Washington CNN —
President Donald Trump’s false declaration Tuesday that Ukraine “started” the Russian war on Ukraine generated the most attention. But Trump also made another wildly inaccurate assertion about Ukraine during those remarks to the media at Mar-a-Lago: a claim that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has a 4% approval rating.
Trump was pushing Ukraine to hold its first presidential election since Zelensky was elected in 2019. The Ukrainian constitution does not allow national elections under martial law; Ukraine, which has been under martial law since the Russian invasion in 2022, called off the presidential election that would otherwise have been held in 2024.
When Trump was asked Tuesday if the US would ever support a reported Russian demand “to force Ukraine to hold new elections in order to sign any kind of a peace deal,” Trump responded, “Well, we have a situation where we haven’t had elections in Ukraine; where we have martial law, essentially martial law, in Ukraine; where the leader in Ukraine, I mean, I hate to say it, but he’s down at 4% percent approval rating.”
Facts First: Trump’s claim is not even close to accurate. Zelensky’s approval rating is far higher than 4%. In fact, it has been above 50% in major recent surveys.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Zelensky described Trump’s “4%” claim as disinformation from Russia. Wherever Trump got the number – the White House didn’t respond to a CNN request for comment – it is detached from...
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