This study conducts a comparative Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of speeches delivered by U.S. Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump on the Ukraine War between 2021 and 2025. Employing an integrated analytical framework that combines Fairclough’s three-dimensional model with van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach and ideological square, the research examines a balanced corpus of 20 speeches (10 per speaker) across three distinct phases of the conflict: Pre-invasion (2021–early 2022), Escalation (mid-2022), and Aid Debates (2023–2025). The analysis addresses four research questions concerning (1) key discursive strategies, (2) diachronic rhetorical shifts, (3) ideological stances constructed through linguistic patterns, and (4) the reinforcement or contestation of dominant U.S. foreign policy discourses. Findings reveal that Biden consistently employs multilateralist-idealist rhetoric, characterized by institutional lexicon (e.g., “NATO,” “alliance”), inclusive pronouns, moral binaries (“democracy vs. autocracy”), and metaphors of unity and resilience, to reinforce post–Cold War liberal-institutionalist discourse. In contrast, Trump deploys nationalist-skeptical rhetoric, marked by transactional framing (“deals,” “costs”), exclusive U.S.-centric pronouns, negative collocations (“corrupt,” “quagmire”), and hypothetical assertions of personal efficacy, to revive Jacksonian “America First” discourse and contest multilateral commitments. The study further demonstrates that these strategies evolve diachronically: Biden’s rhetoric intensifies in moral urgency and institutional entrenchment as the war persists, while Trump’s shifts toward explicit isolationism, ceasefire advocacy, and territorial pragmatism. These divergent trajectories reflect a real-time ideological contestation over America’s global role, revealing how elite discourse functions not merely as description but as an active site of hegemonic struggle. By bridging micro-linguistic analysis with macro-political ideology, this research contributes to CDA scholarship by elucidating the dialectics of language, power, and foreign policy in an era of democratic polarization.
