Trump claims better handling of Ukraine than Biden or Harris
Analyzing the article
ABC News
Our Analysis: 3 Fallacies
I want the war to stop. I want to save lives that are being uselessly -- people being killed...
Look, we're in for $250 billion or more because they don't ask Europe, which is a much bigger beneficiary to getting this thing done than we are....
With that being said, I want to get the war settled. I know Zelenskyy very well and I know Putin very well. I have a good relationship. And they respect your president. Okay? They respect me... That is a war that's dying to be settled. I will get it settled before I even become president. If I win, when I'm President-Elect, and what I'll do is I'll speak to one, I'll speak to the other, I'll get them together.
While Trump reasonably calls for negotiating an end to the conflict and ensuring that military spending is fairly distributed among NATO partners, he also makes questionable claims about causation of the war and resorts to dehumanizing language about Biden, thereby detracting from his substantive points.
1. hasty generalization • Trump uses an exaggerated number in describing how many people have died so far in the war in Ukraine.
...people being killed by the millions...
Estimates of deaths in times of war are difficult, and often both sides of the conflict exaggerate or downplay various numbers. Official reports of "confirmed" deaths are used to build a broader estimate that accounts for deaths that are unconfirmed but likely.
Despite the inevitable variance in estimates, Trump pushes the number to an unreasonably high level when he says "millions." Credible estimates of deaths on both sides, including both military and civilians, come in at around 250,000 -- far short of "millions".
2. post hoc ergo propter hoc • Trump suggests that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a direct consequence of Harris's involvement in negotiations, specifically citing her discussions with Zelenskyy and an unfounded claim of talks with Putin, and attributing the conflict's initiation to her actions, with the war starting shortly thereafter.
She was the emissary. They sent her in to negotiate with Zelenskyy and Putin. And she did and the war started three days later.
This assertion overlooks the complex, longstanding geopolitical tensions that predate Harris's involvement and simplifies the causality of the invasion, ignoring the broader context of international relations and the accumulation of factors leading to the conflict.
3. loaded language • Trump uses the loaded and dehumanizing phrase "threw him out like a dog" to describe Biden leaving the 2020 campaign trail. He also casts doubt on Biden's legitimacy as president with the rhetorical questions.
"They threw him out of a campaign like a dog. We don't even know, is he our president? But we have a president..."
This kind of charged, subjective language, when it is leveraged argumentatively, is a fallacy.
References
- Donald Trump (2024, Sep 10). Trump on Ukraine: Topic #8 of the Presidential Debate of Sep. 10th, 2024.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/harris-trump-presidential-debate-transcript/story?id=113560542
Disclaimer
Note that there being one or more apparent fallacies in the arguments presented in this article does not mean that every argument the arguer made was fallacious, nor does it mean there are not other arguments in existence for the same or similar position that are logically valid. Also note that checking for fallacies is not the same as verification of the premises the arguer starts from, such as facts that the arguer asserts or principles that the arguer assumes as the foundation for constructing arguments. For more about this, see our 'What is Fallacy Checking?'
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