During the scare over secondhand smoke, and the flurry of smoking bans in public spaces, 60,000 annual deaths from it was frequently cited. Actually, numbers varied from 20,000 to 120,000. When it came down to it, they were numbers pulled out of a hat. Once repeated, they had a life of their own. President Trump does it too.
In yesterday’s Truth Social post, Trump blithely threw out $350 billion in aid to Ukraine. Where did the number come from? Further, where’s the source for “half of the money we sent him is ‘MISSING’”? Not the Inspector General for Ukraine Aid, not the Center for Strategic and International Studies (see #2), not the Kiel Institute which studies international aid to Ukraine. You might counter that he’s president and therefore he must know. That’s not proof; that’s an act of faith.
Going back to the U.S. inspector general of “Ukraine Oversight”, $183 billion was promised and $86.7 billion delivered (see #3). The denizens of the far-Right fever swamps have mentioned $100 billion “missing”, stolen, wasted. Applying the two known numbers, ones that can be sourced, the $100 billion is roughly the difference between what was promised and given. If true, possibly, $100 billion is “missing” because it was never delivered.
President Zelensky in an AP interview of early February cited $177 billion earmarked by the U.S. but only $75 billion sent (see #4). These might be the numbers used in a Kiel Institute study (see #5). The point is that these numbers can be sourced. Where did President Trump’s numbers originate? No source is available, leaving one to entertain the option of them bursting from DJT’s imagination, a frequent occurrence.
I suspect that the press gaggle comment from Tuesday – “You should have never started it” – and the Truth Social rant of Wednesday are connected. In the one, President Trump put his foot in his mouth, up to the ankle, and halfway down the throat. Then, he tried to repair the damage by bloviating with more inanities.
Trump doesn’t understand the first rule of holes. Stop digging!
RogerG
Sources:
1. Thanks to Jim Geraghty for the numbers and sources at “Get Ukraine into the European Union”, National Review, 2/21/2025, at https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/get-ukraine-into-the-european-union/?utm_source=recirc-desktop&utm_medium=homepage&utm_campaign=hero&utm_content=related&utm_term=first
2. “Where Is the Missing $100 Billion in U.S. Aid for Ukraine?”, Mark F. Cancian, CSIS, 2/11/2025, at https://www.csis.org/analysis/where-missing-100-billion-us-aid-ukraine
3. “Funding”, Ukraine Oversight: Special Inspector General for Operation Atlantic Resolve, Promoting Whole of Government Oversight of the U.S. Ukraine Response; at https://www.ukraineoversight.gov/Funding/#:~:text=Fiscal%20Year%20(FY)%202022%2D,obligated%20and%20%2486.7%20billion%20disbursed.
4. AP interview of President Zelensky, “Zelenskyy: Ukraine received US$76 billion out of US$177 billion approved by America”, 2/2/2025, Reddit, at https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1igjyyl/zelenskyy_ukraine_received_us76_billion_out_of/
5. “Ukraine Support Tracker Data”, Antezza, A., et al, Kiel Institute for the World Economy, 2/20/2025, at https://www.ifw-kiel.de/publications/ukraine-support-tracker-data-20758/