Trump-Zelenskiy feud, Gaza hostage bodies, Musk poll and Brazil judge
12:24 Share

Today, Donald Trump labels Volodymyr Zelensky a dictator as their feud deepens. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that Americans are worried about the impact of Elon Musk's cuts to the federal government. And Trump's media company sues the Brazilian judge presiding over the Bolsonaro coup case.

It's Thursday, February 20th. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes, every weekday. I'm Christopher Waljesper in Chicago. And I'm Tara Oakes in Liverpool.

Are you still quoting 30-year-old movies? Have you said cool beans in the past 90 days? Do you think Discover isn't widely accepted? If this sounds like you, you're stuck in the past. Discover is accepted at 99% of places that take credit cards nationwide. And every time you make a purchase with your card, you automatically earn cash back. Welcome to the now. It pays to discover. Learn more at discover.com slash credit card. Based on the February 2024 Nielsen Report.

Europe has failed to bring peace and Zelensky probably wants to, maybe he wants to keep the gravy train going. I don't know what's the problem. A major flip in U.S. policy. President Donald Trump doubling down on his criticism of Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky, accusing Zelensky of being a dictator.

Tensions between the two have intensified this week, after U.S. talks with Russia in Saudi Arabia. As for Zelensky, he accused Trump of living in a disinformation space. Trump's saying in response that the Ukrainian leader has done a terrible job and could have attended the talks in Saudi Arabia if he'd wanted to.

Max Hunder is in Kiev and has been giving us a reaction from Ukraine. Well, ordinary Ukrainians are quite shocked and flabbergasted at what they've seen from President Trump. There's been some anger on social media, a lot of dismay. Everyone's quite depressed about what this means for the future. Zelensky did sort of

fire back a bit. And then that actually escalated this war of words. But I would point out that actually this spat has really caused Ukrainians in general to rally around Zelenskyy.

There's actually a stronger measure of domestic cohesion and unity than there was before this spat started as people rally around their leader at this difficult time. The latest poll actually was released on Wednesday, so they had 57% trust. So how does this impact the war?

the actual tangible processes are still the same as they were before the spat. This is so far just a spat. Of course, I'd remind you that Biden-era aid packages are still trickling in. But also, it's wrong to

see Ukraine as helpless without foreign support. Ukraine's grown a pretty massive domestic arms industry for a country of its size throughout the war, and it can meet some of its arms demands by itself. And obviously, the Europeans seem to have been somewhat jolted awake by Trump's actions and statements over the past week and a half. However, the US is still the largest single military backer, and it supplies a lot of key

key systems and weapons, which it would be hard, very hard, sometimes impossible to adequately replace. And unfortunately for Ukraine, if it does lose US political and military support, that would, I think, inevitably lead to significantly higher Ukrainian casualties on the battlefield.

One of the causes of attention is what to do with Ukraine's supply of critical minerals. With Zelenskyy rejecting a US proposal for a minerals deal and saying Ukraine is not for sale. But what are critical minerals? And why is what Ukraine has so valuable? You can find out on this week's episode of Econ World Podcast. It's available now. Red Cross vehicles surrounded by a crowd and members of Hamas.

carrying the bodies of Israeli infant Kfeir Bibas and his four-year-old brother Ariel from Gaza. They are the two youngest captives taken by Hamas in the October 7th attack. Their bodies and that of their mother were handed over today, along with a fourth hostage, a dead lift ship. It's the first time Israel has received the bodies of hostages as part of a ceasefire agreement.

Pope Francis is alert and responsive and making jokes. That's what Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Maloney said after visiting him in hospital. The Vatican says the 88-year-old has shown a slight improvement in recent blood tests as he battles double pneumonia. NASA's plans to return to the moon are less certain as four key senior officials close to its Artemis moon program leave the space agency.

President Trump, as well as Elon Musk, whose company, SpaceX, has $15 billion worth of contracts with NASA, have been advocating for shelving the Artemis program in favor of a Mars mission. The Democratic Republic of Congo is asking for military and diplomatic support from Chad. It's an effort to help fight a Rwanda-backed insurgency from M23 rebels in its eastern provinces.

Gold prices have hit another record high as investors turn to bullion for safety over fears that Trump's tariff plans would stoke inflation and a global trade war. For those keeping track, that's the ninth time the metal has touched an all-time high this year. That comes after a 27% rise last year, its strongest annual performance in over a decade.

And guess what? There's an Econ World episode all about gold for you to find out more about what's happening. Take a listen wherever you get your podcasts. A new Reuters-Ipsos poll shows that a majority of Americans are worried that Elon Musk's efforts to reduce the federal government could hurt services in their communities. But the poll also shows some support for reducing the size of government, even from Democrats.

Our political editor, Scott Malone, is here to break down the numbers. So big picture, what we see is that Americans do support the idea that the federal government could be smaller, but they're showing a lot of concerns about the way this particular campaign is being run. Hmm. How so? 58% of respondents said that they're concerned that federal programs that their communities rely on, like Social Security, like student aid, could be slowed as a result of this. And that is about double the number of people who said that they aren't worried. Right.

Respondents are also concerned about the influence that billionaires and the wealthy have on the White House, with 71% saying that they believe that the wealthy have too much influence on the White House and 69% saying that they think that the wealthy are in fact making money off their White House connections. How's the Trump administration viewing public approval of these early actions?

Well, I mean the Trump administration's take is that one that there's a there's a need to cut costs full stop broadly that general idea the American public does agree with 59% of respondents to our survey said that they did back the goal of Downsizing the federal government the White House does say that they believe that they have broad public support for their cost-cutting campaigns deciding Trump's election victory so I think disconnect we're seeing is

is perhaps some concern about how the way that it's being executed right now. Trump Media Group and a video sharing platform are suing a Brazilian Supreme Court justice, accusing him of illegal censorship. The judge in question is also the one weighing the criminal case against Trump's ally, Brazil's former president, Jair Bolsonaro.

Bolsonaro has been charged by the Brazilian Supreme Court over an alleged 2022 coup plot. Brod Haynes is our bureau chief in Brazil and has been looking into both cases.

Part of the effort by Bolsonaro and his allies in Congress and internationally to discredit this case before the Supreme Court is to focus very specifically on the judge who's been overseeing the investigation and is now going to be hearing the case before the Supreme Court. And this same judge, Alexandre de Moraes, has been taking the most active role in combating

what is seen as misinformation online, and what is accused by a lot of conservatives in Brazil of being a censorship campaign. Now, we saw Trump Media and Rumble, another conservative social media platform, bringing a lawsuit in a federal district court in Tampa.

specifically suing this Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Now, there's no explicit signs of coordination, but you just saw Moraes receive charges before the Supreme Court, and it was not 12 hours later. We had a lawsuit from Trump media and other conservative allies of Bolsonaro targeting that same Supreme Court justice in a U.S. lawsuit.

Brazil's Supreme Court and Moraes' office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Last year, Justice Moraes was locked in a months-long feud with Elon Musk. He was the one who led the Supreme Court decision that temporarily suspended Musk-owned X in Brazil over the social media platform's failure to comply with court rulings.

You know what's smart? Enjoying a fresh gourmet meal at home that you didn't have to cook. Meet Factor, your loophole in the laws of mealtime. Chef-crafted meals delivered with a tap, ready in just two minutes. You know what's even smarter? Treating yourself without cheating your goals. Factor is dietician-approved, chef-prepared, and you-plated. Pretty smart, huh? Refresh your routine and eat smart with Factor. Learn more at factormeals.com.

For our recommended read today, we focus on eggs and how Turkey is exporting 15,000 tons of them to the U.S. to ease disruption caused by the bird flu outbreak. You can find out more by following the link in the pod description. For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.