DETROIT (WWJ) — During his seventh campaign stop of the year in Michigan on Monday, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump vowed he would prevent “World War III” and “restore world peace.”
The former president spoke Monday at the National Guard Association of the United States’ General Conference & Exhibition, focusing mainly on foreign policy, the defense budget and securing the country’s borders.
He told the crowd of hundreds of National Guard officers from across the country gathering at Huntington Place in Detroit that “America’s future is under threat like never before.”
“We have people that are fighting all over the place and threatening our country as we speak. I don’t think we’ve ever been closer to World War III than we are right now. It’s a terrible thing,” Trump said.
His remarks come more than two years into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and nearly a year after the start of the Israel-Hamas war in the Middle East.
Trump said if he’s elected in November, he would help to end the Russia-Ukraine war “very fast,” telling the National Guard crowd he doesn’t want them “over there.”
“When I’m back in the White House, we will expel the warmongers, the profiteers and take over our government and we will restore world peace and it will again be peace through strength,” Trump said.
Listen to Trump's full speech at Huntington Place:
Roughly 10 minutes into Trump’s remarks, former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard — who ran for the Democratic nomination in 2020 — took the stage to endorse Trump. Her endorsement comes three days after former Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dropped out of the race as an independent candidate and endorsed Trump.
Gabbard, who deployed to Iraq in 2005 with the National Guard, agreed the country is “closer to the brink of nuclear war than we ever have been before” and said the current Democratic administration has the U.S. “facing multiple wars on multiple fronts.”
"I am confident that his first task will be to do the work to walk us back from the brink of war," Gabbard said. "We cannot be prosperous unless we are at peace."
Trump also claimed that his opponents — current Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz — are “promising the exact opposite,” claiming they “want endless war, open borders, voting rights and free healthcare for illegal aliens, Soviet-style price control, censorship, unlimited migration from ‘terrorist hotspots’ and unchecked power for the deep state.’”
Trump will be back in Michigan on Thursday, scheduled to speak at a steel plant in Potterville, just west of Lansing. His Vice Presidential nominee, JD Vance, will be in Big Rapids on Tuesday.