“Obama gave them [Ukraine] sheets, and I gave them Javelins.”

"Sheets" is a gross distortion: after Russia's 2014 seizure of Crimea the Obama administration committed more than $600 million in security assistance to Ukraine by July 2016, including counter-artillery and counter-mortar radars, secure communications, tactical drones, body armor, vehicles, and night and thermal vision devices, according to White House fact sheets from 2014 and 2016.

There is a kernel of truth: Obama declined Ukraine's 2014 request for lethal weapons such as Javelin anti-tank missiles, and Trump's first administration approved Javelin sales in 2018. But casting all Obama-era aid as "sheets" recycles a line Trump has used since 2019, and erases years of substantial military equipment and training.

Trump also omits his own record: in the summer of 2019 his Office of Management and Budget withheld about $214 million in Defense Department security assistance for Ukraine, the aid at the center of his first impeachment. The Government Accountability Office found the hold was for a policy reason and violated the Impoundment Control Act.

"Blankets and night vision goggles are important, but one cannot win a war with a blanket." — Then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to Congress, September 2014 — the origin of the talking point Trump distorts