Over 40% of Americans believe that US President Donald Trump is a “dictator” – double the percentage of Americans who think that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is one, as Trump claimed in a propaganda-filled social media post on Wednesday.
About 70% of Americans agreed that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a dictator, despite the praise Trump has recently showered on the Kremlin.
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The YouGov poll, conducted on Feb. 19, consisted of data from more than 4,000 respondents across the country on how they see the leaders.
Trump shocked Ukrainian and European allies with his message on Wednesday, upending decades-old relationships across the Atlantic, when he called Zelensky a “Dictator without Elections” who “better move fast or he is not going to have a Country left.”
The US, under the leadership of former President Joe Biden, had been one of Ukraine’s biggest supporters since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country almost exactly three years ago.
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But that all changed when Trump reassumed office last month and began negotiating with Russia to end the war – without Ukraine’s consent or input.
But data from Wednesday’s poll shows that most Americans don’t agree with Trump, and more than two-fifths think that he may be the dictator to watch out for.
An equal percentage of Americans – 45% – said they were “not sure” if Trump and Putin were dictators.
Huge differences of opinion were recorded between respondents who identified as Democrats and Republicans.
Just 15% of Democrats see Zelensky as a dictator, compared to a majority – 68% – who worry that Trump may be one. A whopping 83% of blue voters see Putin as a dictator.
Of Republicans, a third believe Zelensky is a dictator, compared to 11% who see Trump in that light. A majority – 68% – think Putin is a dictator.
Trump also recently incorrectly claimed that the Ukrainian president has a 4% approval rating at home.
But recent polls show that Zelensky has held a roughly 60% approval rating over the last few months – significantly higher than Trump’s overall approval rating in the US, which sits around 45%.
Speaking during a Fox News radio interview on Friday, Trump again struck out at Zelensky by claiming that he has no leverage to end the war and, therefore, has no need to participate in peace negotiations brokered between the US and Russia.
He also claimed that Putin could easily take all of Ukraine if he wanted – despite the Kremlin’s much-hyped failure to invade Kyiv in three days at the onset of the invasion.
“He wants to make a deal,” Trump said of Putin. “And he doesn’t have to make a deal, because if he wanted, he’d get the whole country.”
Trump’s latest attacks on Zelensky come days after thousands of people gathered across the US in a movement that many have dubbed the “Resist the Dictator” protests.
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