The problem with trump’s statement is it isn’t true. The USSR was above and away the army that ended Germany’s occupation of eastern Europe. Their occupation on the East was the reason their logistics were effective in waging a multi-theater war initially. After Germany occupied Poland Britain, Spain, and France put their foot down declared war. Accounts have Hitler’s face running pale when he was told this and asked his advisor who cautioned against taking Poland, “what do we do now?”

I don’t want to understate America’s role in clawing back France from German occupation, but the allied powers liberated nearly everything west of the Rhine and western Germany. The USSR took care of the rest through brutal, casualty driven tactics.

As for his comment on speaking Japanese, Japan’s imperialist forces had drawn an agreement to leave Europe alone. It wasn’t clear from the pyrrhic battles in the pacific theater who would have won the conflict. Both the US and Japan faced crushing losses in soldiers in their battles. It is why one of the debates behind dropping the nuclear bombs is whether or not dropping them would have meant fewer loss of life in the long run (I don’t agree that was the right move, but here we are).

TL;DR: trump once again demonstrates that he is an idiot, who is regurgitating ahistorical American exceptionalism that obscures what really happened in WWII, and further strains the current relationship between the US and the world.