World leaders are gathering to celebrate the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral, you can see images from Paris, where leaders descend on a disassembled cathedral, President-elect Donald Trump is kicking off his first foreign tour by meeting French President Emmanuel Macaroon and Ukrainian President Vladimir Minsky before those ceremonies, here is a part of that meeting that can be seen, Macaroon warmly welcomes the president-elect upon his arrival, calling his visit a great honor for the French people, Trump in turn touts the close ties between the two countries. We had a lot of time together, and we had a lot of success working together on defense, on offense, really a lot of success.
It certainly sounds like you are all going a little unconventional right now with all this. We will talk about that if you are not up to tell us more, News chief international correspondent James Longman from Paris and White House correspondent Mary Alice Parks in D. C James wants to start with you. What do we know about this meeting between Trump and Alinsky? So there was a really great time, actually the three of them were for the camera, but then they showed the three of us talking for about half an hour, actually a lot of Muslims joined the meeting and almost immediately tweeted that you had a good and productive trilateral meeting. He said President Trump is as resolute as ever, and I thank him. I thank him as well.
Honeywell said for organizing this important meeting we all want this war to end as soon as possible and somehow this really underlines why this was really important, let us make our way to France, we know he spoke to President Trump shortly after his election win to congratulate him. But this is the first time they have been able to meet properly because the Ukrainians desperately need, let us be honest about the deal, the war is going on much worse in Ukraine they blame it on low boats Ukrainian officials last week blamed it on the deliveries of weapons coming in a drip feed over the last three years, rather than they wanted them immediately. Ukraine is actually losing a lot of territory in the east. So they should really try to come to terms with the US president.
We think conventional wisdom might suggest that because Biden lost the election the Democrats are not going to be the right thing anymore. If that is not a good thing for Ukraine, but Ukrainian officials were actually pressured to tell me that they do not feel like they are optimistic that they can make a deal. They feel that person to person the president will have a good relationship with Donald Trump, they feel that money is also important, right, my crowd is another person who really needed this meeting to present stability in France. Their government is on the verge of collapse their position does not look necessarily weak in the fact that they do not want to step down, but they also do not have a government at the moment.
Donald Trump for both of those people is an opportunity, so a state and a signal for the president to give a path to try to make a plan for the future of their country that is going to work for Ukraine and the law. Just the transition to the next administration is currently in full swing for Vladimir Putin Mary Alice, first lady Joe Biden is in Paris for this event but the current presidential environment at a big event at the White House yesterday his team said it was just a scheduling conflict, but we know President Trump has been busy he is had a number of meetings with foreign leaders over the last few weeks since his election. Now this trip is obviously about what is happening in Ukraine.