U.S. President Donald Trump poses with FIFA President Gianni Infantino as he meets with members of the Juventus Football Club team in the Oval Office, Washington, D.C., U.S., June, 18, 2025. Doug Mills/Pool via REUTERS
President Donald Trump, speaking about war as he attempts to decide whether or not to actively support Israel by bombing Iran, appeared to confuse America’s war for independence —the Revolutionary War—with America’s Civil War.
Asked in the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon if he’s made a decision about what, if anything, he will do regarding Iran, the President told reporters, “I have ideas as to what to do, but I haven’t made a final.”
“I like to make the final decisions one second before it’s due, you know, ’cause things change. I mean, especially with war, things change with war, it can go from one extreme to the other.”
“War’s very bad. There was no reason for this to be a war,” he said, apparently about Israel and Iran.
“There was no reason for Russia, Ukraine. A lot of wars, there was no reason for.”
“You look right up there,” Trump said, pointing to the wall, “I don’t know, you see the Declaration of Independence, and I say, I wonder if you, you know, the Civil War always seemed to me maybe that could have been solved without losing 600,000 plus people.”
The Declaration of Independence was America’s declaration it would no longer be ruled by England. It effectively became a declaration of war: the American Revolutionary War, or the American War of Independence, which lasted from 1775 to 1783.
By contrast, the American Civil War was fought in the following century, from 1861 to 1865, over slavery.
Critics were quick to mock the President.
“I think we all remember our schooling, when we learned how the Declaration of Independence led to the Civil War,” snarked former journalist Landon Hall.
“As a Canadian, even I know that the Declaration of Independence has absolutely zero to do with the Civil War, what is going on down there?” asked filmmaker Robert Fantinatto.
“Does he think the Declaration of Independence was written in response to the Civil War?
What is he talking about?” asked attorney Robyn J Leader.
Watch the video below or at this link.
Trump: “You look right up there. I don't know, see the Declaration of Independence and I say, ‘I wonder if you know the Civil War. It always seemed to me maybe that could have been solved without losing 600,000 plus people.’” pic.twitter.com/tKaPrvERXA
— Republican Accountability (@AccountableGOP) June 18, 2025