Isaacman]? I mean, it’s going to be hard for them to make a naval comeback. Okay. Now they have an air force. Every one of their planes has been shot down or has been decimated. They have missiles. About 82% are gone. And they have drones. And most of them are gone. Most of the factories are mostly gone. And we have tremendous anti-drone equipment, now, between lasers and that new, very special machine gun that knocks them out of the air like flies, and we use bullets instead of million dollar missiles to knock out a $30,000 drone.

So I would say Jared would tell me that with everything you just heard, typically we’re in pretty good shape. And in addition, their economy is crashing their, as you know, their money, they call it their money. They don’t have a name for it. Their money is valueless. Uh, they’ve got inflation that nobody’s ever seen before. Other than that, I think they’re doing quite well. If you read The New York Times, you’d say they’re doing wonderfully because it’s fake news. Or if you watch CNN, I mean, you cover it all the time. You think they’re doing well. Do you think they’re doing well where they have no navy, no air force, no anti-aircraft apparatus other than what they may have put there. They may have brought in some light stuff during the cease fire. And we know exactly where it is. So it will be knocked out within the first 15 minutes.

Trump’s mention of a ceasefire and his use of the word “we” when discussing military intelligence also seem to suggest that the president named the wrong country in his answer.

Collins later mentioned the flub on Wednesday’s edition of The Lead, noting after a clip of their exchange, “I believe he meant Iran there because he then went on to talk about their Navy being destroyed.”

Watch above via CNN.

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