Things are not going well for Donald Trump at the moment. His approval rating is hitting record lows, right as America heads towards its midterm elections. There is turmoil home and abroad, and the President has since aimed his vitriol towards Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
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Trump slams Zelenskyy as diplomatic row rumbles on
On Thursday evening, President Trump spoke with the right-wing broadcaster Newsmax, venting his frustrations about the ongoing Russian military offensive against Ukraine. However, his catastrophic misunderstanding of the conflict has led to a souring of relations between him and Zelenskyy.
Trump has since spent his week criticising Zelenskyy, stating that Ukraine ‘needs a new leader’. He has also called for an end to strikes on Russian oil refineries, and there are also claims that the White House gave the word to limit Ukraine’s access to Starlink during a co-ordinated military operation.
‘He has destroyed the country’
Last night, ‘Turncoat Trump’ twisted the knife further. In a rambling response to the Newsmax host, the 80-year-old accused Zelenskyy of ‘destroying his own country’, admitting that he finds him ‘harder to deal with’ than Putin. Yeah, there might be a few reasons for that…
“Zelenskyy is not a good guy for us to deal with. I’m not a big fan of Zelenskyy. They’ve destroyed that country. That is a war that should have never started. It was supposed to be a quick war, but the Russian generals made a wrong turn. Ukraine has lost so many of its men.” | Donald Trump
Zelenskyy proves to be much more popular in America than Trump
With Trump now openly batting for Moscow, Zelenskyy has taken much of it in his stride. He has vowed to continue striking Russian refineries, and has also sought support from allies across Europe this week. And when it comes to the American public, the Ukrainian leader does indeed appear to ‘hold the cards’.
The most recently available polling in the US that pits Trump against Zelenskyy in terms of net approval is a shocker for POTUS. Data gathered by UMass Lowell and YouGov sampled 1,000 adults stateside, revealing an approval rating of -18 for Donald Trump, which is broadly in line with trends elsewhere.
The same question was posed to respondents about Mr. Zelenskyy, and he emerges with an approval rating of +13. That’s a whopping 31 percentage points between the pair – and it is entirely likely the gap could widen as Republicans brace for a bleak set of results on Election Night.