Trump Compares Russia-Ukraine War To Kids Brawling— What Does That Signal About The Fight's Future?
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Yahoo
18 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump plans to meet Putin next week in Ukraine peace bid
President Donald Trump said Wednesday he plans to meet with Vladimir Putin as soon as next week in a fresh bid to broker a peace deal with Ukraine after U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff held a 'highly productive' meeting with the Russian president. Trump hailed the meeting as having made 'great progress,' but he didn't elaborate. A Kremlin spokesman said the meeting lasted three hours and was 'useful and constructive.' 'Everyone agrees this war must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come,' Trump posted on his social media site. 'President Trump wants this brutal war to end,' added White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. Trump told European allies about his plans to meet with Putin and his hopes to broker a three-man meeting between the two of them and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, several American and European media outlets reported. A face-to-face meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy could amount to a crucial crossroads in the war that Putin launched against neighboring Ukraine more than three years ago. In announcing his plans, Trump didn't mention his looming Friday deadline for Putin to start talking peace with Kyiv, raising obvious questions about whether the threat is still hanging over the Kremlin. Trump last week set a stricter deadline of '10 or 12 days' for Putin to wind down the war against Ukraine or start peace negotiations, threatening 'severe tariffs' and other economic penalties against Russia and its economic partners if it refuses. Zelenskyy, who also spoke with Trump on Wednesday, said Putin's agreement to meet could suggest that pressure from Trump is working, though he warned that the wily Kremlin leader could be raising hopes for peace as a negotiating tactic without any intention of agreeing to end the conflict. 'The main thing is that they do not deceive us in the details,' Zelenskyy said in his nightly address to the Ukrainian people. Moscow had so far shrugged off Trump's deadline as empty bluster, noting he has given numerous previous ultimatums on various issues that turned out to be toothless threats. Russia believes it has the upper hand on the battlefield, at least in the short and medium term, giving it little reason to agree to even a brief ceasefire. Its troops have made modest advances along the long front line in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region and ousted Ukrainian troops from a sliver of a Russian border territory that they had previously seized. Russia has also increasingly mounted deadly missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian civilian targets. Earlier on Wednesday, Witkoff took a morning stroll in Moscow with Kirill Dmitriev, the Russian president's envoy for investment and economic cooperation, which was captured in footage aired by a Russian news agency. Dmitriev played a key role in three rounds of direct talks between delegations from Russia and Ukraine, as well as discussions between Russian and U.S. officials, but the negotiations made no progress on ending the three-year war. Trump has recently flip-flopped to a much harsher stance on Russia after seeing Putin for months spurn his demands for concessions. Still, Trump has shown himself to be unwilling to take a firm stance of defending Ukraine and sticking to it, giving Putin an incentive to wait out any threats. The new deadline and threat to impose 'secondary sanctions' on nations that buy Russian energy, like India, China and Turkey, are particularly problematic because those economic powerhouses have no control over Russia's stance on Ukraine. They're unlikely to cut economic ties with Moscow in response to such U.S. demands, especially when Trump himself was cozying up to Putin just a few weeks ago. The White House announced it is tacking on a new 25% tariff on products imported from India, raising the total tax to 50%, which suggests it doesn't consider Putin has met the deadline.
Yahoo
18 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump says likely to meet Putin 'very soon'
Donald Trump said Wednesday he could meet with Vladimir Putin "very soon," following what the US president described as highly productive talks in Moscow between his special envoy and the Russian leader. The potential summit was discussed in a call between Trump and Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky that, according to a senior source in Kyiv, included NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and the leaders of Britain, Germany and Finland. "There's a good chance that there will be a meeting very soon," Trump told reporters at the White House, when asked when he would meet the Ukrainian and Russian leaders. He gave no indication where the meeting with Putin might take place. The New York Times and CNN, citing people familiar with the plan, said Trump plans to sit down with Putin as early as next week, and then wants a three-way meeting with the Russian leader and Zelensky. Trump's phone call with Zelensky came after US envoy Steve Witkoff met Russian leadership in Moscow earlier in the day for talks described by the Kremlin as "productive" -- with Trump's deadline looming to impose fresh sanctions over Russia's war in Ukraine. "Great progress was made!" Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, adding that afterward he had briefed some European allies. "Everyone agrees this War must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come," he said. Minutes later, however, a senior US official said that "secondary sanctions" were still expected to be implemented in two days' time. Trump, who had boasted he could end the conflict within 24 hours of taking office, has given Russia until Friday to make progress towards peace or face new penalties. Three rounds of Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul have failed to make headway on a ceasefire, with the two sides far apart in their demands. Russia has escalated drone and missile attacks against its neighbor, a US and European Union ally, to a record high and accelerated its advance on the ground. "A quite useful and constructive conversation took place," Putin's aide Yuri Ushakov told journalists, including AFP, after the three-hour meeting with Witkoff. The two men exchanged "signals" on their positions, Ushakov said, without elaborating. Zelensky confirmed his call with Trump and confirmed European leaders had taken part, although he did not name them. - Sanctions threat - Trump has voiced increasing frustration with Putin in recent weeks over Russia's unrelenting offensive. The White House has not officially outlined what action it would take against Russia, but Trump told reporters it plans to impose "a lot more secondary sanctions" targeting Russia's key trade partners, possibly targeting China. Earlier in the day he had ordered steeper tariffs on Indian goods over New Delhi's continued purchase of Russian oil. The move would aim to stifle Russian exports, but would risk significant international disruption. Trump said Tuesday he would await the outcome of the Moscow talks before ordering any economic sanctions. "We're going to see what happens," he told reporters. "We'll make that determination at that time." Without explicitly naming Trump, the Kremlin on Tuesday slammed "threats" to hike tariffs on Russia's trading partners as "illegitimate." Russia's campaign against Ukraine since February 2022 has killed tens of thousands of people, destroyed swaths of the country and forced millions to flee their homes. Moscow has demanded that Ukraine cede more territory and renounce US and EU support if it wants the fighting to stop. Kyiv is calling for an immediate ceasefire, and Zelensky last week urged his allies to push for "regime change" in Moscow. - Nuclear rhetoric - The Witkoff visit came as Moscow-Washington tensions are running high. Trump said he had ordered two nuclear submarines to be moved following an online row with former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, and that they were now "in the region." Moscow then said that it was ending a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear-capable intermediate-range missiles, suggesting that it could deploy such weapons in response to what it alleged were similar US deployments within striking distance of Russia. Ukrainian emergency services reported on Wednesday that at least two people were killed and 12 others wounded in Russian shelling of a holiday camp in the southern Zaporizhzhia region. bur-ft/aha
USA Today
19 minutes ago
- USA Today
Trump's approval rating dips in new poll: What recent surveys show
A new poll puts President Donald Trump's approval rating near record lows, noting an "erosion of support" among one of the president's most reliable groups of supporters: men. The University of Massachusetts Amherst survey released Monday, Aug. 4, found public support for the Republican leader has dropped six percentage points since its April poll, giving Trump a meager 38% approval rating. With a corresponding 58% of poll respondents disapproving of his job performance, the figures mark one of the lowest ratings seen in recent months − and follow a string of major national polls with similarly low approval ratings. A historical analysis by Gallup shows Trump's approval ratings in the first July of both of his terms are lower than those of any other modern president. Pope Leo XIV: Poll finds Americans view new pope more favorably than all of these prominent figures 'Trump's approval ratings, already historically low for a newly elected president, continue to sink with close to 6-in-10 Americans (58%) expressing disapproval of the job that Trump is doing in office," the UMass Amherst poll's director, Tatishe Nteta, said in an Aug. 4 press release. "While Trump remains a popular figure among Republicans and conservatives, Trump's time in office is viewed more negatively across genders, generations, classes and races, with majorities of each of these groups disapproving of Trump's performance." The poll, conducted in partnership with YouGov July 25-30, interviewed 1,000 respondents nationally. The margin of error is 3.5%. What is President Trump's approval rating? Aggregations of recent approval polling from The New York Times and RealClearPolitics place Trump's approval between 44% and 45.8%, respectively, with a 53% and 51.4% disapproval as of Aug. 6. The UMass Amherst poll shows a significantly lower approval mark compared to these averages. The survey found Trump's net approval rating dropped to -20 as he surpasses the six-month mark of his second term in office, with discontent focused especially on his handling of immigration, tariffs, inflation and the Jeffrey Epstein crisis. More Trump news: Poll shows most Americans disapprove of Epstein approach. Here's how many. Opinions on Trump's approach to inflation and tariffs jockeyed for the lowest ratings, both collecting a 31% approval, followed by 32% approving his stance on civil rights. Approval of his stance on immigration fell nine points among respondents compared to the April survey. The Epstein controversy continues to stay top of mind for many Americans, a topic that has weighed Trump down in recent polls. Among the participants in the UMass Amherst poll, more than three-fourths said they have "read, seen or heard about Jeffrey Epstein" either some or a lot, and 70% said they believe the president is handling the issue either "not too well" or "not well at all." Nearly two-thirds (63%) believe his administration is hiding information about Epstein. New Trump poll shows drop in support among men In April, men were a significant source of support for the president's then-44% approval rating, with 48% of men telling pollsters they approved of Trump's performance. Three months later, that number has dropped by nearly 10 points, with 39% of men expressing approval of the president in July − only one point higher than his overall approval rating. Among women, support is even lower at 35%, and has also seen a drop since April, by four percentage points. Joe Rogan: Trump admin is 'trying to gaslight you' over Epstein scandal 'In addition to losing support among men, Trump has seen approval for his presidency crumble among political independents, a critical swing constituency,' said Jesse Rhodes, professor of political science at UMass Amherst and a co-director of the poll, in a news release. 'While 31% of independents approved of his presidency in April, that number is now down 10 percentage points to 21%." The UMass Amherst poll results echo similarly low approval polling by Gallup, which marked the lowest approval rating yet of his second term, at 37% as of July 25, and a Reuters/Ipsos poll released July 30 that gave him a 40% approval. Kathryn Palmer is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at kapalmer@ and on X @KathrynPlmr.
