SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
And since taking office, President Trump appears to have reversed U.S. policy on Ukraine and has said that Ukraine's President Zelenskyy is responsible for the war that began when Russia invaded three years ago almost to the day. Here's the president speaking to Fox News Radio's Brian Kilmeade on Friday.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: When Zelenskyy said, oh, he wasn't invited to a meeting, I mean, it wasn't a priority because he did such a bad job in negotiating so far. Number one, you shouldn't have had a war. And if you did, it should have been solved and settled immediately. It could have been.
SIMON: NPR's Ron Elving joins us now. Ron, thanks for being with us.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Scott.
SIMON: I feel the need to put this to you very bluntly. Is the U.S. government now supporting the Russian position?
ELVING: It's hard to contemplate this reality, Scott, but in recent days, President Trump has been repeating Russian talking points. Yesterday, on Fox, as you were just playing, he admitted it was Russia that attacked Ukraine, but he still blamed Ukraine and the Biden administration for the war. Trump has said Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a dictator without elections. But Zelenskyy was elected democratically, and the country can't hold elections now because it's under siege. Trump is negotiating with Russia, a country led by a real dictator named Vladimir Putin, and those negotiations have included Russia, but not Ukraine. So whose side is the U.S. on?
Now, it can be hard to know just where Trump's going to come down tomorrow on this or any other issue, and we do know that whatever his interest in Ukraine's independence, he is interested in some of its natural resources. He sent an envoy to negotiate on this, and there's apparently been some progress on that. So perhaps if there can be payback for U.S. assistance, that may make a difference. Otherwise, this is the abandonment of a strategic U.S. commitment. We are changing sides, and it has our allies in NATO and elsewhere in the world deeply concerned.
SIMON: Ron, we just heard about last night's staff shake-up at the Pentagon. And this, of course, follows announced cuts in departments of Education, Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, Internal Revenue - just before tax season - National Park Service, Federal Emergency Management, Justice. What are we seeing?
ELVING: Here again, there may be a gap between what we're seeing and Trump's ultimate agenda. But what we're seeing is a systematic dismantling of the federal government as we know it - thousands of layoffs applied largely indiscriminately, apparently in an effort to generate big numbers of reductions in federal workforce and claim a kind of victory for that. Much of it's being driven by Trump's special employee Elon Musk - a reflection of his libertarian impulses and his suspicion of government in general. But whether you're talking about understaffing flight control towers at airports or in the IRS or the people at USAID or the Park Service people fighting wildfires, this is staffing that has a purpose, and its absence will be felt. Polls and public forums show these moves are already generating a lot of negative feedback, even among Republicans, so it's possible Trump will go a certain distance with Musk and then recalibrate.
SIMON: And I got to raise the question, will these cut stand up in courts or Congress, because a lot of federal workers, as you note, are being let go in states that voted for President Trump, aren't they?
ELVING: Yes. Federal workers live everywhere, including in Trump states. And now we are seeing some pushback from the courts. As you say, the Supreme Court has upheld a lower court ruling that allows the special prosecutor, Hampton Dellinger - the top protector of whistleblowers in the government - to remain in his job until the lower court rules on February 26 regarding a more permanent disposition of that issue. Another federal judge has found the executive orders to end equity-related grants or contracts across federal agencies violate the Constitution.
So the bigger question is how Trump voters will react if they lose something they value, something they might have counted on - one example is Medicaid. That health insurance program for low-income Americans takes a huge hit in the House budget resolution that Trump has endorsed. Four of the states with the highest rate of Medicaid dependence are Kentucky, Louisiana, Arkansas and West Virginia. They all voted overwhelmingly for Trump. But more than a third of the people in those states are on Medicaid right now, and without it, they will face medical costs they've never seen before.
SIMON: Ron Elving, thanks so much.
ELVING: Thank you, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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