What happened before Trump, Zelenskyy engaged in the Oval Office shouting match
(Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — While Friday’s explosive meeting between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ended with a shouting match, the start of the Oval Office meeting was full of optimism about signing the minerals deal.
Trump, who called the Ukrainian president a dictator last week, started the Oval Office spray in a smoother fashion, saying, “We’ve actually known each other for a long time. We’ve been dealing with each other for a long time and very well there. We had a little negotiation spat, but that worked out great, I think, for both countries.”
Zelenskyy was also optimistic about an agreement that would have given the United States access to critical minerals from Ukraine.
“I hope that this document will be the first step to real security guarantees for Ukraine,” he said. “Our people, our children really count on it. And, of course, we count that America will not stop support. Really, for us, it’s very important to support and to continue it. I want to discuss it with details further.”
Zelenskyy urged the U.S. to take a strong position in stopping Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he is a “killer” and “terrorist.”
“I hope that together we can stop him. But for us, it’s very important to to save our country, our values, our freedom and democracy,” Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy also stressed the importance of having the U.S. backing up European security contingencies.
“I think that France and U.K. already spoke to you, and we know that Europe is ready, but without the United States, they will not be ready to be as strong as we need,” he said.
Still, Trump argued that Russia will not go back on its word once a peace deal is reached, and he declined to get into security guarantees that Zelenskyy said he views as critical to any peace agreement.
“We’ll make a deal,” he said. “I have to make the deal first. I don’t worry about security right now.”
Other cracks started to show just over 10 minutes into the spray, including one notable moment when Zelenskyy and Trump disagreed over the amount of support Europe has given Ukraine.
“They really gave a lot, Mr. President,” Zelenskyy said.
“They gave a lot — but they gave much less,” Trump replied, without providing details.
“No,” Zelenskyy shot back with a look of skepticism, though they continued to keep the tone light.
Trump and Zelenskyy also disagreed over Putin’s reliability once a deal is struck, with Zelenskyy saying Putin will never accept just a ceasefire.
“It will not work without security guarantees,” the Ukrainian president added.
The president also defended his talks with Putin, saying it is the only way to get a deal across the finish line when he was pressed about concerns he’s too aligned with Putin.
“I’m not aligned with anybody. I’m aligned with the United States of America. And for the good of the world,” Trump said.
Vice President J.D. Vance then chimed in and continued to push Trump’s point, claiming President Joe Biden did not do enough to deter the war.
At that point, Zelenskyy interjected, bringing up the struggles his country has faced over the last decade, prompting Vance and Trump to shout at the Ukrainian president.
Don and Melinda Crawford/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
(BOISE, Idaho) — The Idaho House has passed a resolution calling on the Supreme Court to reconsider its 2015 decision on same-sex marriage equality.
The court’s Obergefell v. Hodges decision established the right to same-sex marriage under the equal protection clause and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The resolution comes after Associate Justice Clarence Thomas’s expressed interest in revisiting the Obergefell decision in his concurring opinion on the Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned the federal right to abortion.
Thomas, who issued a dissenting opinion in 2015 against same-sex marriage, wrote in 2022, “In future cases, we should reconsider all of this court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process decision is ‘demonstrably erroneous,’ we have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents.”
Lawrence v. Texas overturned a law criminalizing same-sex sexual conduct and Griswold v. Connecticut overturned state restrictions on the use of contraceptives.
The Fourteenth Amendment states: “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
The Respect for Marriage Law signed by former President Joe Biden in 2022 guarantees the federal recognition of same-sex and interracial marriages and acts as a limited remedy if the Supreme Court were to overrule the Obergefell precedent. The law does not enshrine a right to same-sex or interracial marriage nationwide, but instead requires all states to recognize these marriages if legally certified in the past or in places where they were legally performed.
Same-sex couples across the country have long had concerns about the fate of legalized gay and lesbian marriages.
In Rochester, New York, the city’s First Universalist Church asked themselves what they could do to affirm LGBTQ identities as a religious organization amid a rise in anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. So, they organized a “Big Gay Wedding” to officiate the marriage ceremonies of queer couples en masse with the support of volunteer photographers, florists and others from the community.
“We wanted to be able to provide the service for our community, to be able to celebrate queer love and celebrate queer joy, to have some time for folks to get married who might not be able to otherwise afford a marriage in a congregation, and we want it to be like this big and joyous and beautiful celebration that really brings our community together,” the church’s Reverend Lane-Mairead Campbell previously told ABC News.
Events like Campbell’s “Big Gay Wedding” have begun to pop up around the country, helping residents to make precautionary changes.
“We still have the ability to do this regardless of what happens legally in the months and years ahead,” said Campbell. “We understand that queer and trans people have been here and have existed in times when oppression has been great and where we have had to hide, but we have never ceased to exist … In my denomination, we’ve been doing queer weddings since well before it was legal, and we will continue to do them well after.”
The Idaho House argues that “marriage as an institution has been recognized as the union of one man and one woman for more than two thousand years, and within common law, the basis of the United States’ Anglo-American legal tradition, for more than 800 years.”
The resolution states that the Supreme Court decision is “in complete contravention of their own state constitutions and the will of their voters, thus undermining the civil liberties of those states’ residents and voters.”
A 2024 Gallup poll found that 69% of Americans continue to believe that marriage between same-sex couples should be legal, and 64% say gay or lesbian relations are morally acceptable.
Sarah Warbelow, the vice president for legal affairs for the Human Rights Campaign, criticized the Idaho effort.
“This cruel action by Idaho Republicans amounts to nothing more than shouting at the wind,” said Warbelow. “A majority of Americans of all political affiliations support marriage equality. Resolutions are not laws, and state legislatures lack the power to dismantle marriage equality. They cannot touch the guaranteed federal protections for same-sex couples under the Respect for Marriage Act.”
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers his State of the Union address at the US Capitol in Washington DC, United States on February 04, 2020. (Photo by Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is set to address a joint session of Congress on Tuesday — his first speech to Congress of his second term.
His speech will be his fifth public address before a joint session of Congress, and comes at a time when Republicans hold a trifecta with a GOP president and majorities in both the House and the Senate.
Here’s what you need to know about the speech and how to watch.
When is it?
Trump will address a joint session of Congress at the Capitol on Tuesday, March 4, at 9 p.m. ET (8 p.m. CT; 6 p.m. PT).
House Speaker Mike Johnson invited Trump to deliver the joint address to Congress last month so that Trump could share his “America First vision for our legislative future,” the speaker wrote in his invitation.
How can I watch and stream?
ABC News will have special coverage of Trump’s speech from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET on ABC and ABC News Live, which streams on Disney+, Hulu and other digital platforms as well.
“World News Tonight” anchor and managing editor David Muir will lead the coverage and be joined by ABC News Live “Prime” anchor and “World News Tonight” Sunday anchor Linsey Davis, chief Washington correspondent and “This Week” co-anchor Jonathan Karl, chief global affairs correspondent and “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz, chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce, chief justice correspondent Pierre Thomas, chief business, economics and technology correspondent Rebecca Jarvis, senior political correspondent Rachel Scott, national correspondent Mireya Villarreal and multiplatform reporter Jay O’Brien.
ABC News Digital will have wall-to-wall coverage, including a live blog with up-to-the-minute commentary on the major themes of the address and response from ABC News’ team of experts, notable moments and key takeaways from the evening, and a fact check. 538 will have data-driven previews and reactions to the address, too.
What is an address to the joint session of Congress?
Since this speech will be Trump’s first during his second term, it’s not referred to as a “State of the Union” — although both the address to the joint session and State of the Union are effectively the same.
The address is called the State of the Union for the years that don’t include the president’s inauguration.
Trump, like other presidents, will take the opportunity to discuss his agenda.
Since taking office, Trump has been aggressive in pushing his priorities, which include curbing what he sees as wasteful government spending through federal job cuts.
He will likely discuss those efforts as well as his goals with immigration, foreign policy and the economy.
Who will be there?
Trump’s speech will bring all branches of government together as he is joined by members of Congress and Supreme Court justices.
The speaker of the House and the vice president sit behind the president while he speaks. This speech will mark the first time Vice President JD Vance will be seated behind Trump for the address. During his previous administration, former Vice President Mike Pence was seated behind him.
During his last State of the Union address in 2020, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi memorably ripped up a copy of Trump’s speech just as he finished.
Invited guests also attend the event. The White House and members of Congress typically invite guests with specific backgrounds and stories that are important to them both personally and politically — people they want to thank, to honor or even to highlight a particular issue.
The White House has not yet released its list of invited guests.
Who is speaking for the Democratic Party?
Each year, the opposing party has a televised response to the president’s message. This year, Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin will deliver the Democratic response following Trump’s address to Congress.
“The public expects leaders to level with them on what’s actually happening in our country. From our economic security to our national security, we’ve got to chart a way forward that actually improves people’s lives in the country we all love, and I’m looking forward to laying that out,” Slotkin, a freshman senator, said in a statement.
Slotkin is a political survivor who won her Senate seat in November by less than 20,000 votes, even though Trump carried the state on the presidential level.
The former CIA analyst and Pentagon official also served two terms in the House, after flipping a suburban Detroit seat in 2018. Trump won her district by 4 points in 2016 and lost it by .5 points in 2020.
Democratic Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, will deliver the Spanish language response to Trump. He’s the first Dominican American — and formerly undocumented immigrant — to serve in Congress.
ABC News’ Benjamin Siegel contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — If she is confirmed as director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard would be the youngest-ever in that role, the first millennial, the first Asian American, and only the second woman to hold the position.
But she is expected to face questions in her confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee about statements she has made that appear to support U.S. enemies and dictators as well as having no significant experience in intelligence. Gabbard can afford to lose the votes of only three Republicans and sources tell ABC News the vote on her nomination is expected to be a close one.
Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., began his opening statement by expressing “dismay” at what he characterized as unfair attacks on Gabbard’s patriotism, citing Hillary Clinton’s accusation that she was “an asset of a foreign nation,” referring, of course, to Russia.
Cotton said he personally “spent two hours” reviewing Gabbard’s past background checks and found them “clean as a whistle.”
“No doubt she has some unconventional views,” Cotton acknowledged, but suggested any criticism from Democrats reflects their frustration that she “saw the light” and left their party.
In his opening statement, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the committee’s top Democrat, ticked through a litany of Gabbard’s more controversial public statements to demonstrate what he called his “significant concerns about your judgment and your qualifications.”
“Now I don’t know if your intent in making those statements was to defend those dictators, or if you were simply unaware of the intelligence and how your statements would be perceived,” Warner said. “In either case, it raises serious questions about your judgment.”
In excerpts from her opening statement, Gabbard confronts her critics.
“The truth is: what really upsets my political opponents is my consistent record of independence, regardless of political affiliation, and my refusal to be anyone’s puppet. You know who else is committed to defending our country and reforming Washington with a fierce and unparalleled independence, President Donald J. Trump who ran and won with a mandate for change this November,” she says in the excerpt.
For most of her career, Gabbard has broken barriers. She was the youngest woman ever elected to a state house of representatives and the first to graduate from the Accelerated Officer Candidate School at the Alabama Military Academy as a distinguished honor graduate. In Congress, she was the first Samoan American, the youngest woman elected at the time, and the first combat veteran to serve — a distinction she shares with Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth.
Gabbard has prepared extensively over the past two months for her hearings, meeting with former DNI leaders, including John Negroponte, the first DNI, and Michael Allen, who led Negroponte’s confirmation hearing preparations. She also has consulted with former CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden, along with Trump allies Morgan Ortagus, deputy special presidential envoy for Middle East peace, and FBI director nominee Kash Patel.
She has sought input from a broad range of intelligence experts, former government officials and lawmakers across the aisle. She has participated in policy roundtables with lawyers, ex-intelligence officials, and national security negotiators, including figures involved in the Abraham Accords.
She also held a full-scale mock confirmation hearing ahead of Thursday’s Senate Intelligence Committee proceedings. Former Republican Sen. Richard Burr, who chaired the committee from 2015 to 2020, will introduce her.
Sources on both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill tell ABC News Gabbard will likely face scrutiny over her past stances on Russia, Ukraine, Syria, and Iran, as well as her defense of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who reached a plea deal with the Justice Department over disseminating classified documents he had obtained illegally. Gabbard said last year on “Real Time With Bill Maher” that “the charges against him are one of the biggest attacks on freedom of the press that we’ve seen and freedom of speech.”
As a member of Congress, Gabbard introduced a bill in 2020 calling for the federal government to drop all charges against Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who leaked information in 2013 about how the U.S. government surveils the American public.
She’s also expected to face question on her reversal on Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a key surveillance tool she voted against reauthorizing in 2020, her last year in Congress.
Gabbard argued that Americans shouldn’t be forced to choose between security and liberty, saying that the Patriot Act and FISA have “been allowing for the abuses of our civil liberties and overreach by our own intelligence and law enforcement agencies through doing things like warrantless sweeping collection of our data, violating our Fourth Amendment constitutional rights.”
Gabbard is also expected to face questions past statements about former President Donald Trump including her decision to vote present on Donald Trump’s.
Over the last two months, Gabbard has met with more than 50 senators, primarily Republicans. The meetings have largely served as an introduction — an opportunity to explain her past positions and assuage concerns about her political evolution. A source close to her told ABC News, “They know they can’t put her in a box. She’s not a Democrat. She’s a new Republican. She has very similar, if not 100% aligned, views with President Trump on ‘America First’ foreign policy. That makes people uneasy because they can’t quite figure her out.”
Gabbard, like Trump, is a former Democrat whose policy views have shifted significantly. Her evolution has been shaped by her 22 years in the Army, including deployments to Iraq, Kuwait, and Djibouti. If confirmed, she will be the first female DNI to have served in the military. She plans to continue serving in the Army Reserve, which is permitted under ODNI regulations.
Behind the scenes, Gabbard has earned bipartisan support within the intelligence community for her willingness to engage with a range of stakeholders. Earlier this month, the families of two former ISIS and al-Qaeda hostages publicly endorsed her nomination in a letter shared with ABC News. The parents of Kayla Mueller, who was killed by ISIS, and Theo Padnos, a former al-Qaeda hostage, argued that the radicalization of individuals — such as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who drove his truck into a crowd of New Orleans New Year’s revelers — underscores the need for Gabbard’s swift confirmation.
The letter of support came under scrutiny by some lawmakers after rebels toppled Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. Gabbard met with Assad in Syria in 2017, which remains a point of controversy. She has previously defended the trip as a “fact-finding mission” and has maintained that U.S. intervention in Syria empowered extremist groups.
Gabbard warned in the same year that she was concerned that toppling Assad’s regime could lead to groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda to step in to fill the void and “completely massacre all religious minorities there in Syria.”
“I had no intention of meeting with Assad, but when given the opportunity, I felt it was important to take it,” Gabbard said in a 2017 statement. “We should be ready to meet with anyone if there’s a chance it can help bring about an end to this war.”
Padnos, who was kidnapped by the al-Nusra Front in 2012 and held for nearly two years, said Gabbard’s willingness to engage with hostage families compelled him to speak out.
“This is a woman with deep compassion for the victims of terrorism and the courage to get things done,” he told ABC News. “Nobody else has offered their help — except Tulsi.”
Gabbard told ABC News that she was “honored and humbled by that statement of support.”
She has also received backing from law enforcement. The National Sheriffs’ Association endorsed her nomination, citing her commitment to bridging intelligence gaps between federal agencies and local authorities. In a statement, the group praised Gabbard’s pledge to give sheriffs “a seat at the table” in national security discussions.
Sheriff Kieran Donahue, president of the National Sheriffs’ Association, wrote “Gabbard has demonstrated a commitment to addressing the critical disconnect between our intelligence agencies and local law enforcement in preparing for sophisticated and pervasive threats.”
A source close to Gabbard told ABC News that her focus as director of national intelligence will be on restoring trust in the intelligence community and reforming what is and isn’t classified. Specifically, she aims to ensure that the intelligence provided to the Senate and White House is not information already available to lawmakers through media outlets. On Capitol Hill, lawmakers have expressed concern about the overclassification of information.
The source added that Gabbard intends to provide more accurate, raw intelligence to help lawmakers make informed decisions, rather than relying on overclassified data. She also plans to streamline the process for security clearances and return ODNI to its original mission — leading the intelligence community by fostering integration, collaboration and innovation.
Her allies argue that her outsider perspective will help modernize the intelligence community — though critics remain skeptical of her lack of traditional experience.
Thursday’s hearing will test whether Gabbard can win over skeptics — or if her controversial past will derail her bid to become the nation’s top intelligence officer.
