Travel pool #13 - pull aside with Macron/more on Ukraine land

POTUS is meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron. The leaders made opening remarks and then took a few questions.

POTUS reiterated he thinks Ukraine should get all its land back. He called Russia a “paper tiger.” More: “ So it's a very sad situation, but most of you have seen the recent statement I put out a little while ago, and I'm glad you got it, but I feel that way. I really do feel that way. Let them get their land back.”

Fuller quoted below.

POTUS on Macron: “He’s doing a really good job. He's fighting hard. He's fighting on a lot of fronts. He's helping with regard to the Russia, Ukraine catastrophe. And his words of wisdom mean a lot. And we've been friends for a long time now, really from the first term on.”

On Russia-Ukraine war: “It's been a terrible war should have ended, and Russia should have stopped it, but they've been three and a half years, and they've gotten that so far, so we'll see what happens. But the other side can fight too, and they've proven that maybe it could be that Russia is a paper tiger. I don't know what they are, but three and a half years of fighting and killing everybody and killing 7000 people a week for nothing, for nothing, nothing. So it's a very sad situation, but most of you have seen the recent statement I put out a little while ago, and I'm glad you got it, but I feel that way. I really do feel that way. Let them get their land back.”

On Gaza: “I think Gaza is going to come along. We're going to have a very important meeting. And my next meeting actually is going to be very important with leaders in the region. And we're going to talk about Gaza. We're going to see if we can do something about it. We want to stop that. We want to get our hostages back, or their hostages back.”

POTUS said we can’t forget October 7th. Macron said “nobody forgets the seventh of October.”

On the U.S. side: Marco Rubio, Scott Bessent, Susie Wiles, and Steve Witkoff.

Emily Goodin

White House Correspondent

McClatchy DC/Miami Herald

XXX-XXX-XXXX

[EMAIL ADDRESS] (mailto:[EMAIL ADDRESS])