Trump, Zelenskyy meet privately ahead of pope’s funeral
president Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump are seen arriving at the Pope’s Funeral at the Vatican in Rome, Italy on 26 April, 2025. (Photo by Jaap Arriens/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
(ROME) — President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met privately in Rome on Saturday before attending the funeral for Pope Francis.
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung told the press pool traveling with Trump that the two men had a “very productive session.” More details about the meeting “will follow,” he said.
“Good meeting. We discussed a lot one on one,” Zelenskyy posted on X after the meeting. “Hoping for results on everything we covered. Protecting lives of our people. Full and unconditional ceasefire. Reliable and lasting peace that will prevent another war from breaking out. Very symbolic meeting that has potential to become historic, if we achieve joint results.”
This was the first meeting between the two men since their contentious encounter in the White House Oval Office in late February.
Late Friday, following special envoy Steve Witkoff’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier in the day, Trump posted that it was “a good day in talks and meetings with Russia and Ukraine,” and he suggested it’s now time for the two sides to meet at “very high levels.”
“They are very close to a deal, and the two sides should now meet, at very high levels, to “finish it off,” he wrote on his social media site.
“Most of the major points are agreed to. Stop the bloodshed, NOW. We will be wherever is necessary to help facilitate the END to this cruel and senseless war!” Trump added in the post, but provided no additional information about the apparent progress.
Zelenskyy and his wife, Olena Zelenska, were seated about seven people away from Trump and the first lady Melania Trump, according to the press pool.
Former President Biden and former first lady Jill Biden were about four rows behind them.
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday will unveil in the White House Rose Garden what are expected to be broad-based “reciprocal tariffs” on imports as part of his “America First” agenda.
It’s a moment months in the making for the president who has repeatedly billed it as “Liberation Day,” claiming it will free the U.S. from dependence on foreign goods and saying “we’re going to be getting back a lot of the wealth that we so foolishly gave up to other countries.”
“April 2, 2025, will go down as one of the most important days in modern American history,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday.
But it’s a serious political gamble for Trump, who made his way back to the White House in no small part because of his promise to better the economy.
Some economists, though, have raised concerns his moves could cause the economy to slide into a recession and markets seesawed ahead of Wednesday’s announcement, slated for 4 p.m. ET, after the markets end trading.
The White House has been mum on details ahead of Wednesday’s announcement, only confirming that the tariffs will go into effect immediately upon being announced.
Some options debated in recent weeks, ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Selina Wang reported, were a 20% flat tariff rate on all imports; different tariff levels for each country based on their levies on U.S. products; or tariffs on about 15% of countries with the largest trade imbalances with the U.S.
Trump was still meeting with his tariff team on Tuesday to finalize the details, Leavitt said, “perfecting” the policy “to make sure this is a perfect deal for the American people and the American worker.”
Since his inauguration, Trump has implemented levies on specific products, including steel and aluminum. He’s also put into place some tariffs on goods from China, Canada and Mexico.
The actions have strained relations with Canada and Mexico, two key allies and neighbors. Prime Minister Mark Carney said last week the U.S. and Canada’s deep relationship on economic, security and military issues was effectively over.
Canada has vowed retaliatory tariffs and Mexico said it will give its response later this week. The European Union, too, said it has a “strong plan to retaliate.”
But Trump and administration officials are plowing full steam ahead, arguing America’s been unfairly “ripped off” by other nations for years and it’s time for reciprocity.
“It’s simple: if you make your product in America, you will pay no tariffs,” Leavitt said on Tuesday.
The economy was the top issue for voters in the 2024 presidential election, with Americans casting blame on President Joe Biden for high prices and Trump promising to bring families financial relief.
The administration has painted tariffs as a panacea for the economy writ large, arguing any pain experienced in the short term will be offset by what they predict will be major boosts in manufacturing, job growth and government revenue.
But it’s unclear how much leeway the public is willing to give Trump to get past what he has called “a little disturbance.”
Already, little more than two months into Trump’s second term, polls show his handling of the economy is being met with pushback.
An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey published on Monday found a majority of Americans (58%) disapprove of how Trump has been handling the economy.
On his protectionist trade negotiations with other nations, specifically, 60% of Americans said they disapproved of his approach so far. It was his weakest issue in the poll among Republicans.
Trump’s GOP allies on Capitol Hill have say they’re placing trust in the president, but acknowledged some uncertainty to start.
“It may be rocky in the beginning but I think this will make sense for Americans and it will help all Americans,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said at his weekly press conference with other members of Republican leadership.
“You’re going to see prices shift,” Rep. Rich McCormick, a Georgia Republican, told ABC News Correspondent Jay O’Brien. “We’re accountable to the American people. We represent them, if they’re speaking loud enough … I think the president has been very good at reacting to the public.”
Senate Democrats were planning to try to force a vote aimed at curtailing Trump’s authorities to impose levies on Canada.
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, in a press conference alongside other Democrats on Tuesday, slammed Trump’s recent comments that he “couldn’t care less” if foreign automakers raise prices due to tariffs — levies that are also going into effect on Wednesday.
“America you hear that? Donald Trump says he couldn’t care less if you pay more,” Schumer said.
“The president has justified the imposition of these tariffs on, in my view, a made-up emergency,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat.
(LANSING, Mich.) — Former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg announced Thursday morning that he will not run for U.S. Senate or governor in the state of Michigan, potentially clearing the way to possibly mount a run for president in 2028.
“I care deeply about who Michigan will elect as Governor and send to the U.S. Senate next year, but I have decided against competing in either race,” Buttigieg wrote on X. “I remain enthusiastic about helping candidates who share our values – and who understand that in this moment, leadership means not only opposing today’s cruel chaos, but also presenting a vision of a better alternative.”
Buttigieg’s announcement comes as Democrats grapple both with being locked out of power in Washington and the prospect of defending multiple key Senate seats in the 2026 midterms.
Buttigieg was expected to potentially announce a run for the seat being vacated by incumbent Sen. Gary Peters, who announced in January that he would not run for reelection.
(WASHINGTON) — For years, President Donald Trump has blasted politically damaging reporting by The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg as fake, made-up.
His most recent criticism has been over Goldberg’s bombshell story about a Signal chat he was accidentally invited to, one that included top members of Trump’s national security team, conversing about an impending military attack on Houthi terrorists in Yemen.
Now, in a surprise twist, Trump said he would speak face-to-face with Goldberg on Thursday after claiming on Truth Social that Goldberg, along with The Atlantic writers Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker, would sit down with him for an interview.
“The story they are writing, they have told my representatives, will be entitled, “The Most Consequential President of this Century,” he said.
Goldberg and The Atlantic have not commented about Trump’s post or the alleged meeting as of Thursday afternoon.
Although the president claimed Goldberg was “responsible for many fictional stories about me,” he said he is looking forward to the meeting.
“I am doing this interview out of curiosity, and as a competition with myself, just to see if it’s possible for The Atlantic to be ‘truthful,'” Trump posted. “Are they capable of writing a fair story on ‘TRUMP’? The way I look at it, what can be so bad.”
Goldberg and Trump have had a contentious back-and-forth going since the president’s 2016 campaign, when the journalist criticized Trump’s rhetoric.
“At the very least, he traffics in racial invective knowingly. To me, that’s a threshold question. If you do that and if you know what you’re doing then, yes, you’re a racist. I think he’s a racist,” he said in a 2016 NPR interview.
Trump criticized The Atlantic’s coverage of his campaign and first term, but things heated up in 2020 after Goldberg wrote an article that described a 2018 incident in which president reportedly refused to visit an American cemetery in France where World War I service members were buried.
“Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers,” Trump told his advisers, according to the article. It also said Trump called fallen Marines “suckers.”
The president heatedly denied he had used those terms on what was then Twitter and went after Goldberg’s sources. Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, Trump’s former chief of staff, later confirmed Goldberg’s account in an interview with CNN.
In Trump’s Thursday post, he brought up that story and claimed it was a “made-up HOAX.”
Goldberg became the target of the president’s ire again last month after he revealed he was inadvertently invited to the Signal chat that consisted of several top U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance, in which they discussed plans for the March 15 military attack against Houthis in Yemen ahead of the airstrike occurring.
Trump and White House officials slammed Goldberg, claiming his reporting was biased.
“He is, as you know, is a sleaze bag, but at the highest level. His magazine is failing,” Trump said of Goldberg on March 26 during an appearance on the “VINCE Show” podcast.
Goldberg has repeatedly defended his reporting on the scandal.
“They’ve decided to blame the guy who they invited into the conversation. It’s a little bit strange behavior,” he told ABC News in March. “Honestly, I don’t know why they’re acting like this except to think that they’re — they know how serious a national security breach it is. And so they have to deflect it and push it onto the guy, again, they invited into the chat — namely me.”
