Trump on Harvard-Harris Poll: “Leading by a Lot on Every Single Issue”; Ukraine Deal Talks Underway

President Trump reacted to a Harvard-Harris poll showing overwhelming public support for his agenda in February 2025, noting that the poll — which he characterized as typically leaning left — showed him “not only leading but leading by a lot and leading on every single issue.” Trump connected the polling to his argument that the Republican Party had become “the party of common sense,” described the scale of waste and fraud DOGE was uncovering as “hundreds of billions of dollars,” and provided an update on Ukraine peace negotiations, revealing that “before I came here, there was no communication with Russia whatsoever” and that Putin’s government “wants to end this war."

"Leading by a Lot on Every Single Issue”

A reporter opened by citing the Harvard-Harris poll, which showed Trump leading by nine or more points on his agenda items and enjoying majority support for his key policies, including ending the Ukraine war.

Trump acknowledged the poll with evident satisfaction. “I was honored by it. It was a big poll and it’s usually a poll that leans on the other side of things, the other side of the world, so to speak,” he said.

He then delivered the key finding: “But the Harvard poll is a respected poll, and it has us not only leading but leading by a lot and leading on every single issue that we’ve talked about.”

The distinction that the Harvard-Harris poll “leans on the other side” was important because it inoculated the finding against charges of bias. When a poll associated with a progressive institution showed overwhelming support for a conservative president’s agenda, the result was harder to dismiss than a survey from a right-leaning outlet.

Trump connected the polling to the fundamental shift he believed had occurred in American politics. “As I said, we’ve become the party of common sense,” he said. “And I think that’s a very important element now — common sense — because what’s happening in the world and even in this country, some of the things that took place, many of them are now canceled and the rest are being canceled as we speak.”

He emphasized the pace of action: “We’ve moved very rapidly and I think very effectively. So I was honored by that poll."

"Fairness to This Country”

Trump then addressed the waste and fraud issue, framing it not as a partisan project but as a matter of basic fairness.

“The radical left or whoever it may be starts screaming about the Constitution, but it has nothing to do with the Constitution,” Trump said of the opposition to DOGE. “It has to do with fairness to this country. It has to do with being ripped off.”

He described the scale of what DOGE was discovering. “When you read the things that all of these billions — and I mean many billions, hundreds of billions of dollars — have been spent on, that’s all you have to do is stand up here and read them,” Trump said. “I could stand up all day and read the kind of things where we’re spending all of this money.”

Trump then offered an analogy from his business experience. “Sometimes you’ll buy a company and you’ll see it was really well run. They accounted for every penny. Well, not much you can do there. You got yourself a bad deal,” he said. “This one is the exact opposite. Tremendous fraud, tremendous waste.”

He cited Elon Musk’s diagnosis: “Elon uses an expression — caring. If we had people that cared, just cared a little bit when they did contracts, when they negotiated with outside vendors on behalf of the United States.”

Trump framed his own role in the simplest terms: “That’s what I’m doing now. I’m negotiating for the people of the United States. So we’re doing a great job of it.”

He provided the latest estimate of the savings: “I will say we found — it’ll be hundreds of billions of dollars of waste and fraud and abuse.”

The “hundreds of billions” figure represented a significant escalation from earlier claims. If accurate, savings on that scale would be transformational for the federal budget, potentially funding tax cuts, debt reduction, and the citizen dividend simultaneously.

”My Whole Life Is Deals”

Trump then addressed the Ukraine negotiations with the confidence of someone who had been in this position before.

“I mean, that’s what I do. I do deals. My whole life is deals. That’s all I know is deals,” Trump said. “And I know when somebody wants to make it and when somebody doesn’t.”

He then revealed the diplomatic vacuum that had existed before his return. “I will say this: before I came here, there was no communication with Russia whatsoever,” Trump said. “And Russia wasn’t answering calls. They were not talking to anybody. They wouldn’t talk to anybody.”

Trump described a dangerous situation in which a major nuclear power had simply stopped communicating with the West. “People sort of accepted that as being that they want to go forward and just keep going without stop,” he said, characterizing the Biden administration’s acquiescence to the communication breakdown.

“But when I got here, one of the first calls I made was to President Putin,” Trump said. “And we were treated with great respect and they want to end this war.”

He emphasized the significance of the finding: “So that’s a big thing. Because I didn’t know if I could say that, but it’s a big thing. They want to do it.”

Trump described the current state of negotiations. “We’re working on deals right now, transactions right now,” he said. “And in particular, the big one is to get the war stopped, whether it’s ceasefire or direct to an agreement.”

He expressed a preference for the more ambitious outcome. “I’d like to go directly to an agreement, but ceasefire will always happen a little bit quicker,” Trump said. He connected the urgency to the human cost: “And every day you’re saving thousands or at least hundreds, but thousands in some cases, lives. So we want to see if we can get that done.”

The Business Analogy Applied to Government

One of the most revealing moments in Trump’s remarks was his comparison of the federal government to a poorly run company being acquired.

The analogy worked because it framed the government’s problems in terms that business people and ordinary Americans could understand. A well-run company “accounted for every penny” and left little room for improvement. A badly run company had “tremendous fraud, tremendous waste” — and an acquirer who cared could transform it.

The federal government, in Trump’s telling, was the ultimate badly run company: enormous revenue, minimal accountability, contracts negotiated by people who didn’t care about the outcome, and waste on a scale that was visible only when someone bothered to look. Trump and Musk were the acquirers, and DOGE was the due diligence team discovering how badly the previous management had performed.

Musk’s concept of “caring” — the idea that the fundamental problem was not complexity but indifference — resonated because it was accessible to anyone who had experienced frustration with government services. The reason the government wasted money was not that waste was inevitable but that nobody in a position of authority had cared enough to prevent it. Trump and Musk were positioning themselves as the people who finally cared.

Key Takeaways

• Trump cited the Harvard-Harris poll showing him “not only leading but leading by a lot and leading on every single issue,” noting the poll “usually leans on the other side.”
• He framed the DOGE mission as “fairness to this country” and estimated “hundreds of billions of dollars of waste and fraud and abuse” would be found.
• Trump revealed that “before I came here, there was no communication with Russia whatsoever” and that his first call to Putin was met with “great respect” and a desire to end the war.
• He expressed a preference for going “directly to an agreement” on Ukraine rather than a ceasefire, noting that “every day you’re saving thousands of lives.”
• Trump described his role as “negotiating for the people of the United States” and said the government was “the exact opposite” of a well-run company, with “tremendous fraud, tremendous waste.”