Paris, October 2025 — Interview by J. Goldstein for The New York Times
Question: Mr. President, you have long defended dialogue, even with Vladimir Putin. How do you feel now about Donald Trump’s failure to bring an end to the war in Ukraine?
Emmanuel Macron:
I must admit my disappointment. Yes, I once believed—naively, perhaps—in that kind of theatrical diplomacy Trump so dearly loves. Together with Presidents Mertz and Starman, we were ready, I confess, to award him the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize without hesitation, if by some miracle he managed to persuade Putin to stop this murderous madness.
We were even prepared to send him a European “charm delegation” — picture the Three Graces: Ursula von der Leyen, Giorgia Meloni, and Marine Le Pen, a romantic triangle in the Oval Office — offering our finest “diplomatic performance.” (Laughs.) And all the kings of Europe, I kid you not, were ready to crown him “Emperor Donald I” beneath the White House Christmas tree. Alas, that wild hope turned into a farce.
Question: More seriously, you met Donald Trump personally, several times. What is your assessment?
Macron:
Yes, I took Donald’s hand. I even, let’s say, fondled it a little — in a gesture of Franco-American friendship, of course! But nothing worked. He remains loyal to his true friends: Putin, Javier Milei, Bolsonaro, and — how could we forget — the late Joe-froid Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Trump adores scoundrels, what can I say? And standing before him, I felt like a small boy caught with his finger in the jam jar.
Since his grand reception of Putin in Alaska — where he rolled out a red carpet longer than the runway itself — he has done nothing but embolden Russia to bomb Ukraine twice as hard. The results are grim: after their last phone call in October, Putin secured another six-month reprieve to finish the invasion of the Donbas. And while bombs rain daily on Kharkiv, Trump doesn’t lift a finger. Imagine the devastation to come in just six months. Ukraine, frankly, is not his concern. With Donald, everything is simulation and power play. A great con game, really.
Question: Yet he claims to act for peace...
Macron:
Peace, in Trump’s mind, means Ukraine’s surrender. “Act” is a generous word. He pressures Zelensky to sign the capitulation so that he may declare himself the “victorious mediator.” It’s an exercise in vanity and self-gratification. None of his so-called measures over the past ten months has slowed the Russian army. The few recent U.S. sanctions meant to target Russian oil companies are purely cosmetic — they won’t take effect until 2026 at best, and Moscow will find a thousand tricks to dodge them. Putin knows it, and laughs cynically. Beware: we are dealing with the greatest war criminal of the 21st century — a dictator of the stature of Hitler or Mussolini.
Question: You believe Putin manipulates Trump?
Macron:
Manipulates? Putin strokes Trump the right way — in the wallet. There are trillions of dollars at stake, supposedly to “reduce public debt” on both sides, if that still bothers them. (Smiles.) They exchange nothing but flatteries and promises of fabulous contracts. Every meeting is “productive,” “wonderful.” Then, as soon as Trump emerges from this diplomatic honeymoon, he lashes out at Zelensky, who stands in the way of the incalculable mineral wealth of “Greater Russia” — the new commercial partner of Trump’s America — and, of course, his imaginary Nobel Prize.
As for aid to Ukraine, it is counted, locked, monetized. The most decisive weapons — American Tomahawks, German Taurus missiles — remain off limits. Even Franco-British missiles are restricted: if they contain so much as an American chip, boom, immediate U.S. veto. Meanwhile, Russia freely uses American, Chinese, or Iranian technology to fill its drones and warheads. Truly, a double standard.
The Ukrainians have been fighting for nearly four years with their hands tied behind their backs. Russian attacks intensify, and Trump’s America looks away.
Question: You seem to suggest treason?
Macron:
Call it what you like. I call it moral treason. Trump would likely have stood on Hitler’s side, bombing London, had he been around in 1940. Today, Trump and Xi Jinping offer Putin the same political umbrella that Stalin once offered Hitler and the Third Reich just before World War II.
Frankly, I see obvious parallels. Putin has secured China’s complicity to guard his rear, he seeks to remilitarize Ukraine just as Hitler did the Rhineland in 1936 in violation of Versailles, he threatens the world — and the United States — with nuclear annihilation, boasting of superior strike capability. And now he offers Trump an “amicable” division of power in Western Europe. Recently, the U.S. inadvertently admitted it is lagging behind in the race for non-conventional weapons of mass destruction, and Trump has restarted emergency nuclear tests. It’s a confession of failure, of improvisation, of impotence — the collapse of his so-called “Ministry of War.”
It’s the same pattern: failure on guns — 40,000 deaths a year; failure on COVID — over 1.2 million dead, the highest toll in the world. Every American institution is fallible: the Army, Health, Justice, Industry, Commerce. Something is not working in the United States. Mass layoffs have begun. But democracy is not to blame. Dictators are. It takes immense cynicism and authority to mobilize, indoctrinate, and kill millions of men, women, and children. And I sincerely believe Emperor Donald Trump is mistaken: he is no man of peace.
While Russia multiplies its strikes — as Kinzhals and Orechniks rain on Kyiv, as North Korean shells pound the front lines, as Iranian and Chinese drones flatten civilian buildings, as nuclear-propelled missiles streak across the sky like miniature Chernobyls — the White House remains silent. And when Peskov speaks, it is only to call Europeans “hysterical, russophobic warmongers.” We live in an upside-down world: the mad aggressor plays the victim, the victim must apologize for resisting.
But Putin, that bandit, is not insane. If NATO entered Ukraine, the war would end within twenty-four hours. He would have no choice. Frankly, he might even thank us. So why wait another four years and for Ukraine’s exhaustion? Russia is not that powerful — three-quarters of its weapons come from allies, paid for in oil and gas. Worse, Putin sends to die on the front lines his so-called “independentists” from the twenty-two Russian republics that could one day threaten his federation. It’s a project of extermination. Must Donald Trump and all Americans continue to blind themselves?
Question: Do you fear the conflict could widen?
Macron:
It’s not a “third world war.” It’s the second one playing out again — in reverse. The United States is no longer our ally: it fraternizes with the enemy to carve up zones of influence and profit. Trump and Putin dominate Europe, with a shattered Ukraine between them, like two rabid dogs devouring a living creature. There is deep cynicism, and contempt for us all.
The betrayal at Kursk — when the U.S. blocked vital intelligence needed to protect Ukrainian troops — must never happen again. We are not speaking of a banana republic or a puppet state, but of a great democracy, its people, and its legitimate president. The Ukrainians are teaching us what courage truly means.
So yes, I must admit my disappointment. And also my concern. If Trump’s America continues to wallow in this dishonor, history will not forgive it. Donald Trump plays a double game, pretending to seduce us, but in truth doing the opposite. How could anyone award him the Nobel Prize under such conditions? Frankly, it would be absurd. Too much circus kills the circus. That is my view.
(Editor’s note: This interview is entirely fictional.)
