“A modestly successful comedian talked the United States of America into spending $350 billion”: Five of Trump’s false claims about Zelensky

In a Feb. 19 post on Truth Social, Trump claims:

“He refuses to have Elections, is very low in Ukrainian Polls, and the only thing he was good at was playing Biden 'like a fiddle.' A Dictator without Elections, Zelenskyy better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.”

Additionally, in a meeting with reporters at Mar-a-Lago, Trump stated that Zelensky’s approval rating in Ukraine is just 4%.

Trump hasn’t come up with anything new. The claim that Zelensky usurped power by refusing to hold elections in April 2024, when his term was scheduled to end, is a favorite false claim of Kremlin propaganda, which has long referred to the Ukrainian president as “expired.” In reality, Ukraine’s law “On the Legal Regime of Martial Law” explicitly prohibits holding presidential elections during this period, and the Constitution states that the president serves until the newly elected president of Ukraine takes office.

As for the 4% approval rating, these figures come from an unknown source and bear no resemblance to the actual results of any legitimate surveys conducted among the people of Ukraine. According to the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, Zelensky’s trust rating is 57%, and it consistently exceeds 50% both nationwide and in each of the country’s regions.