Trump News and Live Updates: Zelensky Attends Meeting of European Leaders on Ukraine

“We’re gathered here today because this is a once in a generation moment for the security of Europe, and we all need to step up,” Mr. Starmer told the assembled leaders as the summit opened, with Mr. Zelensky seated next to him. “Getting a good outcome for Ukraine is not just a matter of right and wrong, it’s vital for the security of every nation here and many others too.”

On Sunday morning, Mr. Starmer told the BBC that he, Mr. Zelensky and President Emmanuel Macron of France had agreed they “would work on a plan for stopping the fighting and then discuss that plan with the U.S.” Any peace agreement “is going to need a U.S. backstop,” Mr. Starmer added, saying that British and U.S. teams were discussing the idea.

The angry exchange in the Oval Office on Friday was the latest sign that Mr. Trump was pivoting American foreign policy away from traditional allies like Ukraine and Europe. It also illustrated the seriousness of his plans to quickly end the war in Ukraine, which could result in a deal that empowers Russia.

European leaders have lined up behind Ukraine and lauded its embattled president since the episode. On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the Trump administration’s treatment of Mr. Zelensky, saying that the Ukrainian president had disrupted efforts toward a peace process with Russia.

Mr. Zelensky “found every opportunity to try to ‘Ukraine-splain’ on every issue,” Mr. Rubio told on ABC News, adding that he was “puzzled” by some of the criticisms of the meeting.

Here’s what else to know:

• British loan: Britain on Saturday announced a nearly $3 billion loan to Ukraine aimed at bolstering the war-torn country’s military capability. It will be paid back using profits generated on sanctioned Russian sovereign assets, and the first tranche of funding is expected to be disbursed to Ukraine next week, Britain’s Treasury said.

• Judge’s order: A federal judge in Washington on Saturday blocked the Trump administration from ousting the top official at a federal watchdog agency, saying that its efforts to do so were unlawful. The judge’s order will allow the official, Hampton Dellinger, to remain the head of the Office of Special Counsel, which protects federal whistle-blowers. Read more ›

• More troops on the border: The Pentagon is sending about 3,000 additional troops to the southwestern border, rushing to comply with Mr. Trump’s order to increase the military’s role in stemming the flow of migrants into the United States. The reinforcements announced on Saturday would bring the total number of active-duty troops on the border to about 9,000, Defense Department officials said. Read more ›

• Park protests: Hundreds of people gathered on Saturday at national parks from California to Maine to protest the Trump administration’s firing of at least 1,000 National Park Service employees last month. Read more ›

Minho Kim and Yan Zhuang contributed reporting.

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reiterated the Trump administration officials’ discomfort and anger with Zelensky, saying that the Ukrainian president had disrupted efforts toward a peace process with Russia by challenging Vice President JD Vance in the Oval Office on Friday. Zelensky “found every opportunity to try to ‘Ukraine-splain’ on every issue,” Rubio said.

Secretary Rubio, speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” leaned heavily on emotive language to justify his administration’s shift in foreign policy over Ukraine. He said that he was “puzzled” by the pushback on the administration after the heated Oval Office exchange with Presdent Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Friday and said that President Trump, who was trying to prevent more destruction, was being unfairly criticized.

“The sooner people grow up and realize that, I think the more progress we’re going to be able to make,” Rubio said. He added that Trump would receive a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts if he were a Democrat.

Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, told Fox News on Sunday that he regretted voting to confirm his former colleague Marco Rubio to be secretary of state. Van Hollen said the former senator, a Florida Republican, used to acknowledge that Russia was the aggressor in the war against Ukraine and would never have accused Zelensky of being a dictator as Trump has. But since joining the administration, Rubio has adopted Trump’s talking points. “As a member of the Senate, Secretary Rubio was somebody who stood up for American values, American principles,” Van Hollen said. “Now he’s simply taking his directions at the State Department from Elon Musk and essentially parroting the president’s position.”

Van Hollen called Friday’s three-way argument in the Oval Office “a despicable display of bullying” by Trump and Vance against Zelensky. He also characterized the Trump administration’s rare minerals deal as an “extortion” of Ukraine.

Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut and one of the most outspoken critics of the second Trump administration, told CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday, that “it is absolutely shameful what is happening right now,” speaking about President Trump’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine.

“The White House has become an arm of the Kremlin,” Murphy said. “The White House has been pretending as if Ukraine started this war. That’s essentially saying that Poland invaded Germany at the beginning of World War II. There are still facts in this world.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, appeared to defend the conduct of President Trump and Vice President JD Vance during the Oval Office meeting on Friday, saying that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine “acted so inappropriately” and should have “shown more gratitude.”

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The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, praised the Trump administration for changing its foreign policy in ways that “couldn’t have been imagined,” on the war in Ukraine.

“The new administration is fast changing all foreign policy configurations,” Peskov said, speaking to Russian state television in comments recorded last Wednesday and released on Sunday. He added: “This coincides with our vision in many ways.”

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President Emmanuel Macron of France has arrived for the summit meeting of European leaders taking place in London.

Sergey Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, said that Macron and Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain were “impertinent” in proposing thousands of peacekeeping troops for Ukraine. “No one is asking us,” Lavrov said in an interview with Krasnaya Zvezda, the Russian state news agency Tass reported on Sunday. Lavrov praised President Trump for “behaving correctly,” according to the report.

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“We have to bridge this,” Mr. Starmer said on Sunday to the BBC before the leaders began arriving at Lancaster House, near Buckingham Palace. “We have to find a way where we can all work together.”

Mr. Starmer said he believed that despite Mr. Trump’s anger toward Mr. Zelensky in the Oval Office on Friday, the president was committed to a lasting peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia. He said Britain and France, working with other European countries, would develop their own plan with Mr. Zelensky.

Details of the plan were sketchy, but Mr. Starmer suggested that the Europeans could use it as a basis to persuade Mr. Trump to commit to American security guarantees. Britain and France have already pledged to contribute troops to a peacekeeping force and are trying to enlist other countries across Europe.

“I think we’ve got a step in the right direction,” Mr. Starmer said, though he added that “this is a moment of real fragility in Europe.”

His comments captured the dilemma confronting Europe two weeks after Mr. Trump’s surprise overture to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Neither Europe nor Ukraine currently have seats at the table in a potential Trump-brokered peace deal. Nor has Mr. Trump agreed to give security assurances to prevent Russia from launching another invasion of its neighbor.

Mr. Trump’s acrimonious exchange with Mr. Zelensky deepened the trans-Atlantic divide. “Nobody wants to see that,” said Mr. Starmer, who had his own, much smoother meeting with Mr. Trump a day earlier.

The prime minister has tried to mediate between Mr. Zelensky and Mr. Trump. Speaking to both men by phone after their clash, he floated the idea of Mr. Zelensky returning to the White House on Friday evening to mend fences with the president, according to a senior British official.

Both leaders demurred, saying it would be better to let tempers cool and the air to clear, according to the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. Still, Mr. Zelensky himself has also expressed a belief that his rift with Mr. Trump was not irreparable.

On Sunday in London, Europe wrapped Mr. Zelensky in a warm embrace. He won expressions of support from the 18 assembled leaders, including President Emmanuel Macron of France, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy. After meeting them, he was scheduled to visit King Charles III at his country estate, Sandringham, northeast of London.

Yet behind the carefully choreographed show of solidarity, there was a recognition that keeping the United States on board remains critical.

“Starmer has two goals,” said Mujtaba Rahman, an analyst at the political risk consultancy Eurasia Group. “Build an offer with the Ukrainians and Europeans that keeps the U.S. positively engaged in Ukraine’s security, while simultaneously preparing for a worst-case scenario where that may not prove possible.”

That will require European countries to shoulder a much heavier burden in defending the continent’s defense. Mr. Starmer is expected to push fellow European leaders to follow Britain in bolstering its military spending.

Last week, the British government announced that its defense budget would reach 2.5 percent of gross domestic product by 2027 and 3 percent within a decade. On Saturday, after meeting Mr. Zelensky at 10 Downing Street, Mr. Starmer gave Ukraine a loan of 2.26 billion pounds (about $2.8 billion) to buy additional military hardware.

The summit meeting has thrust Mr. Starmer into an unaccustomed place for a British prime minister: at the heart of Europe during a crisis. More than eight years after the country voted to leave the European Union, the rapidly changing security landscape is driving Britain closer to the continent.

Catherine Ashton, a Briton who served as the E.U.’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said Mr. Starmer’s successful meeting with Mr. Trump had reinforced his credentials as a leader for Europe.

“It is unsurprising that allies in Europe are gathering in London this weekend and equally unsurprising that the U.K. is being taken much more seriously in Brussels and capitals,” Ms. Ashton said.

And yet there are limits to Mr. Starmer’s diplomacy. He was unable to extract any security guarantees from Mr. Trump for Ukraine, despite an exaggerated show of deference to the president. That included Mr. Starmer hand-delivering an invitation for a state visit from the king, a rare second time Mr. Trump has been accorded that honor.

For Mr. Trump, the king’s invitation to Mr. Zelensky to visit him at Sandringham might take some of the shine off that gesture.

For Mr. Starmer, the crisis opens an opportunity to draw closer to Europe. He has long wanted to do that on the trade front, but has approached it gingerly because of the political sensitivities at home. The Labour Party does not want to lose its core working-class voters, many of whom favored Brexit, to the anti-immigration party, Reform U.K., which is led by Nigel Farage.

But boosting military spending is popular with Reform voters, as well as with the main opposition Conservative Party. Standing behind Ukraine and against Russian aggression also puts Mr. Farage, with his history of sympathy for Mr. Putin, in a tricky position.

Whether that will allow Mr. Starmer to reintegrate Britain’s economy and trade with that of the European Union is another question. Some analysts noted that the E.U. was in no rush to overhaul its existing trade agreement with Britain, which it views as beneficial to the Continent. Mr. Starmer’s political fortunes still depend on his government turning around Britain’s ailing economy.

“The country is in such a dire state that I don’t think Starmer will be rewarded for being an international statesman,” said Mr. Rahman, the analyst. “It’s an arguably dangerous thing for a prime minister to try to build political capital abroad when the domestic agenda isn’t moving in the direction he wants.”

Britain and the E.U. are currently negotiating a defense and security agreement, which analysts view as low-hanging fruit, compared with a revised trade deal. But even that risks becoming ensnared in horse-trading over other issues. Some European countries are seeking concessions from Britain on fishing rights and allowing young people from the E.U. to live and work in Britain.

“People realize they can no longer count on a nice Russia and a generous America, and that they have to get their act together on a number of issues, including defense and security,” said João Vale de Almeida, a former E.U. ambassador to the United States and Britain.

The shock of Mr. Trump’s recent comments about Russia and Ukraine could remove roadblocks. The British, Mr. Vale de Almeida said, are being reminded that “they are more European than American in terms of what unites them to Europe and what unites them to America.”

Yet several hectic days of diplomacy have laid bare the challenge Europe faces in achieving unity. Britain struggled even to compile a manageable guest list for this meeting. After three Baltic nations, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, expressed frustration at being left off the list, given their proximity to Russia, Mr. Starmer held a call with their leaders on Sunday morning, before the other leaders arrived.

Britain’s prime minister Keir Starmer told the BBC on Sunday that he had spoken to President Trump by phone after his meeting on Saturday in London with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.

“I’m clear in my mind he does want lasting peace, he does want an end to the fighting in Ukraine,” Starmer said of Trump, adding that he, Zelensky and President Macron of France had agreed they “would work on a plan for stopping the fighting and then discuss that plan with the U.S.”

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Following the heated exchange, a visibly annoyed Mr. Trump canceled a news conference with the Ukrainian leader and posted on social media that Mr. Zelensky was “not ready for peace” so long as he has American backing.

His anger — and his threat that the United States could stop supporting Ukraine if it did not accept any U.S.-brokered peace deal — was just the latest sign that Mr. Trump was pivoting American foreign policy away from traditional allies in Europe and toward Russia.

The stark shift in American strategy has left the continent’s leaders reeling. Many worry that if the war ends with a weak deal for Ukraine, it would embolden Russia, making it a greater threat to the rest of Europe. And the change in tone makes achieving greater self-reliance more urgent than ever, even if the European leaders face the same daunting challenges as before.

It would take years to build the weapons systems and capabilities that Europe would need to be truly independent militarily. And supporting Ukraine while building homegrown defenses could take the type of rapid action and united political will that the European Union often struggles to achieve.

“Everything relies on Europe today: The question is, how do they step up?” said Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, acting president of the German Marshall Fund. “They have no alternative.”

European leaders had already been debating how they could help guarantee security in Ukraine if a peace deal were struck, what terms they would find acceptable, and what they might give Ukraine in their next aid package.

In fact, top officials are poised to meet this week to discuss defense, first in London on Sunday at a gathering organized by Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, then in Brussels on Thursday at a special summit of the European Council, which brings together E.U. leaders.

Representatives from the bloc’s 27 member countries met on Friday afternoon to come up with a draft of ideas for the meeting in Brussels. The plan included calls to beef up E.U. defenses faster than previously expected, and to more clearly define possible security guarantees for Ukraine, according to an E.U. official briefed on the matter.

And that was before Friday’s exchange between Mr. Trump and Mr. Zelensky.

The flare-up spurred an immediate outpouring of outrage and public support for Ukraine from many European officials.

“The scene at the White House yesterday took my breath away,” Germany’s president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, told D.P.A., a German news agency, on Saturday. “I would never have believed that we would ever have to defend Ukraine from the United States.”

It also prompted calls for fast action, with some European diplomats and leaders hoping that even countries that have been reluctant to increase spending on defense and support for Ukraine will now get on board with a more ambitious approach.

“A powerful Europe, we need it more than ever,” President Emmanuel Macron of France posted on social media. “The surge is now.”

Kaja Kallas, the E.U.’s top diplomat, was even more emphatic.

“We will step up our support to Ukraine,” she wrote on social media on Friday night. “Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It’s up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge.”

Yet for all of the bracing pronouncements, speeding up Europe’s transition to greater autonomy on defense will be no easy task.

For starters, shouldering a greater part of the financial burden for aiding Ukraine is likely to be expensive. The United States alone has spent about $114 billion on military, financial and humanitarian aid for Ukraine over the past three years, according to one frequently used tracker, compared to Europe’s $132 billion.

Plus, when it comes to European defense more broadly, America provides critical weapons systems and other military equipment that would be near impossible to replace quickly.

“We still do need the U.S.,” said Jeromin Zettelmeyer, director of the Brussels-based research group Bruegel.

E.U. nations have been increasing their military spending in recent years — spending 30 percent more last year than in 2021. But some NATO countries are still short of the goal of members’ spending 2 percent or more of their gross domestic product on defense.

Part of the problem is that spending more on defense typically means spending less on other priorities, like health care and social services. And given economic challenges and budgetary limitations in Germany, France and smaller economies like Belgium, finding the political will to rapidly ramp up outlays has sometimes been a challenge.

Still, European leaders are trying to find ways to make bloc-wide deficit rules more flexible to enable more military investments.

“Decisions on massive investments are needed with regard to our common European defense capabilities,” Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister, said on Saturday, calling for such action this week.

When it comes to finding more money to support Ukraine, Europeans are not speaking with one voice.

European officials had already been discussing a future aid package for Ukraine, one that could total tens of billions of euros. By Friday night, countries that have been pushing for more ambitious sums were hoping that Mr. Trump’s tone during the Zelensky meeting would help to prod European laggards to open their pocketbooks, according to one diplomat familiar with discussions.

But Hungary is expected to oppose the new aid package for Ukraine, which could force the E.U. to cobble together contributions from member states, rather than passing a package at the level of the bloc, since the latter would require unanimity.

In a clear sign of the disunity, Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, stood apart from many other European leaders, thanking Mr. Trump for his exchange with Mr. Zelensky. He wrote on social media that the American leader “stood bravely for peace” even if “it was difficult for many to digest.”

European officials have also been considering whether, when and how to put European peacekeeping forces on the ground in Ukraine if a deal is reached to stop the war. Britain has expressed a willingness to send troops to Ukraine, as has France. Discussions on that are expected to continue this week.

But in light of Friday’s exchange, some say the time for slow-moving deliberation may be over. While officials had just begun to talk about what security guarantees for Ukraine might look like, they may need to begin to quickly think about how to implement them, said Ms. de Hoop Scheffer at the German Marshall Fund.

“This is a time for Europe to very, very seriously step up,” she said.

She added that the Oval Office blowup had underscored that European officials will need to put forward their best mediators to try to keep the United States on board, to the extent possible.

Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, is seen as one of the closest leaders to Mr. Trump in Europe. She said in a statement on Friday night that she would try to push for a meeting among all of the allies.

“It is necessary to have an immediate summit between the United States, European states and allies to talk frankly about how we intend to face today’s great challenges,” she said. “Starting with Ukraine.”

And earlier last week, both Mr. Starmer and Mr. Macron traveled to Washington to meet with Mr. Trump, gatherings that seemed to go considerably better than the meeting with Mr. Zelensky — even if they failed to achieve major goals like getting a U.S. security “backstop” for peacekeeping troops.

In fact, Mr. Starmer’s plans to debrief European leaders on his trip during the Sunday summit highlighted one side effect of the shift in America’s tone: European Union countries and Britain are coming closer together as they draw up defense plans.

That puts Mr. Starmer in a position to play more of a leadership role in dealings with the United States, as Germany works to put together a new government and the French struggle with domestic political challenges.

Given how necessary U.S. support remains, European leaders are likely to strategize about how to keep Mr. Trump engaged as they talk this week. Already, Mr. Zelensky posted messages thankful for American support on social media.

On Sunday, before his trip to London, Donald Tusk, Poland’s prime minister, said officials were talking about the need to have the “closest possible alliance with the United States.”

But as Europe increasingly recognizes that the United States is “super unreliable,” as Mr. Zettelmeyer at Bruegel put it, the time for simply hoping for continuity in relations may be past.

“We’ve had several of these shocking moments — every time there’s a shocking moment, there’s a lot of hand wringing,” he said. “The really interesting question is: Is this time going to be different?”

Emma Bubola contributed reporting.

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The order required the Trump administration to recognize Mr. Dellinger’s authority in that position, barring it from taking any action to “treat him in any way as if he has been removed” or otherwise interfere with his work.

The administration immediately moved to challenge the ruling, starting an appeals process that appeared likely to end at the Supreme Court.

In a 67-page opinion explaining the order, Judge Jackson, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, stressed the unique responsibilities Congress gave the office when it was created under a 1978 law. She noted its central role in protecting whistle-blowers in the federal government, a role that she said would be compromised if Mr. Dellinger were allowed to be removed without a cause stipulated under the law.

“It is his independence that qualifies him to watch over the time-tested structure that is supposed to bar executive officials from taking federal jobs from qualified individuals and handing them out to political allies — a system that Congress found intolerable over a century ago,” she wrote. “The position would be entirely ineffective if the special counsel were to be compelled to operate with the sword of at-will removal hanging over his head.”

Mr. Dellinger was confirmed by the Senate for the role in 2024 for a five-year term.

But on Feb. 7, he received a memo from the White House notifying him that he was fired, without any explanation. Several days later, Judge Jackson issued a temporary order allowing Mr. Dellinger to stay in place while litigation continued.

During a hearing on Wednesday, lawyers representing the government argued that Mr. Dellinger’s role was comparable to that of other heads of federal agencies who are appointed by the president. They said that the office Mr. Dellinger runs has significant investigatory powers, arguing that as president, Mr. Trump should be able to ensure the office is run by a person sharing his agenda.

Mr. Dellinger’s lawyers described the job as limited in scope, with only the authority to start inquiries and no power to enforce subpoenas. But they insisted that the role, as envisioned by Congress, should come with independence and some legal protections.

Earlier this week, Mr. Dellinger said the Office of Special Counsel was investigating the president’s move to fire thousands of probationary workers. The federal Merit Systems Protection Board said that it would reinstate six workers while the watchdog agency continued to investigate.

Judge Jackson’s ruling shielding Mr. Dellinger came a week after the Supreme Court declined to lift the temporary block on his removal. Lawyers for the government argued to the court that Mr. Trump had expansive executive authority to place his preferred pick in charge of the office.

While the justices’ order declining to intervene was unsigned, some on the court suggested that they might return to the matter.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson said that they would have rejected the Trump administration’s request for Supreme Court intervention outright. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, joined by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., filed a dissent, noting that it “may not yet have ripened into an appealable order” in the eyes of the majority but that the case could soon make its way back up to the court.

A future challenge before the court could provide an early test of the justices’ appetite to restrain Mr. Trump’s executive power, but Judge Jackson’s order made clear her belief that the Office of Special Counsel should be insulated from politics.

She said that without a more substantive reason related to his performance, Mr. Dellinger could not be fired “on a whim or out of personal animus.”

“The Special Counsel’s job is to look into and expose unethical or unlawful practices directed at federal civil servants,” she wrote, “and to help ensure that whistle-blowers who disclose fraud, waste, and abuse on the part of government agencies can do so without suffering reprisals.”

“It would be ironic, to say the least,” she added, if the “special counsel himself could be chilled in his work by fear of arbitrary or partisan removal.”

Adam Liptak contributed reporting.

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“His approach may come across a bit too aggressive,” Igor Moshchinsky, 61, said of Mr. Trump at a cafe on Brighton Beach Avenue on Saturday afternoon. But Mr. Moshchinsky, who voted for Mr. Trump, said “I don’t disagree with the content” of Mr. Trump’s criticisms of Mr. Zelensky.

The local city councilwoman, Inna Vernikov, a Republican and a Trump supporter, tried to thread a needle, writing on social media that the consequences of Friday’s meeting “could be disastrous” for both countries.

“Working together to end this war and help the people of Ukraine restore their safety and sovereignty is in the best interests of both of our countries and the world,” she said.

Inna Kir, 58, who owns a lingerie shop on Brighton Beach Avenue, said she “absolutely agrees” with the tough line Mr. Trump has taken against Mr. Zelensky. She echoed Mr. Trump’s criticism that Mr. Zelensky was insufficiently grateful for American aid.

“I think he should appreciate what people do for him,” said Ms. Kir, a United States citizen who arrived three decades ago. “It’s our money.”

She added: “I have faith in Trump’s ability to bring peace. When the money is not going to flow, the war is going to be over very soon.”

Igor Kozak, 59, who is from western Ukraine, and his wife, Marina Kozak, 57, who is Russian, agreed that Mr. Zelensky had been “rude” and “disrespectful.”

Not all Ukrainian New Yorkers — there are about 150,000 of them — support Mr. Trump, of course.

And in another Ukrainian pocket in the East Village of Manhattan, critics of Mr. Trump were aghast at his attack.

“I’ve never been so disgusted with the president of this country,” said Ivan Makar, 52, the principal of the Self-Reliance Saturday School of Ukrainian Studies on East Sixth Street. Mr. Makar, who lives in Westchester County north of the city, said his family had fled Ukraine seeking security. The meeting on Friday left him furious and devastated, he said.

“It was typical bully behavior, and Zelensky stood up to the bullies,” Mr. Makar said. “As a Ukrainian, I’m proud. As an American, I’m disgusted.”

Jason Birchard, 58, the owner of the Ukrainian restaurant Veselka in the East Village, stood inside the restaurant on Saturday wearing a T-shirt embossed with the tryzub, Ukraine’s national symbol.

“I’ve worn this shirt many times over the last three years, and I made sure to dig deep into the closet today and pull it out because I really want to back Zelensky,” Mr. Birchard said, as a line streamed around the block.

Mr. Birchard said the restaurant had seen a surge in customers amid the news.

“I’m a Ukrainian American, and I try to stay positive and optimistic,” he said. “There is the false narrative that Ukraine invaded Russia. We have to understand that Ukraine has been an independent democratic state for more than 30 years, and that we need to draw the line here.”

In Brooklyn, on a sunny corner off Brighton Beach Avenue, Ilia Makarov, 20, vented similar frustrations as the Q train clattered overhead.

Mr. Makarov, a computer science student who came to Brighton Beach from Ukraine five years ago, said he found it “unimaginable” that the United States might now back Russia in the war.

“Usually when you think about the U.S. it is as peacemakers,” Mr. Makarov said. “Now they support literally the terrorists.”

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Protests were held in popular spots like Yosemite in Northern California, the Grand Canyon in Arizona, Acadia in Maine, Yellowstone in the Northwest, the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and Great Falls Park in Virginia, as well as lesser-known places like Effigy Mounds National Monument in northeastern Iowa. Tensions have been particularly high at Yosemite, where employees have unfurled upside-down American flags in protest across iconic sites like Yosemite Falls and El Capitan.

Mr. Graver said his group was concerned not only about the firings but also about resource extraction on public lands and possible threats to national monuments, such as a proposal to remove the president’s power to designate national monuments.

The National Park Service said it was working with protest organizers to allow people to “safely exercise their First Amendment rights,” while protecting its resources.

At Joshua Tree, about 400 people gathered to protest. Six rangers at the park were among those dismissed last month, part of a wave of cuts targeting federal employees who had started work within the last year, in what the Trump administration said was an effort to reduce government spending.

Deborah Anderson, who lived in the area for decades, protested with a sign that said “Protect Our Parks.”

“What’s happening right now is wrong,” said Ms. Anderson, 52. “I get if people want to make the government more efficient, but how they’re doing it — these are illegal firings.”

Up north, at Yellowstone, dozens demonstrated near the Roosevelt Arch in Gardiner, Mont., chanting “Public lands are not for sale” and “Down with DOGE,” referring to the Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk’s outfit overseeing the job cuts.

David Uberuaga, who worked for the National Park Service for more than 30 years, including as superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park, before retiring in 2016, urged people to take action, including by protesting and calling their representatives and senators.

“We can’t continue to just let things happen,” said Mr. Uberuaga, 74. “We have to really push back very hard, and that is effective over time. And we just can’t get disillusioned.”

About 100 people protested at the Grand Canyon. Sean Adams, a 29-year-old seasonal worker who electrofishes invasive trout and conducts conservation studies on native fish, said visitors have been surprised by the park workers’ firings.

“They didn’t realize that it was affecting people like us, people who work 10-plus-hour days consistently for way too little money,” he said. “The money that they are saving by cutting people like us is a drop in the bucket.”

Halfway across the country, at Effigy Mounds, about 150 people gathered, some with signs depicting the Lorax, the Dr. Seuss character who “speaks for the trees,” and Smokey Bear, the symbol of the U.S. Forest Service’s wildfire prevention efforts. Among the demonstrators was Brian Gibbs, 41, who was fired from his job as education technician at the monument.

For Mr. Gibbs, the forested landscape along the Mississippi River that is home to the monument holds a lot of sentimental value. He said his father took him camping there when he was a child. Later in life, Mr. Gibbs told his wife he loved her for the first time in the area. And this is where they took their 4-year-old son on his first hiking trip.

After all of his experiences at the monument, Mr. Gibbs said, it was striking to see it become a protest site.

“It was just a volcanic moment to me,” Mr. Gibbs said. Regarding the parks, he added that “it never crossed my mind that they would become a target” of a presidential administration.

Mimi Dwyer contributed reporting from Yosemite National Park and Los Angeles, and Jennifer Brown from the Gateway Arch in St. Louis.

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The questions came from Brian Glenn, a correspondent for Real America’s Voice, a right-wing cable channel that has spread conspiracy theories about noncitizen voting and helped distribute Stephen K. Bannon’s “War Room” podcast after Mr. Bannon was barred from YouTube, Spotify and other mainstream platforms.

Mr. Glenn’s outlet was selected to take a “secondary TV” role in the White House press pool alongside CNN on Friday — a position that did not exist before this week. That access was granted as the White House continued to block reporters from The Associated Press from attending, according to a schedule sent out by the White House, and as it began this week to handpick the pool reporters who cover the president in small settings, such as the Oval Office meeting with Mr. Zelensky.

Pool reporters attend the events in a rotation traditionally organized by the White House Correspondents’ Association and share their observations with other outlets not present.

Mr. Glenn’s comments about Mr. Zelensky’s appearance echoed Mr. Trump’s on Friday as the Ukrainian leader stepped out of his car at the White House. “He’s all dressed up today,” Mr. Trump told reporters, indicating Mr. Zelensky’s attire.

Since the start of the war, Mr. Zelensky has regularly donned standard-issue field uniforms as a display of solidarity with his country’s armed forces. The criticism that he didn’t wear a suit drew immediate outcry online.

Mr. Zelensky received an outpouring of support internationally after the meeting, which had become adversarial long before Mr. Glenn’s questions.

Lawmakers and media critics were quick to point out that just this week, Elon Musk had appeared at a cabinet meeting wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “tech support” under an overcoat. And when Mr. Musk spoke alongside Mr. Trump in the Oval Office last month, he appeared to be wearing a shirt that read “Occupy Mars.”

Responding to the backlash, Mr. Glenn posted a lengthy personal statement on Saturday morning expressing “extreme empathy for the people of Ukraine” but continuing to berate Mr. Zelensky.

He suggested in the post that the olive-green military fatigues that Mr. Zelensky often wears in meetings with other world leaders signaled respect, but that the black tactical sweater bearing his country’s coat of arms did not.

“For him, once again, to enter the highest office in the most powerful nation in the world, dressed as he did, reflects his inner disrespect for not only our country, the President and the US citizens that have made it possible for Ukraine to survive as long as they have to this point,” Mr. Glenn wrote.

On Friday, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who is dating Mr. Glenn, applauded the exchange on social media.

“I’m so proud of @brianglenntv for pointing out that Zelensky has so much disrespect for America that he can’t even wear a suit in the Oval Office when he comes to beg for money from our President,” she wrote.

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Dr. Collins, 74, served under three presidents: Barack Obama, Donald J. Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr. He became one of the nation’s most recognizable doctors during the coronavirus pandemic, when he helped steer the development of new tests, therapeutics and vaccines.

He did not give a reason for his retirement, and he said in a text message that he “was not doing any interviews.”

His announcement comes just days before the Senate confirmation hearing, scheduled for this Wednesday, for President Trump’s nominee to be the next director of the N.I.H.: Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University, who has expressed disdain for Dr. Collins.

Dr. Bhattacharya is one of three authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, an anti-lockdown treatise that was signed in October 2020, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Emails that later became public showed that Dr. Collins had called Dr. Bhattacharya and his co-authors “fringe epidemiologists.”

In an interview with Fox News at the time, Dr. Collins said he stood by his statement, adding, “Hundreds of thousands of people would have died if we had followed that strategy.” Dr. Bhattacharya later assailed Dr. Collins as one of a number of scientists who “abused their power to conduct devastating takedowns of scientists who disagreed with them.”

Dr. Collins joined the institutes in 1993, during the administration of President Bill Clinton, and gained acclaim for leading the Human Genome Project, a federal effort to map the human genome, the set of genetic instructions that defines the human organism.

He also became known for his religious views: Dr. Collins is an evangelical Christian who has publicly sought to bridge the divide between science and Christianity, including in a 2006 book, “The Language of God.” Amid the political fallout over the coronavirus pandemic, he joined a group called “Braver Angels” that sought to bridge the partisan divide, and later publicly acknowledged some Covid mistakes.

His carefully crafted statement offered a forceful defense of the N.I.H. and a lament for the days when biomedical research had strong bipartisan support.

Dr. Collins noted that when he was recruited to the institutes and through many of the years that followed, “investment in medical research was seen as a high priority and a nonpolitical bipartisan effort — saving countless lives, relieving human suffering and contributing substantially to the U.S. economy.”

“N.I.H. is the largest supporter of biomedical research in the world,” he wrote. “It is the main piston of a biomedical discovery engine that is the envy of the globe. Yet it is not a household name. It should be.”

He went on: “When you hear about patients surviving stage 4 cancer because of immunotherapy, that was based on N.I.H. research over many decades. When you hear about sickle-cell disease being cured because of CRISPR gene editing, that was built on many years of research supported by N.I.H.”

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, a longtime colleague of Dr. Collins’s who retired at the end of 2022 as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, praised Dr. Collins on Saturday, saying he has had an ”extraordinarily positive impact” on biomedical research.

But allies of Mr. Trump and his health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., cheered Dr. Collins’s departure. Among them is Katie Miller, who served as Mr. Kennedy’s spokeswoman before Mr. Trump appointed her to the Department of Government Efficiency, the Elon Musk-led effort to overhaul the federal government.

“Francis Collins was an ineffectual leader who bent at the knee to Tony Fauci and openly mocked President Trump,” Ms. Miller wrote on social media. “@DrJBhattacharya is the right leader to move @NIH forward.”

Dr. Collins’s retirement, which took effect on Friday, comes on the heels of the departure of other high-ranking N.I.H. officials, including Dr. Lawrence A. Tabak, the longtime No. 2 official at the institutes. Dr. Tabak left last month, according to a person familiar with his decision, after being confronted with a reassignment that he viewed as unacceptable.

Dr. Collins was appointed to lead the N.I.H. by Mr. Obama, and he stepped down as director in late 2021, the first year of the Biden administration, to return to his lab. “Millions of people will never know Dr. Collins saved their lives,” Mr. Biden said at the time. “Countless researchers will aspire to follow in his footsteps.”

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Combined with 1,100 support troops from the military’s Northern Command announced on Friday, and the recently arrived headquarters personnel from the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y., the reinforcements announced on Saturday would bring the total number of active-duty troops on the border to about 9,000, Defense Department officials said. The Washington Post reported the additional troop mobilization earlier.

“These forces will arrive in the coming weeks, and their deployment underscores the department’s unwavering dedication to working alongside the Department of Homeland Security to secure our southern border and maintain the sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of the United States under President Trump’s leadership,” the Pentagon said in a statement on Saturday.

This will be the second major wave of active-duty troops sent to secure the border since Mr. Trump took office on Jan. 20. About 1,600 Marines and Army soldiers arrived soon after the inauguration, joining 2,500 Army reservists called to active duty who were already there.

Dispatching large numbers of frontline combat forces indicates that Mr. Trump is breaking with past presidents’ recent practice of mostly limiting deployments along the U.S.-Mexico border to small numbers of active-duty soldiers and reservists.

So far, the active-duty troops have been helping to build barriers and support law-enforcement agencies, as have active-duty and reservist forces sent to the border in past years, including during Mr. Trump’s first term.

But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on his first full official day on the job in January that “whatever is needed at the border will be provided.” He did not rule out Mr. Trump’s invoking the Insurrection Act, a more than 200-year-old law, to allow the use of armed forces for law enforcement duty.

Taking such an action would plunge the military into politically charged territory that has given congressional Democrats deep concerns.

“Our military are not trained as law enforcement officers,” Senator Elissa Slotkin, Democrat of Michigan and a former Pentagon official, said recently on ABC’s “This Week.” “But you’re coming right up to that line of logistics and support, and law enforcement.”

The deployments come even as the state of the border is fairly calm, with crossings having fallen sharply in recent months after the Biden administration took steps to limit migration.

The 4th Infantry Division is among the Pentagon’s most combat-ready units, reflecting Mr. Trump’s directive that it “prioritize the protection of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the United States along our national borders.”

The Army in January alerted brigades from the 4th Infantry and the 82nd Airborne to prepare to deploy to the border. Each brigade has more than 3,000 soldiers, although it is unclear how many troops may actually be tapped for duty, Army officials said.

The headquarters personnel of the 10th Mountain Division, including its two-star commanding general, recently arrived in Fort Huachuca in Arizona to oversee the border operation.

Defense Department officials have left open the possibility that as many as 10,000 troops could deploy in the coming days. Marine Corps planners said they could be asked to supply 2,500 or more additional Marines.

“We are dead serious about 100% OPERATIONAL CONTROL of the southern border,” Mr. Hegseth said in a post on X on Saturday.

Along with infantry, support troops specializing in supply, logistics, security and communications have already been sent to the border, the military’s Northern Command said in January.

The first two waves of active-duty troops were selected in part because they were ready to deploy on short notice. The first 500 Marines, for instance, were on standby at their base at Camp Pendleton in California to help support the firefighting efforts in Los Angeles.