CNN Data Guru Warns Trump Is in ‘Weakened State’ for Russia-Ukraine War Negotiations

President Donald Trump is operating in a “weakened state” both domestically and internationally, CNN’s data analyst Henry Enten said Monday — something that makes it more difficult for him to negotiate the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.

Americans “have no confidence in Donald Trump to handle this war,” Enten said of the conflict, which began in February 2022. Trust in the president’s handling of the war has “fallen from 45% back when Trump was on the campaign trail to just 32% now. And … among Republicans, it was 81% two years ago. It is now just 60%.”

Enten added, “Trump comes into any negotiations in a weakened state, given the domestic feelings in Russia and Ukraine and the domestic feelings here in the United States as well.”

Trump held separate phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday.

On top of that, there is no apparent end to the war in sight, Enten said. This is true despite Trump’s campaign promise that he could end the war in a day, a claim he later said was meant in jest. Trump spent much of his second campaign insisting the war never would have begun if he had been in office.

In March 2025, reporter Sharyl Attkisson asked Trump if he was speaking to Putin “personally” about the war. “Well, I don’t wanna say it, but we are dealing with him, and I think, I think it’s going reasonably well,” Trump answered. “It’s a very complex situation, you know, it’s a bloody terrible war. And I do think it’s going well.”

Attkisson then added, “I’m not understating the complexity of all this, but as a candidate, you said you would have this war settled in 24 hours.”

Trump answered, “Well, I was being a little bit sarcastic when I said that, what I really mean is I’d like to get it settled, and I think I’ll be successful.”

Watch above via CNN.

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