Blog

Rep. Mike Lawler discusses Republicans’ reaction to the tense Trump-Zelenskyy meeting

NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe talks with Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., about U.S.-Ukraine policy following Friday’s combative meeting between Presidents Trump and Zelenskyy.

Maine faces federal investigation after Gov. Janet Mills told Trump, ‘See you in court’

After Maine Gov. Janet Mills told Pres. Trump “See you in court,” her state is facing federal investigations.

CNN  — 

The American public’s view of Donald Trump’s presidency and the direction he’s leading the country is more negative than positive just ahead of his first formal address to Congress since returning to office, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.

The survey finds that across three basic measures of Trump’s performance on the job – his approval rating, whether he has the right priorities and whether his policies are taking the country in the right direction – the negative side outpaces the positive.

Overall, 52% disapprove of Trump’s performance in office, with 48% approving, about the same as in a CNN poll in mid-February. The poll was completed before Friday’s angry exchange in the Oval Office between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and does not reflect public opinion on that event.

Trump continues to be broadly popular with Republicans (90% of whom approve of his handling of the job) and unpopular among Democrats (90% disapprove), while disapproval among independents is approaching 6 in 10: 41% approve and 59% disapprove. Earlier in February, a similar 43% of independents approved and 56% disapproved.

Trump’s 48% approval rating ahead of his initial address to Congress is higher than it was in 2017 before that year’s speech at the Capitol. Trump’s appearances before Congress during his first term did little to move the needle on his approval rating: None of his four speeches resulted in a change to his approval rating of more than 3 percentage points. Trump will be addressing a country that is largely greeting his policy proposals with skepticism. More Americans see Trump’s policy proposals as taking the country in the wrong direction (45%) than the right one (39%), with 15% expressing no opinion on the question. In early March of 2017, just after that first-term initial address to Congress, Americans split about evenly over whether Trump’s policies would lead the right way or the wrong one, but by the following January, they said by a 12-point margin that his policies were pointing the nation in the wrong direction.

A majority also say Trump has not paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems (52% feel that way), with 40% saying he has had the right priorities and another 8% unsure. Doubts about the president’s priorities extend to a small but notable share of those who express support for the president on other measures in the poll: 12% of those who approve of the way Trump has handled the presidency and 9% of those who say his policies move the country in the right direction say his priorities haven’t yet been in the right place. And among his own partisans, 18% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say he hasn’t yet focused on the most important issues. Fewer than 1 in 10 who align with the Democratic Party see him as focused on the right things.

Demographic trends in views of the president have largely held steady since earlier in the month. Overall, Trump’s approval rating remains deeply underwater among younger adults (41% of those ages 18 to 34 approve), Hispanic adults (41% approve) and Black adults (28% approve). Women break sharply negative (57% disapprove to 42% approve), while men generally approve (54% approve to 46% disapprove). Trump maintains an approval rating north of 60% among Whites without college degrees (61% approve).

Younger Americans are among those most likely to see Trump as taking the country the wrong way: 51% of those age 18 to 34 feel that way vs. 31% who say he’s taking it in the right direction, and 61% in this group say he hasn’t paid enough attention to the country’s most pressing problems. Just 14% of Black adults and 31% of Hispanic adults see Trump’s policies as going in the right direction, with roughly two-thirds or more in each group saying Trump’s priorities are off (69% among Black adults, 64% among Hispanics). Independents also break negative on Trump’s policies and are 20 points more likely to say Trump is taking the country down the wrong path than the right one.

Opinions of his policies among these groups, though, remain less than fully settled. Roughly one-quarter of independents currently say they don’t have an opinion on how Trump’s proposals will affect the nation, as do 21% of Americans of color and 18% of those younger than 45.

The CNN Poll was conducted by SSRS from February 24-28 among a random national sample of 2,212 adults drawn from a probability-based panel. Surveys were either conducted online or by telephone with a live interviewer. Results among the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.

CNN’s Ariel Edwards-Levy and Edward Wu contributed to this report.

Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker

This page either does not exist or is currently unavailable.

From here you can either hit the “back” button on your browser to return to the previous page, or visit the ABCNews.com Home Page. You can also search for something on our site below.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said the UK and France are to work with Ukraine “on a plan to stop the fighting” with Russia – and will then “discuss that plan with the United States”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is due at a summit of European leaders, two days after a fiery exchange with US President Donald Trump in the White House.

Sir Keir told BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg that his “driving purpose” right now was to act as a “bridge” between the two men.

Asked about how he felt watching the spat in the White House, Sir Keir sought to play down the incident, saying “nobody wants to see that” and admitted he felt “uncomfortable”.

The PM’s response was to pick up the phone to his counterparts Trump and Zelensky that same night, in an effort to “get us back to the central focus”, he said.

“There are a number of different routes people can go down. One is to ramp up the rhetoric as to how outraged we all are or not.”

He said the other option was to “roll up my sleeves” and quickly phone both men – and then also to speak to French President Emmanuel Macron about the role that the leading nations of Europe would play.

“Because my reaction was we have to bridge this, we have to find a way that we can all work together because in the end we’ve had three years of bloody conflict now, we need to get to that lasting peace”.

He also dismissed calls by SNP first minister John Swinney to cancel the invite for a second state visit to the UK by Trump.

Sir Keir said: “I’m not going to be diverted by the SNP or others trying to ramp up the rhetoric without really appreciating what is the single most important thing at stake here – we’re talking about peace in Europe.”

The prime minister received support from Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, who said the state visit should be used to secure guarantees for Ukraine.

He said: “I think we should use every single card that we have, and I think it should be made clear to the White House that the state visit would be a genuine one, we would welcome him here, but on condition that he steps up – that the US steps up to work with the UK and Europe to support and defend Ukraine.”

In his interview, Sir Keir was careful to avoid laying any blame for the row and insisted he was “clear in my mind” that Trump “wants a lasting peace”, answering “yes” when asked directly if he believed Trump could be trusted.

Zelensky could also be trusted, he added, but not Russian President Vladimir Putin – which is the reason the US needs to provide a security guarantee for any peace deal.

The prime minister acknowledged that a European security guarantee would have to be led by a “coalition of the willing”.

Sir Keir said that “Europeans have stood up in the last three years” but that “generally Europe needs to do more in its own defence and security and that’s why I’ve said we need to increase spending, we’ve got to increase capability and we’ve got to co-ordinate more because in the Ukraine conflict we’ve seen that the co-ordination isn’t there”.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, also speaking on the Kuenssberg show, gave her backing to the PM over Ukraine, but said it was important to keep the US engaged.

“We need to make sure that America does not disengage, it is in their interest for peace now, if we all get dragged into an escalation, America will get dragged into it eventually,” she told the BBC.

Badenoch also repeated her call for the UK to raise defence spending further, saying it should reach 3% of national income by the end of this Parliament.

Earlier this week, the PM announced he would cut the foreign aid budget to fund an increase in defence funding to 2.5% of national income by 2027, which led to the resignation of his International Development Minister Anneliese Dodds.

The move came after Trump had called on the US’s Nato allies to increase defence spending to 5% of their respective national incomes.

France spends 2.1% on defence and has pledged to double this by 2030.

Sir Keir urged all European nations to review their defence budgets, saying: “Generally Europe needs to do more in its own defence and security and that’s why I’ve said we need to increase spending, we’ve got to increase capability .

Asked to explain what a European “coalition of the willing” he said: “We need to be clear what a European security guarantee [in Ukraine] would look like.

“We’ve got to find those countries in Europe that are prepared to be a bit more forward-leaning.”

He said the UK and France were leading the thinking on it but added: “The more the better in this.”

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was welcomed to Downing Street by the PM shortly befotre the summit, which Sir Keir said they were approaching “with a very similar mindset”.

Meloni spoke to reporters in Downing Street, saying: “We are all very committed about a goal that we all want to achieve, which is a just and lasting peace in Ukraine.

“I think it is very, very important that we avoid the risk that the West divides and I think on this UK and Italy can play an important role in bridge-building.”

WASHINGTON — Key Republicans and Democrats in Congress have been stalwart supporters of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but the blowup between the Ukrainian leader and President Donald Trump is threatening to change that.

Zelensky had traveled to Washington to sign a deal that would give the U.S. access to its mineral riches as Trump attempts to pressure Ukraine into a deal to end the war with Russia. Although support for Ukraine has waned among GOP congressional members in the three years since Russia invaded, key Republicans hoped the deal would revive American support for Kyiv.

Instead, the fallout from a heated Oval Office exchange between Trump, Zelensky and Vice President J.D. Vance has many Republicans — even those who previously backed Ukraine — scolding Zelensky. For other GOP lawmakers who have long criticized U.S. support for Ukraine, the exchange was an opportunity to laud Trump for berating Ukraine’s leader. And for Democrats, it was proof that Trump is playing into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Here’s what congressional lawmakers are saying as the future of Ukraine hangs in the balance:

Republicans who have supported Ukraine in the past

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina

Graham called the meeting a “complete, utter disaster” and said he’s “never been more proud” of Trump.

“What I saw in the Oval office was disrespectful and I don’t know if we can ever do business with Zelensky again.”

SECRETARY OF STATE MARCO RUBIO

“Thank you @POTUS for standing up for America in a way that no President has ever had the courage to do before. Thank you for putting America First. America is with you!”

HOUSE SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana

“The death and destruction of the Russian-provoked war needs to stop immediately, and only our American President can put these two countries on a path to lasting peace. President Zelensky needed to acknowledge that, and accept the extraordinary mineral rights partnership proposal that President Trump put on the table. What we witnessed in the Oval Office today was an American President putting America first.”

REP. DON BACON, Nebraska

“A bad day for America’s foreign policy. Ukraine wants independence, free markets and rule of law. It wants to be part of the West. Russia hates us and our Western values. We should be clear that we stand for freedom.”

REP. MIKE LAWLER, New York

“Diplomacy is tough and often times there are serious differences of opinion and heated exchanges behind closed doors. Having this spill out into public view was a disaster — especially for Ukraine.”

REP. BRIAN FITZPATRICK, Pennsylvania

“It was heartbreaking to witness the turn of events that transpired in today’s meeting regarding Ukraine’s future. It is time to put understandable emotions aside and come back to the negotiation table.”

Republicans who are opposed to Ukraine aid

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri

“Remember: the U.S. Senate has repeatedly and for years voted BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars to Ukraine with no strings attached and with no true oversight. It’s time for some ACCOUNTABILITY.”

SEN. MIKE LEE, Utah

“Thank you for standing up for OUR COUNTRY and putting America first, President Trump and Vice President Vance!”

SEN. ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas

“Not another penny.”

REP. ANDY BIGGS, Arizona

“Dictator Zelensky had the audacity to disrespect President @realDonaldTrump and VP @JDVance during what should have been a friendly meeting, and @POTUS rightfully showed him the door. This is the leadership America has craved for four years.”

Democrats, who as a party overwhelmingly support Ukraine

SENATE DEMOCRATIC LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER, New York

“Trump and Vance are doing Putin’s dirty work. Senate Democrats will never stop fighting for freedom and democracy.”

HOUSE DEMOCRATIC LEADER HAKEEM JEFFRIES, New York

“Today’s White House meeting with the President of Ukraine was appalling and will only serve to further embolden Vladimir Putin, a brutal dictator. The United States must not reward Russian aggression and continue to appease Putin.”

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut

“My strong and passionate hope is that the talks can be resumed or restored, and this event won’t derail continued support.”

“I have very strong hopes that the coalition we have in Congress — and it is a very strong bipartisan coalition — will be persuasive to the administration and others that we have a long-term national security interest in Ukraine prevailing over Putin’s brazen aggression.”

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota

“Answer to Vance: Zelensky has thanked our country over and over again both privately and publicly. And our country thanks HIM and the Ukrainian patriots who have stood up to a dictator, buried their own & stopped Putin from marching right into the rest of Europe. Shame on you.”

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY, Connecticut

“It was a planned ambush designed to embarrass President Zelensky in order to benefit Vladimir Putin. That was an embarrassment. That was an abomination. What you watched was American power being destroyed in the world as everybody watches President Trump become a lapdog for a brutal dictator in Moscow.”

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.

European leaders pledge to assemble a “coalition of the willing” to develop a plan for ending Ukraine’s war with Russia, which they hope could win the backing of a skeptical President Trump.

• March 2, 2025, 7:22 a.m. ET

European leaders scrambled on Sunday to salvage Ukraine’s relationship with the United States, after a bitter rupture last week between President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Trump. They pledged to assemble a European “coalition of the willing” to develop a plan for ending Ukraine’s war with Russia, which they hope could win the backing of a skeptical Mr. Trump.

Gathering in London at the invitation of Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain, the leaders vowed to bolster support for Ukraine. But they also expressed hope that Mr. Zelensky and Mr. Trump could repair their breach, underscoring Europe’s reluctance to cast off a trans-Atlantic alliance that has kept the peace for 80 years.

“We have to bridge this,” Mr. Starmer said on Sunday to the BBC before the leaders began arriving at Lancaster House, near Buckingham Palace. “We have to find a way where we can all work together.”

Mr. Starmer said he believed that despite Mr. Trump’s anger toward Mr. Zelensky in the Oval Office on Friday, the president was committed to a lasting peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia. He said Britain and France, working with other European countries, would develop their own plan with Mr. Zelensky.

Details of the plan were sketchy, but Mr. Starmer suggested that the Europeans could use it as a basis to persuade Mr. Trump to commit to American security guarantees. Britain and France have already pledged to contribute troops to a peacekeeping force and are trying to enlist other countries across Europe.

“I think we’ve got a step in the right direction,” Mr. Starmer said, though he added that “this is a moment of real fragility in Europe.”

---

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

---

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation will hear a new president sing a far different tune in his prime-time address before Congress on Tuesday night. Some Americans will lustily sing along. Others will plug their ears.

The old tune is out – the one where a president declares “we strongly support NATO,” “I believe strongly in free trade” and Washington must do more to promote clean air, clean water, women’s health and civil rights.

That was Donald Trump in 2017.

That was back when gestures of bipartisanship and appeals to national unity were still in the mix on the night the president comes before Congress to hold forth on the state of the union. Trump, then new at the job, was just getting his footing in the halls of power and not ready to stomp on everything.

It would be three more years before Americans would see Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, then the House speaker and his State of the Union host in the chamber, performatively rip up a copy of Trump’s speech in disgust over its contents.

On Tuesday, Americans who tune into Trump’s address will see whether he speaks to the whole country, as he mostly did in his first such speech in the chamber as president, or only to the roughly half who voted for him.

They will see also whether he hews to ceremony and common courtesies, as he did in 2017, or goes full bore on showmanship and incitement.

He comes into it days after assailing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to his face and before the cameras in the Oval Office for not expressing sufficient gratitude for U.S. support in Ukraine’s war with Russia. It was a display of public humiliation by an American president to an allied foreign leader with no parallel in anyone’s memory.

Jarrett Borden, walking to lunch on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, Florida, this past week, expressed ambivalence about Trump, having heard a lot of “hogwash” from him even while liking some of what he has done. Borden anticipates a good show Tuesday and will watch.

“I want to see if he’s going to leave the mic open for Elon Musk, like it’s an open mic at a club or something,” he said, citing the billionaire architect of Trump’s civil service purge. “This is what he’s been doing recently, which is comical.”

In Philadelphia, visual artist Nova Villanueva will spend Tuesday evening doing something — anything — else. She is into avoiding politics and social media altogether these fraught days.

“Yeah, it’s kind of sad,” she said. “It’s almost like I have to be ignorant to be at peace with myself and my life right now.”

A new president’s first speech to Congress is not designated a State of the Union address, coming so close to the Jan. 20 inauguration. But it serves the same purpose, offering an annual accounting of what has been done, what is ahead and what condition the country is in, as the president sees it.

It is customary in modern times for the president to say the state of the union is strong, no matter what a mess it may be in. Trump won the election saying the state of the union was in shambles and he was going to make it right.

The Trump who addressed Congress on Feb. 28, 2017, is recognizable now, despite the measured tone and content of that speech. After all, he had already shocked the political class by assailing “American carnage” from the inaugural stage.

He told Congress that night he wanted NATO members to spend more on their armed forces, wanted trade to be “fair” as well as free, and wanted foreign countries in crises to be made stable enough so that people who fled to the U.S. could go back home. But he did not open his first term with the wrenching turns in foreign policy, civil service firings, stirrings of mass deportation or cries of “drill, baby, drill” of today.

In a line that could have come from any president of either party, Trump noted in his 2017 speech that, “with the help of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, we have formed a council with our neighbors in Canada to help ensure that women entrepreneurs have access to the networks, markets and capital they need to start a business and live out their financial dreams.”

Now he belittles Trudeau as “governor” of a land he wants to make the 51st state and is about to slam with tariffs, along with Mexico. Canadians, not known for displays of patriotism, are seething about their neighbor and rushing to buy and fly their flag.

In Philadelphia, small-time entrepreneur Michael Mangraviti cannot help but take some satisfaction in Trump’s scouring of the bureaucracy as the firings pile up with scant regard for how well people did their jobs or how those jobs helped keep services to the public running.

“He said for years and years, ‘Drain the swamp, drain the swamp,’” Mangraviti said. “But, you know, now is the time to actually drain the swamp.”

“We’ve seen time and time and time again that the government is horribly, horribly ineffective at everything it wants to do,” he went on. “The fact that they’re actually taking action on something that they say they’re going to do, the fact that they’re ready to take the ax and take it to our government, is something I appreciate.”

To Cassandra Piper, a Philadelphia instrumentalist, Trump’s move to stop making pennies was a “fine decision” — unlike everything else he has said and done.

“I comprehensively disapprove of the changes that are being made,” Piper said, stopping to speak while walking by the Liberty Bell Center. “Not that I was all too happy with the status quo beforehand in the first place, but there’s absolutely no good that can come from the inhumanity of mass deportation, something that this country has already been scarred by.”

So, too, with Trump’s selection of vaccination skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary and his choice of Musk to lead the effort to “effectively plunder the government of its resources,” in Piper’s view.

In Hollywood, Florida, Borden, who is Black, said that to the extent Trump can take money that Washington spends overseas and pump it into the U.S. economy, “then you are making America great again. But do that without the racial overtones. Do that without the negative energy, and we’re going to be OK.”

“I think the world is just the world, and we should all just love each other,” he said.

Abraham Lincoln might have agreed, as he summoned the “better angels of our nature” in an inaugural speech, a month before the Civil War, that pleaded with Americans not to “break our bonds of affection.”

Trump had something to say on that subject, too, in 2017: “We all bleed the same blood.”

___

Associated Press video journalists Tassanee Vejpongsa in Philadelphia and Daniel Kozin in Hollywood, Florida, contributed to this report.