A hot microphone picked up President Donald Trump making whispered, off-the-cuff remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin to French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday.
The Daily Mail reported that Trump appeared to be trying to assure Macron that Putin was indeed interested in making peace with Ukraine.
“I think he wants to make a deal,” Trump said to Macron in the East Room of the White House. “I think he wants to make a deal for me. Do you understand that? As crazy as it sounds.”
Macron, though, appeared to be skeptical that Putin really wants to end the war, which has gone on for more than three years following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The two men were speaking before a Trump-led, high-stakes meeting of the heads of European nations and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday.
The meeting came after Trump held a one-on-one parlay with Putin in Alaska.
Standing alongside Putin on Friday, Trump said that the two world leaders had had an “extremely productive meeting,” even though Trump was unable to get Putin to agree to a ceasefire.
Putin appeared to be reluctant to end the fighting, telling reporters that his country still needed to “eliminate the primary roots, the primary causes, of that conflict.”
European leaders were gathered in Washington, D.C. to discuss what happens next, including security guarantees for Ukraine.
Trump first met with Zelensky in the Oval Office before leading a conversation with the larger group of leaders in the East Room.
The Oval Office meeting was far less stormy that the encounter between the two men in February, which ended with Zelensky being booted from the White House.
When asked on Monday if he had a message for the Ukrainian people, Trump said, “We love them. We love them.”
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Tom Wrobleski
Staten Island Advance, N.Y.
(TNS)
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