President Trump's Free-Wheeling Presser With French President Macron: What a Difference a President Makes

On Monday, President Trump held a joint press conference with the President of France, Emmanuel Macron. Both national leaders spoke, and both answered (unscripted, unscreened) questions from the media present. The primary topic was the Russo-Ukrainian War.

Here are some highlights.

President Trump expressed, again, serious concern about the war between Ukraine and Russia:

This very day is the third anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine which would never have happened if I was president, that was not going to happen. The horrors of this gruesome and bloody war can scarcely be overestimated, hundreds of thousands of people, Russians and Ukrainians in particular, needlessly died. An entire generation of Ukrainian and Russian men has been decimated, one thousand-year-old cities have been turned into rubble, those beautiful spires that you used to see there, they were the most beautiful in the world, they say, are lying in heaps of rubble. Blasted to smithereens. It's time to end this bloodletting and restore peace and I think we're going to do it. We've had some great conversations.

President Macron first made a rather fulsome statement of the value of the Franco-American friendship:

(In French) Thank you very much, Mr. President, dear Donald, for your hospitality, and for this visit. As you mentioned, we have had the opportunity to meet over the past few years since your first term, have been able to discuss matters in Paris, and also here at the White House, and it has always been a great joy to do that, and I would like to commend you and thank you, Mr. President, for extending this friendship to France and taking part in the ceremony at Notre Dame that you mentioned before, it was a great honor for the French people to re-open the cathedral to the rest of the world and your presence was a testament to that friendship.

Speaking about Ukraine and Russia, President Macron said:

(In French) As the President just said, there are many challenges in the world. Over the past few days, we have one primary objective, which is the geopolitical situation. Mr. President, I really wish to thank you for making changes to your schedule to meet with us so quickly. I think we've made very substantive steps forward in our discussions and this is a major step in what we're experiencing today. We had a video conference with all of the G7 leaders, which was an opportunity for us to discuss this matter three days [sic] after the Russian war in Ukraine and to express our support for President Zelenskyy to the Ukrainian people but also to speak with and share about our desire for a lasting peace. This is what we have spoken about very forcefully over the last few weeks. We thought that this war was only going to last a few weeks when it broke out in 2022, we admire greatly the courage of the Ukrainian people. And Mr. President, I wish to thank you for this. You mentioned that there are responsibilities on Europe's side, and indeed, we have invested 128 billion in aid to Ukraine and the Ukrainians. Ukraine has been able to hold the front of our collective security. It's fought over these past few years for its independence and for its sovereignty but also for our collective security because I think that no one in this room wants to live in a world that it's the law of the strongest and that international borders can be violated from one day to the next by anyone.

It's hard to glean a lot from Macron's political-speak here, but from what both presidents said during this presser, there appears to be a Franco-American joint effort developing to push negotiations. Macron's expression of admiration for Ukraine's President Zelenskyy is a contrast from President Trump's rather cooler attitude, but how much of that is genuine and how much is an "Art of the Deal" play is unclear.

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Later, in the Oval Office, President Trump remarked on President Macron's speaking in French, evoking a slightly bemused laugh from the French President:

Trump on Macron speaking French: “That is the most beautiful language.. I have no idea what he said but that is the most elegant, beautiful language”🤣 pic.twitter.com/3z9DgxDklx
— ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) February 24, 2025

Finally, it's utterly impossible not to compare and contrast President Trump's meeting with his French counterpart with his predecessor's:

One of the last times Macron met with a US President, he had to pretend to understand what the confused elderly man was doing...

Today will be much much different.pic.twitter.com/JS51MUhLBz
— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) February 24, 2025