Trump says Zelensky is ready for peace as he dishes to Post on meetings with world leaders — and Jill Biden 1/2
By Diana Glebova
Published Dec. 8, 2024, 5:47 p.m. ET
President-elect Donald Trump said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is ready for “peace” as he dished on his meetings with world leaders — and Jill Biden — during his trip to Paris for the reopening of Notre Dame.
The incoming president revealed Sunday details of his conversations with world leaders on his first trip abroad since winning a second term, including a trilateral meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and Zelensky.
“He wants to make peace,” Trump told The Post in a phone interview. “That’s new.
“He wants to have a ceasefire,” he added. “He wants to make peace. We didn’t talk about the details. He thinks it’s time, and Putin should think its time because he’s lost — when you lose 700,000 people, it’s time. It’s not going to end until there’s a peace.”
He said he spoke to Zelensky about how to end the bloody conflict that has been raging since 2022.
“I’m formulating a concept of how to end that ridiculous war,” he said.
Trump also pointed to his Truth Social post where he mentioned Russia in context of the fall of the Syrian government.
“What happened there was Russia was not able to step up to the plate because they were all bogged down in this horrible war that never should have happened in Ukraine,” he said.
Trump also revealed he spoke to Macron about NATO, reiterating that he thinks the alliance should “pay their fair share.”
“I said NATO is good as long as they pay their bills, but they gotta pay their bills, because you know, when I got involved with NATO nobody paid, and then they paid after I got involved,” the president elect said.
“He agrees with me,” Trump said of Macron. “He’s a good man, he did a good job. I told him, ‘you have no idea how good a job you did’ on that chapel. That’s very hard to do. Painstaking.”
The side chat inside the cathedral with first lady Jill Biden was also a positive interaction, Trump said, despite their long history of making nasty remarks about each other during the two election cycles.
“Very nice. She couldn’t have been nicer,” Trump said about their talk.
“It’s politics. You have to get used to it,” he said about their political spats in the past. “She was very nice and we had a very nice conversation.”
The former president dominated headlines with the firm handshake he had with Macron, in which he gripped his hand from the top.
“It’s just a firm shake. He understands that. It’s just a firm shake,” he said of the shake.
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