Donald Trump hosted back-to-back White House meetings with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, as Ukraine seeks more firepower for its air defenses and the Israeli prime minister tries to repair his strained relationship with the US president.
Trump described both meetings in positive terms on social media Tuesday evening, remaining vague about what was discussed.
“Had a very good meeting!” Trump said of his sit-down with Netanyahu. “Obviously, many important subjects were discussed.” He posted a similar statement about his time with Zelenskyy, writing the “meeting went very well!”
It was Netanyahu’s first visit to the Oval Office since he and Trump launched their joint military campaign against Iran on 28 February.
Netanyahu’s relationship with Trump has been complicated in recent weeks by his push to keep fighting Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon, even as Trump pursued a diplomatic opening with Tehran.
Tensions between the pair have risen as the war has drifted inconclusively, with Trump calling the Israeli premier “crazy” and declaring: “Without me, there would be no Israel.”
The two men are each facing pressure at home, with Netanyahu in a tough re-election fight, and Trump under pressure to end an unpopular war that has pushed up prices before November’s midterms.
Scientists have scrambled to Anthony Fauci’s defense ahead of the unusual hearing, the second time the longtime National Institutes of Health scientist has been before Congress to discuss pandemic origins since leaving the government in 2022.
While the Covid-19 pandemic introduced him to millions of Americans, he talked the nation through numerous outbreaks over decades, including HIV, Ebola and the 2001 anthrax attacks, while advising seven presidents.
In a public letter, more than 150 infectious disease experts and other scientists wrote that “no credible evidence has been produced to support these absurd charges” and that they are “urging our elected representatives in Congress stop these witch-hunts.”
“The charges against Dr Fauci are baseless, suggesting he covered up the origins of Covid, that he bribed or persuaded other scientists to join his cover-up, that Niaid-funded research sparked the pandemic, that he personally holds patents on the virus, and that he’s working with intelligence agencies to suppress the true story of the pandemic,” the letter stated.
“No credible evidence has been produced to support these absurd charges.”
The letter added that the allegations and accusations about Fauci have led to “five-year period of harassment and threats of violence directed at Dr Fauci and his family”.
Fauci to face questions from Senate Republicans over pandemic origins
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Senators are expected to question Anthony Fauci, the former veteran director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (Niaid), about whether the Covid-19 virus began as a “lab leak” in a high-profile hearing later today.
Fauci, who served as a key adviser to Donald Trump and Joe Biden on the Covid-19 pandemic, will give testimony as part of a longtime Republican investigation into the origins of the pandemic, led by Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky.
Fauci will likely be quizzed about whether the Covid-19 virus began as a “lab leak”, a claim virologists have argued is unlikely.
While Republicans have characterized their work as investigating “the origins of Covid-19 and risky taxpayer-funded life science research”, scientists have characterized Paul’s investigation as “vilification and harassment” of Fauci, who led Niaid for 38 years before retiring in 2022.
“For years, Americans were told a lab origin wasn’t just unlikely – it was dismissed outright by the very people funding and reviewing this research,” Paul, who chairs the Senate committee on homeland security and governmental affairs, where Fauci is scheduled to testify, said last week.
Fauci, who is 85, served under seven US presidents and through numerous health crises, including HIV, Ebola and the first coronavirus outbreak, called Sars-CoV-1. He became a household name overnight when the Covid-19 pandemic halted social life in 2020.
The “lab leak” theory has since gained significant traction in Republican circles. In just one example, the White House published a treatise on the theory in April 2025 that served as a rationale for defunding the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Read the full story here:
In other developments:
-
Donald Trump met Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, and Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, before giving the eulogy at the funeral of Lindsey Graham.
-
The US Senate voted to confirm Jay Clayton as director of national intelligence, installing Donald Trump’s pick in the role despite his lack of prior experience with intelligence and concerns that he will be “Trump’s election conspiracy wingman”.
-
With Zelenskyy watching from the Senate gallery, the US Senate voted 86 to 12 to advance the “Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act”.
-
Democratic senators said that they would work to eliminate the expansive tariff authority the sanctions bill would give Trump.
-
Zelenskyy told Fox News on Tuesday that Trump had, again, agreed to allow Ukraine to manufacture its own Patriot air defense interceptors to defend against Russian ballistic missile attacks.
Updated
