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In 2023, Trump told CNN: "If I'm president, I will have that war settled in one day, 24 hours." It's a claim he repeated several times. BBC

The sentence was said when he wasn't a president. So, it is a sentence about an unreal situation in terms of English grammer.

At school we were taught that in English Language, The Conditional Type 2 is used when talking about an unreal sitaution (hypotetically). For instance, if you are not rich, you would say: "If I were richer, I would buy a house". So far so good.

But, then, as for the above sentence, why is it not: "If I were ...., I would have ...."?

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    Because Donald Trump does not follow the same grammar book you were taught from. ESL/EFL books are often not a good match for how ordinary people speak English, and Trump's use of English is highly individual. Don't copy him. Instead look at some of the questions here about conditionals: you'll see that what you're taught is not how native speakers talk. Commented Jan 23 at 16:31
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    It is not an irrealis situation but a future condition. If the parking lot is full when I get there, I will have to find a spot on the street. Commented Jan 23 at 17:58
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    Methinks people are too eager to call Trump's statement a mistake. I don't think this particular example is a mistake or particularly nonstandard English at all. Commented Jan 23 at 19:48
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    @Lambie I don't see any contextual mistake, just an expression of a different degree of certainty. "If I am late again, I will be fired" expresses possibility that you might be late and get fired. On the other hand, "When I am late again, I will be fired" expresses certainty that you will at some point be late and get fired. It is perfectly reasonable to describe an uncertain future scenario with an "if", not a "when". Commented Jan 23 at 19:49
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    It comes from eating his own word salads. He has IBS, irritable brain syndrome. Commented Jan 23 at 21:17

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Note that the "if" of a 1st conditional, despite being in the simple present, can be a future event.

If I am sick on Saturday, the team will not have enough players to play.

I could be feeling fine right now, but that doesn't make the "am sick" unreal, because it refers to a future situation. You could even say:

If I'm sick, the team won't have enough players to play on Saturday.

Again, the context means that "if I'm sick" is about Saturday, not right now.

So in this case, you could probably understand Trump's statement as an elision of

If I am elected president, I will have that war settled...

which is a passive voice type-1 conditional talking about what he'll do if he wins the 2024 election. It's clear from context he's talking about the potential future presidency, not the unreal situation of him being president in 2023.

You're right that if he was talking about what he would do if he was president at that moment in 2023, that would be an unreal situation, and so the type 2 would be appropriate.

If I were president, I would have that war settled...

Finally, the 4 types of conditional are a useful learning tool, but they're not really reflective of natural speech. They're useful for constructing sentences, because if you follow the pattern it always works. But native speakers aren't taught conditionals as 4 types, and many conditionals don't fall into those categories.

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  • "If I am elected president, I will have that war settled." How is this sentence in passive voice? Commented Jan 24 at 6:14
  • @JamesMathai, an active-voice equivalent is If the voters elect me president… True, the passive is in the subordinate clause. Commented Jan 24 at 14:34
  • @PaulTanenbaum Trump's original words are "In 2023, Trump told CNN: "If I'm president, I will have that war settled in one day, 24 hours." It's a claim he repeated several times. Commented Jan 25 at 0:23
  • OK, @JamesMathai, my comment was merely answering your comment. Clearly, If I'm president is grammatically different from If I am elected president, which is in the passive. Commented Jan 25 at 3:26

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