Trump Talks to Macron Ahead of Ukraine Summit

President Donald Trump held a "friendly" 30-minute call with French President Emmanuel Macron about the war in Ukraine on Monday, one White House official told The Hill.

Specifics about the conversation were not reported.

The call comes as European leaders held an emergency meeting in Paris on Monday about continued support for the war as the United States and Russian diplomats meet in Saudi Arabia to discuss a peace deal.

However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would "not recognize such agreements" between the U.S. and Russia, according to The Telegraph.

Meanwhile, according to former American ambassador to NATO, Ivo Daalder, the meeting between European leaders in Paris was about continuing the war.

The Europeans, Daalder told The New York Times, "have realized they're in this boat together and can no longer rely on the U.S., and that the concern that Trump and Putin will do a deal over their heads is real."

"So they have to depend on each other, and Europeans have to decide whether to step up to help the Ukrainians continue the war, if the proposed deal is a bad one, or to throw Kyiv under the bus, which would be appeasing Putin. They now realize that they have no real choice and that they have to back Ukraine, and that's what this meeting is all about."

The meeting in Paris was hastily put together following Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's announcement in Brussels last week that the U.S. would be pulling U.S. troops, on a timetable, from Europe.

Over the weekend, Chicago University Professor John Mearsheimer explained that Europe has long acted "subservient" to the U.S. out of "fear" they would pull troops from the continent. Mearsheimer went on to add that he believes Hegseth was sent to Europe as a tactic — to pull forces from Europe and the Middle East to "pivot" to "East Asia," or China, in other words.

"I think what's going on here is that the United States wants to pivot to Asia, and it understands that if you pivot to someplace, you have to pivot from someplace, and they want to pivot from Europe and go to Asia."

Mearsheimer said he expects the meeting in Saudi Arabia to create "daylight" between Russia and China as the U.S. sets up a potential venture.