Trump Says The U.S. Civil War Could Have Been ‘Negotiated’ – And Might Have Been Avoided If Lincoln Hadn’t Made ‘So Many Mistakes’

On January 6, former President Donald Trump declared that the U.S. Civil War could have been “negotiated” – and might not have happened at all.

He made these remarks during a campaign rally taking place in Newton, Iowa, ahead of the state’s caucuses on January 15.

“The [American] Civil War was so fascinating,” Trump stated. “It was so horrible, it was so fascinating. It was – I don’t know, it was just different.”

“I’m so attracted to seeing it,” he confessed. “So many mistakes were made. See, there was something I think could’ve been negotiated to be honest with you – I think you could have negotiated that.”

“All the people died – so many people died,” the former president added. “If you got hit by a bullet in the leg, you were essentially going to die or lose the leg, that’s why you had so many people, no legs, no arms. If you got hit in the arm or the leg, it meant you were – because of the infection, gangrene. It was just such a – you know, sort of a – horrible time.”

“I was thinking to myself because I was reading something and I said, ‘This is something that could have been negotiated, you know, it was just for all those people to die, and they died viciously. That was a vicious, vicious war,” Trump said. “But I think it’s, you know, Abraham Lincoln, of course, if he negotiated, you probably wouldn’t even know who Abraham Lincoln was. He would’ve been president, but he wouldn’t be the Abraham Lincoln.”

“It would have been different but that would’ve been okay,” Trump continued. “It would have been a thing that – and I know it very well – I know the whole process that they went through, and they just couldn’t get along. That would’ve have been something that could have been negotiated, and they wouldn’t have had that problem. But it was a h— of a time.”

His comments caused outrage on social media, particularly on X.

“Which part of the Civil War ‘could have been negotiated’? The slavery part? The secession part? Whether Lincoln should have preserved the Union? Question for members of the GOP—the party of Lincoln—who have endorsed Donald Trump: How can you possibly defend this?” former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) wrote on X.

On the same day as Cheney shared her response, journalist Ahmed Baba also wrote a negative response to Trump’s comments on X.

“There is no compromise on whether or not Black people should be enslaved,” Baba claimed. “They tried that with the Missouri Compromise—it only separated slave states and free states and led to the Civil War. So no, slavery couldn’t have been ‘negotiated.’ It was slavery or no slavery.”

Former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-South Carolina) also got into hot water with her Civil War history, declaring that it was not caused by slavery. She later backtracked on her comments.

It was revealed last week that Trump’s companies received at least $7.8 million from foreign governments during just two years of his term, mostly from China.