TRUMP: They dont need an election. No one is telling me the people of Ukraine are satisfied having missiles coming down on them. But Russia is a massive country, and they can lose more men. Ukraine does't have that kind of manpower.

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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It was supposed to be a very much, you know, a very quick war.

And if you remember, the tanks going up the highway right into Kyiv, had the general, who was obviously not a very good general, not made a right turn into farmland, which was soaked and soaking wet from the heaviest rain in 10 years.

They say he went right up into the mud, and it was like quicksand, and those tanks.

So they got, I guess, I don't know if you call it lucky or not lucky, frankly, because it's been five years, and Ukraine has lost a tremendous-you know, Ukraine has lost so many of its men, and Russia too.

But Russia is a massive country. Russia has millions of people, 150 million people.

[UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER]: Does that war end before you leave office?

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It should end soon. I think they actually both would like to see it end, but I find Zelensky to be more difficult to deal with than Putin.

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I watched an interview of a young woman the other day from Ukraine, and she said, "President Zelensky has destroyed our country. President Zelenskyy has taken our men away from us. Our men have no legs, no arms. Our men are, in many cases, in mental institutions or they're dead."

They need a two-month pause to hold elections, to make that a possibility. So we'll see what happens.

[UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER]: Let me ask you, you mentioned-

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think you need an election because there's nobody that's telling me that the people of Ukraine are satisfied having missiles hitting their apartment building.

But there's truth because Russia's a massive country, and Russia can lose a million men, and they have lots of other millions of men behind them. Ukraine doesn't have that kind of manpower.

Now, at the same time, they're a much smaller-they have the best equipment in the world given by the United States.

We have the best equipment. We make the best military equipment in the world by far.