donald trump is holding his first election rally since testing positive for the coronavirus less than two weeks ago. a large crowd has gathered at the venue in the city of sanford in florida. mr trump is eager to reinvigorate his campaign with polls showing him trailing his democratic party rival, joe biden. donald trump's nominee for the supreme court, amy coney barrett, has told the senate confirmation hearing that she will approach cases based on the law, not her personal values. mrs coney barrett told the judiciary committee a judge must apply the law as it is written, not as she wishes it were written. the uk prime minister has outlined a three—tier system to try to stop the spread of coronavirus. it will lead to stronger restrictions in areas with the highest rates of infection. now on bbc news, it's

time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur. when ukrainians voted to make a comedian their president, the rest of the world wondered what the punch line might be. volodymyr zelensky — who played the role of president on tv before he got thejob in real life — has now had a year and a half to make good on his promises of rooting out corruption and ending the conflict in the east of his country. how's he doing? well, he's on a state visit to london, so it's time to find out. president volodymyr zelensky, welcome to hardtalk. thank you so much. you came to power as the anti—politician.

you promised ukraine's people that you would deliver fundamental change. have you kept that promise?

all right... well, we are going to talk about that. you promised — promised your people that you would end the conflict in the east of the ukraine, and that you would do it while restoring the territorial integrity of your country. on that basis, after a year and a half, you failed.

well, mr president, that's not strictly true, is it? there isn't peace, there isn't quiet, the osce monitors

who look at the situation on the ground in the east — have talked about 1,400 cease—fire violations since july. you claim that the prisoner swaps, the cease—fire, have changed the situation. the truth is, they haven't.

well... but, but... but, mr president, i come back to this point, you promised the ukrainian people that you would be different, you would tell them the truth, you would be open and transparent with them. is it not the truth that with vladimir putin in power in moscow, there is no possibility of a peace in which you get back all of the territories which you no longer control right now. mr putin has made it clear that, for example, there can only be peace in the east of ukraine if you give the east ukraine breakaway territories special autonomous status, you hold elections in those territories, allow them to vote — and only after that can you put ukrainian troops back on your external border. are you prepared

to accept that?

well, you talk about minsk, the point about the minsk process is that vladimir putin says it's quite clear that you only get control of your external eastern border back at the end of the process — at the end of the process. so my question to you is a really simple one.

give me a yes or no answer. do you believe you can make a peace deal with vladimir putin that gives you back all of your territories, including crimea ? so, if you fail in your term as president, will you walk away and say to your people, "you know what, ifailed, i no longer can represent you."

the war is obviously part of a bigger geopolitical context. the russians still, clearly, have a very strong concept of their sphere of influence. it affects how they operate in east ukraine, it affects their position on belarus and their attitude to president lukashenko. it affects many, many things in your region. do you believe — in the context of that — that ukraine can and will push for nato membership?

but to quote one senior european politician, the idea that ukraine can be a full member of nato and indeed a full member of the european union — looking at the long—term — that is nothing more than a fantasy. that's the truth, isn't it?

you are here in london, and you've just done a deal with the uk government to buy a significant number of new naval vessels. i think it's an investment of more than...well over a billion us dollars. you need help. the country you need help from most is the united states. right now, they‘ re in the middle of a presidential election. are you hoping that donald trump — who has been very negative in many ways about ukraine — are you hoping that he loses and joe biden wins?

i understand that that's a significant deal for you, but i come back to the point, what really matters is your relationship with the united states. we know that donald trump tried to bully you — bully you very significantly — over his desire to see your government investigate the son of his political rival, joe biden. that became very embarrassing for you. because of that, and a host of other comments trump has made about ukraine, do you really want to see joe biden win this election?

ifi...

if i may say so, mr president, you are being very diplomatic. but if donald trump leaves the white house in november, if he loses the election, will you then tell the complete truth about what happened when he... laughing. ..sought to get you to investigate hunter biden? let's talk about internal affairs a little bit. as i said earlier, you've had a year and a half in power. they say in politics it is wise to under promise and over deliver. it seems to me that when it comes to your crusade against corruption, you've done the exact opposite.

you've over promised and you've under delivered. would you accept that? well, you don't believe in the people around you, it seems, because you appointed a cabinet, which was seen by many in ukraine is full of strong, honest, straight people. but within months, you replaced some of the most important figures, including the prime minister, including the prosecutor general. the prosecutor general whom you fired then said you had lost your nerve in the fight against corruption. why did you lose your nerve?

half a year, mr president. i mean, the guy had just begun his job and then you fired him. but you've said to me, you need time, you need time to deliver on your promise to bring peace to ukraine. you need time on your anti—corruption crusade, and yet, the guy you appointed to run that crusade, you only gave him six months. is it because he wanted to take on some of the so—called "big fish"? and you don't want the oligarchs to be prosecuted.

isn't it interesting that the one very prominent public figure — so—called oligarch — that you have, your government has pursued with every endeavour is your political rival, petro poroshenko, the former president. i believe there are 15 cases now outstanding against him, and yet, many other oligarchs who have allegations surrounding their financial activities remain completely untouched.

it's only poroshenko that you seem determined to go after. why?

interesting. josep borrell, the eu foreign policy chief said your government changes, the replacement of some key reformers has sent worrying signals over your readiness to resist vested interests.

as you know mr president, symbols matter a lot in politics, and ukrainians look at you and your talk about reform, and then they see some of the things they do, and they really worry that you are not actually serious about modernising, reforming, making more democratic your country. one particular example, you appointed to deputy head of your presidential office, a man closely associated with the violence, the government violence against democratic demonstrators in the maidan in 2014. you know i'm talking about oleg tatarov, why did you appoint him to one of the senior posts in your office?

so the families, the families of those who were killed by those forces in the maidan, they describe what you did by appointing this man, they described it as a return to the old politics of yanukovych. they said it was some sort continuation of a pro russian policy from you.

the point is, though, you are going to bejudged, and you came to power with 73% of the vote in the presidential runoff against mr poroshenko. your opinion poll rating's now are around 35%. you have lost an awful lot of support in a year and a half. laughing. you came to politics saying, "i've had a life of making people laugh, now i want to stop them crying about the politics in ukraine." they're still crying.

president volodymyr zelensky,

we have to end there. but i thank you very much indeed for being on hardtalk. good morning. it really wasn't the best start to a working week in terms of weather, was it? with the majority of the country seeing outbreaks of rain at times, slowly spreading its way southeast. this weather watcher picture from whitby, north yorkshire, tends to sum up monday afternoon for many. but i can offer a glimmer of good news as we had throughout the week, gradually turning a little bit drier, but staying on the chilly side for the time of year. now, for today, however, we're still under this area of low pressure.

it's a bit of a messy weather story to try and tell, but here goes. once this weather front sinks its way steadily south through the day, we will start to see an improving picture gradually through scotland and northern ireland, but a brisk northeasterly wind here will make it feel on the cool side. the low pressure sinks its way south, spiralling around that low, plenty of showers, a little bit like clothes in a washing machine spinning around. you'll probably feel it's going to dry up, and then there will be more showers flying in through the afternoon. so, it's a messy story across england and wales, and the temperatures, unfortunately, are not going to be particularly great either. top temperatures through the afternoon of around 10—13 celsius. now, as we move out of tuesday, we'll start to see those showers pushing their way all that a bit further north and west back into southern, central and eastern scotland overnight. we also run the risk of a few showers just plaguing channel coasts. sandwiched in between the two, there will be some clearer slots, and we will see

temperatures dipping into single figures. so, again, it's going to be a chilly start to our wednesday morning, but wednesday shows signs of the first spot of improvement. a weak weather front will move through, but high—pressure starts to build once again, and that's going to be responsible for quieting things down as we move towards the weekend. so, there is a risk of that northeasterly breeze just driving in some showers through the morning — chiefly on the east coast to start with, but then some of those showers may well just filter a little bit further inland as we go through the day. maybe scotland and northern ireland — already under that influence of high—pressure — fairing best. top temperatures of around 15 celsius. but as we move out of wednesday into thursday and towards the weekend, you can see the dryer story kicking in. however, as we go towards the weekend, it's going to be bright rather than sunny. but i'll take that. take care.

this is bbc news: i'm mike embley with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. less than two weeks after testing positive for coronavirus, president trump is back on the campaign trial — addressing an election rally in florida. i feel so powerful, i ifeel so powerful, i will walk into that office. i will walk in there, i will kiss everyone in that office. democratic party senators in the us say the confirmation of amy coney barrett, to the supreme court would be a disaster for the rights of ordinary americans, as she makes a pitch for thejob. i believe americans of all backgrounds deserve an independent supreme court. that interprets our constitution and laws as they are written. i believe i can serve my country by playing that role.