Zelenskyy’s warning about Ukraine’s future: From the Politics Desk
Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.
Happy Friday and happy Valentine’s Day to you and yours. In today’s edition, “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker sits down with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Munich. Plus, we have a look back at the week that was for President Donald Trump in the courts. And Jonathan Allen writes the recent upheaval at the Justice Department is reminiscent of the “Saturday Night Massacre” during the Nixon administration.
Programming note: We’re taking a break for Presidents’ Day on Monday and will be back in your inbox on Tuesday, Feb. 18.
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— Adam Wollner
Zelenskyy: ‘Very difficult’ for Ukraine to survive without U.S. military support
By Alexander Smith and Alexandra Marquez
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” Friday that it would be “very, very, very difficult” for Ukraine to survive without U.S. military support, both now as it tries to repel Russia’s invasion and in the future after the current war ends.
“Probably it will be very, very, very difficult. And of course, in all the difficult situations, you have a chance,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. “But we will have low chance, low chance, to survive without support of the United States. I think it’s very important, critical.”
“I don’t want to think about” fighting against Russia without American support, Zelenskyy said, adding, “I don’t want to think that we will not be strategic partners.”
Zelenskyy said that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to come to the negotiating table not to end the war but to get a ceasefire deal that would lift certain international sanctions on Russia and would allow the Russian military to regroup.
The backdrop: Zelenskyy’s comments came during a fractious summit in Germany, where Vice President JD Vance criticized European leaders on a host of issues unrelated to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including failing to stand up for “values shared with the United States of America.”
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier presented his own unvarnished view in response, saying that the Trump administration had “no regard for established rules, partnership and grown trust.”
The widening gulf between Europe and the United States comes at an especially delicate time for Zelenskyy and an exhausted and depleted Ukraine. While the war appears to have descended into a quagmire, Russian forces have been making slow if painful progress. Russia controls some 20% of the country, which is in dire need of weapons and soldiers.
Read more →
And watch the full interview Sunday morning on “Meet the Press.”
What to know from the Trump presidency today
- The Trump administration carried out mass firings Thursday and Friday across the federal government, affecting thousands of workers who had been on the job for less than two years.
- A judge temporarily blocked mass terminations at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, dealing a blow to Trump’s efforts to dismantle the agency. (Read more on Trump’s legal challenges below.)
- Trump signed two executive orders: one on ending federal funding to schools that require Covid vaccines and another that establishes a new panel called the “Energy Dominance Council.”
- Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said he was “puzzled and disturbed” by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s comments asserting that a return to Ukraine’s 2014 borders was “unrealistic.” Trump defended Hegseth’s speech, saying he knew “generally” what would be in it.
Follow live updates →
A week of legal setbacks — and one big win — for Trump’s agenda
Trump’s effort to reshape the federal government through a series of sweeping executive orders ran into a number of roadblocks in the courts this week, but he also scored a major legal victory.
Dareh Gregorian has a wrap-up of Trump’s week in the courts:
The setbacks:
- A federal judge in Washington, D.C., signed off on a temporary restraining order blocking the blanket freeze on federal grant money to perform foreign assistance work. Another federal judge in D.C. also further halted plans to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development.
- A federal judge in Rhode Island said the administration had violated his order halting a sweeping federal funding freeze. It was the first time a judge accused the administration of violating a court order.
- A federal judge in Boston temporarily halted the move to pause grants from the National Institutes of Health to almost two dozen states.
- A federal judge in Maryland temporarily blocked Trump’s executive order aimed at restricting transgender health care for anyone under 19 for at least two weeks.
The victory:
- A federal judge in Boston allowed the administration’s massive “deferred resignation” program for federal employees to move forward, ruling the labor unions that brought the suit lacked standing.
The next round of challenges:
- Democratic attorneys general in 14 states sued over the constitutionality of the Department of Government Efficiency.
- A coalition of unions and civil rights groups filed suit seeking to block Trump’s plans to disable the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
- A group of religious organizations challenged the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to rescind guidance barring immigration raids at or near places of worship except in emergency situations or with prior written, high-level supervisory approval.
- A coalition of immigrant rights groups is arguing the administration is denying immigrants being sent to Guantanamo Bay their right to a lawyer.
Read more from Dareh’s roundup →
How the latest order from Trump’s DOJ compares to the ‘Saturday Night Massacre’
Analysis by Jonathan Allen
Richard Nixon had his “Saturday Night Massacre,” and now Donald Trump has his Valentine’s Day massacre.
Like any good Valentine’s story, this one is taking more than just the one day to play out. It started on Monday, when Emil Bove, the acting deputy attorney general and former Trump lawyer, ordered the top federal prosecutor in New York, Danielle Sassoon, to drop corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams.
Trump wants Adams to help deport more migrants — putting political pressure on other mayors to do the same — and Adams, presumably, did not want to risk going to prison himself.
Sassoon did not go to court to pull the prosecution. Instead, she resigned on Thursday, revealing that top Justice Department officials met with Adams’ defense lawyers to map out what she said amounted to a quid pro quo. Several of her deputies also quit.
Adams and his lawyers have denied a quid pro quo, but the Trump administration has done little to dissuade the public from reaching a similar conclusion. In an unfortunate turn of phrase, Trump’s “border czar” Tom Homan touted the deal in a joint Fox News interview with Adams Friday. “If he doesn’t come through,” Homan said, “I’ll be in his office, up his butt, saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’”
The episode is reminiscent of the Saturday Night Massacre. In October 1973, Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox — the man investigating Nixon. Richardson resigned instead. So did Richardson’s deputy, William Ruckelshaus. Finally, Solicitor General Robert Bork executed on Nixon’s order.
That act of fealty to president and party no doubt contributed to Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan more than a decade later — and to the Senate’s refusal to confirm Bork.
Public outrage over the Saturday Night Massacre led to a reform law and to decades of efforts by Nixon’s successors to either distance themselves from prosecutorial decisions or give the appearance of distance.
Trump chafed at the norm during his first term, when he soured on — and eventually fired — Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had recused himself from the decision to appoint a special counsel to investigate any Trump ties to Russia.
But in the current case, unlike the Watergate and Russia probes, the president is not a target of investigation or prosecution. There’s no law preventing the president from directing prosecutions from the White House. Even if there were, the Supreme Court made clear last year that the president can’t be prosecuted for official actions anyway.
Adams does not enjoy such immunity, and it will be interesting to see whether state charges are brought against him in New York.
But what’s more interesting is what the episode reveals about Trump, his long-standing complaints about the politicization of the Justice Department, and his oft-repeated promise to clean up corruption in the federal government. He does not apply the same standards to himself, and there’s no indication that he intends to.
➡️ Read more: The DOJ on Friday moved to dismiss corruption charges against Adams, the latest move in a legal saga that has led to the resignations of at least seven federal prosecutors and plunged the department into crisis, Tom Winter, Ryan J. Reilly and Rich Schapiro report.
🗞️ Today’s other top stories
- 📝 Step one: The Republican-controlled House Budget Committee voted along party lines to advance a massive budget blueprint to slash taxes and spending by trillions of dollars. Read more →
- 👀 DOGE bites man: The Department of Government Efficiency has received approval from the Labor Department to use software that could allow it to transfer vast amounts of data out of Labor’s systems, alarming some career employees. Read more →
- 💰Big bucks: The Wall Street Journal reports the Trump family has raked in nearly $80 million through a range of ventures since the 2024 election, from the first lady’s Amazon documentary deal to the president’s legal settlements. Read more →
- 💘 All’s fair in love and memes: Politicians flooded their social media feeds with Valentine’s Day notes. And amid the heartfelt messages to their loved ones, some put out, shall we say, less earnest wishes. Read more →
That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner and Faith Wardwell.
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