Trump reflects on ‘moment of solace’ with Zelenskyy at Pope Francis’ funeral
Office of the President of Ukraine via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump reflected on the dramatic meeting he had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy inside St. Peter’s Basilica just before the pope’s funeral on Saturday, when asked by ABC News anchor and Senior National Correspondent Terry Moran in an exclusive interview Tuesday in the Oval Office.
Noting the striking photograph of the two men “talking peace” that “went around the world,” Moran asked Trump, “Take us into that moment.”
“The moment was a moment of solace in a sense, because — tremendous numbers of people are dying. A lot of his people are dying,” Trump answered. “They’re being killed, and I feel very badly about it,” he said.
It was the first time Trump and Zelenskyy had met face-to-face since their heated argument in the Oval Office in February.
At the time, Zelenskyy contended the Russian president needed stronger pushback from Ukraine’s allies.
“I really count on your strong position to stop Putin,” Zelenskyy said to Trump at the February meeting.
Moran noted that Trump has since appeared to have changed his thinking about Putin’s intentions, bringing up what Trump said in a social media post after his conversation with Zelenskyy in St. Peter’s.
“There was no reason for Putin to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, in cities and towns, over the last few days,” he said in the post. “It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war. He’s just tapping me along.”
Trump repeated those comments in the interview.
“It’s possible. Yeah, that’s possible. Sure,” he said. “He could be tapping me along a little bit. I would say that he would like to stop the war.”
When Moran asked if Trump truly believed Putin wanted to end the war even with the continued attacks, Trump claimed that negotiations would have been much worse under a different president.
“You think Vladimir Putin wants peace?” Moran asked.
“I think he does, yes. I think he does,” he answered.
“Still?” Moran said.
“I think because of me … ” Trump continued.
“Even with the raining missiles on …?” Moran asked.
“I think he really– his– his– his dream was to take over the whole country. I think because of me, he’s not gonna do that,” Trump answered.
Asked if he trusts Putin, Trump said, “I don’t trust a lot of people. But I do think this. I think that he … let’s say he respects me,” he said.
Illustration by Thomas Fuller/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The White House on Thursday pulled President Donald Trump’s nomination of Dr. David Weldon to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, multiple sources told ABC News.
The withdrawal came just before Weldon was to appear for his confirmation hearing Thursday morning before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, where he was expected to be grilled on his past comments questioning vaccine safety.
The development was first reported by Axios.
Weldon, a physician who served in Congress from 1995 until 2009, had kept a relatively low profile for years until being nominated by Trump in November.
But his skepticism of established science around vaccines made him a popular pick among allies of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
As recently as 2019, Weldon promoted the unsubstantiated theory that vaccines could cause autism.
In 2007, Weldon co-authored a “vaccine safety bill” with former Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney, which sought to give control over vaccine safety to an independent agency within HHS.
The bill, which stalled in a House subcommittee, would “provide the independence necessary to ensure that vaccine safety research is robust, unbiased, free from conflict of interest criticism, and broadly accepted by the public at large,” Weldon said in a press release announcing the bill.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
The White House on Thursday pulled President Donald Trump’s nomination of Dr. David Weldon to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, multiple sources told ABC News.
The withdrawal came just before Weldon was to appear for his confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, where he was expected to be grilled on his past comments questioning vaccine safety. The room was all set for the hearing before the developments, which was first reported by Axios.
Weldon was pulled because he didn’t have the votes to be confirmed, according to two sources familiar with his nomination. This was the first time a CDC director nominee had to be be Senate-confirmed.
Weldon, a physician who served in Congress from 1995 until 2009, had kept a relatively low profile for years until being nominated by Trump in November.
But his skepticism of established science around vaccines made him a popular pick among allies of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
As recently as 2019, Weldon promoted the unsubstantiated theory that vaccines could cause autism.
In 2007, Weldon co-authored a “vaccine safety bill” with former Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney, which sought to give control over vaccine safety to an independent agency within HHS.
The bill, which stalled in a House subcommittee, would “provide the independence necessary to ensure that vaccine safety research is robust, unbiased, free from conflict of interest criticism, and broadly accepted by the public at large,” Weldon said in a press release announcing the bill.
Weldon was being considered as a measles outbreak sweeps across the U.S.
Democrat Sen. Patty Murray, former chair of the committee Weldon was going to testify before, said that he raised concerning anti-vaccine sentiment during their private meeting.
“In our meeting last month, I was deeply disturbed to hear Dr. Weldon repeat debunked claims about vaccines — it’s dangerous to put someone in charge at CDC who believes the lie that our rigorously tested childhood vaccine schedule is somehow exposing kids to toxic levels of mercury or causing autism,” Murray said in a statement.
“As we face one of the worst measles outbreaks in years thanks to President Trump, a vaccine skeptic who spent years spreading lies about safe and proven vaccines should never have even been under consideration to lead the foremost agency charged with protecting public health,” Murray added.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday downplayed the use of a Signal group chat among top officials to discuss a U.S. attack on Houthis in Yemen — brought to light when a journalist, Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, was “inadvertently” added to the chat.
Peppered with questions on the reported mishap during a meeting with his ambassadors at the White House, Trump came to the defense of national security adviser Michael Waltz and touted the military operation as a success.
“There was no classified information as I understand it,” Trump claimed. “They used an app, if you want to call it an app, that a lot of people use. A lot of people in government use, a lot of people in the media use.”
When asked if anyone would be fired as a result of the firestorm, Trump responded: “We’ve pretty much looked into it. It’s pretty simple, to be honest … It’s just something that can happen. It can happen.”
Trump attacked The Atlantic as well as Goldberg and doubled down on the success of the airstrikes.
“Well, I mean, look, we look at everything and, you know, they’ve made a big deal out of this because we’ve had two perfect months,” Trump said.
Waltz said he had technical experts — rather than the FBI — looking into the matter and told Trump, “We’re going to keep everything as secure as possible. No one in your national security team would ever put anyone in danger.”
Earlier Tuesday, Democrats grilled Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe over the use of Signal and the information discussed on the chat.
The intelligence officials, who were testifying as part of a previously scheduled hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, also asserted there was no classified information included in the message chain.
Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, wrote in a piece published Monday that he was added to a group chat in the commercially available Signal app in which officials, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Waltz, were discussing impeding strikes on Houthi militants in Yemen. Goldberg said he was apparently added to the chat by Waltz.
Facing questions from Senate Democrats on why information on attack sequencing or timing, as reported by The Atlantic, would not be considered classified, Ratcliffe said Defense Secretary Hegseth had authority to determine what was classified or not. Gabbard deferred such questions to the Defense Department.
Ratcliffe also said he believed national security adviser Waltz intended the chat to be “a mechanism for coordinating between senior level officials, but not a substitute for using high side or classified communications for anything that would be classified.”
Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, the vice chairman of the panel, slammed the incident as “sloppy” and said others would have been fired for the same conduct. Warner also pressed officials to share the messages with lawmakers after they said they contained no classified information.
“If there was no classified material, share it with the committee. You can’t have it both ways,” he said.
Republicans on the panel did not raise as many questions on the issue during the hearing, which had been set to focus on worldwide threats. Though Sen. Todd Young, a Republican of Indiana, said he would be asking questions about the Signal incident in a closed-door session.
Officials with the White House’s National Security Council said they “are reviewing” how Goldberg could have been mistakenly added to the 18-member group chat that included several of the nation’s top military officials.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the review on Tuesday, but said that “no ‘war plans’ were discussed.” She added that no classified material was sent to Signal group chat.
“The White House Counsel’s Office has provided guidance on a number of different platforms for President Trump’s top officials to communicate as safely and efficiently as possible,” she said.
“At this time, the message thread that was reported appears to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain,” NSC spokesperson Brian Hughes said in a statement, which was sent to ABC News after first being published by The Atlantic.
The scope of the review, including whether it would attempt to determine why high-level discussions about military planning were taking place outside of official channels, was not immediately clear from Hughes’ statement.
Trump did not commit to changing procedure or cutting off completely the use of Signal within the administration as a result of the fiasco.
“I don’t think it’s something we’re looking forward to using again. We may be forced to use it. You may be in a situation where you need speed as opposed to gross safety, and you may be forced to use it, but, generally speaking, I think we probably won’t be using it very much,” he said.
Despite his effort to downplay the incident, President Trump repeatedly indicated he does not like this means of communication, saying he thinks it is best to be in the Situation Room for these conversations.
“Sometimes somebody can get onto those things. That’s one of the prices you pay when you’re not sitting in the Situation Room with no phones on, which is always the best, frankly,” Trump said.
“Look, if it was up to me, everybody would be sitting in a room together,” Trump later said. “The room would have solid lead walls and ceiling and a lead floor. But, you know, life doesn’t always let you do that.”
ABC News’ Fritz Farrow, Luis Martinez, Lauren Peller, Lalee Ibssa, Isabella Murray and Meredith Deliso contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s three planned book tour events scheduled for this week were abruptly postponed Monday morning because of “security concerns.”
Schumer, promoting his new book “Antisemitism in America: A Warning,” faced backlash over voting for the House-approved government funding bill that averted a shutdown on Friday. With Democrats’ help, the Senate passed the stopgap bill hours before funding was set to lapse.
Many Democrats, including progressives, had wanted him to vote against the bill and to more strongly protest against President Donald Trump’s and congressional Republicans’ agendas.
Schumer had events planned in Baltimore, New York City and Washington, D.C., this week. Protests were planned outside of all three events.
A spokesperson for Schumer’s book tour told ABC News that “due to security concerns, Senator Schumer’s book events are being rescheduled.”
Some of the hosts of Schumer’s events, including D.C. bookstore Politics and Prose and Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library, also individually cited security concerns for the cancellation.
After announcing that he would be a no vote on the proposed spending plan — a decision that could have led to a government shutdown — Schumer later said from the floor he would vote yes.
The switch-up earned him the praise of Trump, but the ire of prominent Democrats, and comes as the party struggles to mount a cohesive response to actions by the Trump administration that are reshaping the federal government, immigration policy and other key issues.
Schumer, defending his decision to vote for the funding bill, said in a speech on the Senate floor on Thursday that while he did not approve of what was included in a funding bill, a government shutdown would be worse.
The Senate Minority Leader said that a shutdown would give Trump and Elon Musk, who has overseen major cuts to the federal government, more power to make decisions about what to cut, and that the shutdown would cause pain to American families.
“For Donald Trump, a shutdown would be a gift. It would be the best distraction he could ask for from his awful agenda,” Schumer said.
In a CNN appearance on Friday, Schumer framed the decision as a way to protect the Democratic Party, while downplaying intraparty disagreement over the path he took.
“My job as leader is to lead the party,” Schumer said. “And if there’s going to be danger in the near future, to protect the party. And I’m proud I did it. I knew I did the right thing, and I knew there would be some disagreements. That’s how it always is.”
Schumer also denied any insinuation he didn’t have the “overwhelming support” of his caucus, suggesting members had thanked him for his position.
Among the groups that had been organizing protests of Schumer’s book tour events was the Progressive Change Campaign Committee PAC (PCCC), which wrote in an email on Sunday, “We need to make an example of Schumer and send a message to all Democratic officials that we want BACKBONE.”
“Now is the time to channel public anger, not hide from it,” PCCC co-founder Adam Green told ABC News on Monday after the events were postponed. “People are serious about Democrats not having a plan to fight Trump.”
Another major Democratic-aligned group, the Indivisible Project, called on Schumer to step aside as leader of the Senate Democrats in a statement on Saturday. Indivisible had also been planning on protesting outside of the Baltimore event.
Schumer “led the charge to wave the white flag of surrender,” Indivisible co-executive director Ezra Levin wrote in the statement.
Levin praised Schumer for his work in the Senate, but said that his actions had failed both the United States and the Democratic Party.
“Senator Schumer has contributed to and led many important accomplishments that Indivisible is grateful for. But with our democracy on the line, he let us, the country, and the Democratic Party down… Senator Schumer should step aside as leader. Every Democrat in the Senate should call for him to do so, and begin making plans for new leadership immediately,” Levin wrote.
The controversy also comes as recent polling shows Americans feeling disillusioned toward the Democratic Party. An NBC News poll published on Sunday (but taken before the government funding vote) found that only 27% of registered voters feel favorable about the party.
ABC News’ Averi Harper, Isabella Murray and Karen Travers contributed to this report.
