Supporting the bill carries risks for Republicans in traditionally Democratic and swing states
Demoralised Democrats who have denounced President Donald Trump's sweeping domestic policy bill have landed on a silver lining.
It is so unpopular with American voters, they say, that it could win them back one, if not both, chambers of Congress in next year's United States Midterm elections.
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RNZ News
8 hours ago
- RNZ News
The White House considering inviting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Alaska
United States' President Donald Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky meet in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC on 28 February 2025. Photo: AFP / SAUL LOEB The White House is considering inviting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to Alaska, where United States' President Donald Trump is scheduled to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on 15 August, NBC News has reported. The report cited a senior US official and three people briefed on the internal discussions. "It's being discussed," one of the people briefed on the talks was quoted as saying. The report added that no Zelensky visit was finalised and that it was unclear if the Ukrainian leader would ultimately be in Alaska for meetings but it remained a possibility. - Reuters
RNZ News
10 hours ago
- RNZ News
Zelensky rejects land concessions ahead of Trump-Putin talks
By Olena Harmash and Suban Abdulla, Reuters Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukraine will not cede its land to Russia, ahead of US President Donald Trump's talks with Vladimir Putin. Photo: JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP Ukraine will not cede its land, President Volodymyr Zelensky says, rejecting US suggestions that a deal with Russia could involve swapping territories as Washington and Moscow prepared for talks between their leaders on ending the war. US President Donald Trump announced on Saturday (New Zealand time) that he would meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska on August 15, saying the parties, including Zelensky, were close to a deal that could resolve the three-and-a-half-year conflict. Details of the potential deal have yet to be announced, but Trump said it would involve "some swapping of territories to the betterment of both". It could require Ukraine to surrender significant parts of its territory - an outcome Kyiv and its European allies say would only encourage Russian aggression. "Ukrainians will not gift their land to the occupier," Zelensky said in a video address, adding that Ukraine's borders were fixed in the country's constitution. "No one will deviate from this - and no one will be able to," he said. US Vice President JD Vance will meet Ukrainian and European on Saturday to discuss Trump's push for peace, Downing Street said, adding that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer had spoken about it with Zelensky. "They agreed this would be a vital forum to discuss progress towards securing a just and lasting peace," the Downing Street spokesperson added. Zelensky has made a flurry of calls with Ukraine's allies since Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff's visit to Moscow on Wednesday which Trump described as having achieved "great progress". "Clear steps are needed, as well as maximum co-ordination between us and our partners," Zelensky said in a post on X after his call with Starmer. "We value the determination of the United Kingdom, the United States, and all our partners to end the war." Ukraine and the European Union have pushed back on proposals that they view as ceding too much to Putin, whose troops invaded Ukraine in February 2022, citing what Moscow called threats to Russia's security from a Ukrainian pivot towards the West. Kyiv and its Western allies say the invasion is an imperial-style land grab. Moscow has previously claimed four Ukrainian regions - Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson - as well as the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which was annexed in 2014. Russian forces do not fully control all the territory in the four regions and Russia is demanding that Ukraine pull out its troops from the parts of all four of them that they still control. Ukraine says its troops still have a small foothold in Russia's Kursk region a year after its troops crossed the border to try to gain leverage in any negotiations. Russia said it had expelled Ukraininan troops from Kursk in April. Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, described the current peace push as "the first more or less realistic attempt to stop the war". "At the same time, I remain extremely sceptical about the implementation of the agreements, even if a truce is reached for a while. And there is virtually no doubt that the new commitments could be devastating for Ukraine," she said. Fierce fighting is raging along the more than 1000 kilometre front line along eastern and southern Ukraine, where Russian forces hold around a fifth of the country's territory. Russian troops are slowly advancing in Ukraine's east, but their summer offensive has so far failed to achieve a major breakthrough, Ukrainian military analysts say. Ukrainians remain defiant. "Not a single serviceman will agree to cede territory, to pull out troops from Ukrainian territories," Olesia Petritska, 51, told Reuters as she gestured to hundreds of small Ukrainian flags in the Kyiv central square commemorating fallen soldiers. Additional reporting Maxim Rodionov, Andrea Shalal and Dheeraj Kumar. - Reuters
Otago Daily Times
a day ago
- Otago Daily Times
Trump and Putin to meet to discuss Ukraine peace deal in Alaska
US President Donald Trump will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on August 15 in Alaska to negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, Trump said on Friday. Trump made the highly anticipated announcement on social media after he said that the parties, including Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, were close to a ceasefire deal that could resolve the three-and-a-half-year conflict, one that could require Ukraine to surrender significant territory. Addressing reporters at the White House earlier on Friday, Trump suggested an agreement would involve some exchange of land. "There'll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both," the Republican president said. The Kremlin subsequently confirmed the summit in an online statement. The two leaders will "focus on discussing options for achieving a long-term peaceful resolution to the Ukrainian crisis," Putin aide Yuri Ushakov said. "This will evidently be a challenging process, but we will engage in it actively and energetically," Ushakov said. In his evening address to the nation on Friday, Zelenskiy said it was possible to achieve a ceasefire as long as adequate pressure was applied to Russia. He said he had held more than a dozen conversations with leaders of different countries and his team was in constant contact with the United States. Putin claims four Ukrainian regions – Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson – as well as the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea, which he annexed in 2014. His forces do not fully control all the territory in the four regions. Earlier, Bloomberg News reported that US and Russian officials were working towards an agreement that would lock in Moscow's occupation of territory seized during its military invasion. A White House official said the Bloomberg story was speculation. A Kremlin spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. Reuters was unable to confirm aspects of the Bloomberg report. Ukraine has previously signaled a willingness to be flexible in the search for an end to a war that has ravaged its towns and cities and killed large numbers of its soldiers and citizens. But accepting the loss of around a fifth of Ukraine's territory would be painful and politically challenging for Zelenskiy and his government. Tyson Barker, the US State Department's former deputy special representative for Ukraine's economic recovery, said the peace proposal as outlined in the Bloomberg report would be immediately rejected by the Ukrainians. "The best the Ukrainians can do is remain firm in their objections and their conditions for a negotiated settlement, while demonstrating their gratitude for American support," said Barker, a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council. Under the putative deal, according to Bloomberg, Russia would halt its offensive in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions along current battle lines. TRUMP AND PUTIN The last time Alaska hosted a high-stakes diplomatic gathering was in March 2021, when senior officials from the administration of Democratic former President Joe Biden met with top Chinese officials in Anchorage. The get-together involving Biden's top diplomat Antony Blinken and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi quickly turned into a stunning public clash in front of the cameras, with both sides leveling sharp rebukes of the others' policies that reflected the high tension in bilateral ties. Since his return to the White House in January, Trump has moved to mend relations with Russia and sought to end the war. In his public comments he has veered between admiration and sharp criticism of Putin. In a sign of his growing frustration with Putin's refusal to halt Russia's military offensive, Trump had threatened to impose new sanctions and tariffs from Friday against Moscow and countries that buy its exports unless the Russian leader agreed to end the conflict, the deadliest in Europe since World War Two. It was unclear by Friday evening whether those sanctions would take effect or be delayed or canceled. The administration took a step toward punishing Moscow's oil customers on Wednesday, imposing an additional 25% tariff on goods from India over its imports of Russian oil, marking the first financial penalty aimed at Russia in Trump's second term. Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff held three hours of talks with Putin in Moscow on Wednesday that both sides described as constructive. Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland, a close ally of Ukraine, said earlier on Friday that a pause in the conflict could be close. He was speaking after talks with Zelenskiy. "There are certain signals, and we also have an intuition, that perhaps a freeze in the conflict – I don't want to say the end, but a freeze in the conflict – is closer than it is further away," Tusk told a news conference. "There are hopes for this." Tusk also said Zelenskiy was "very cautious but optimistic" and that Ukraine was keen that Poland and other European countries play a role in planning for a ceasefire and an eventual peace settlement.
