European leaders gossip about US amid apparent efforts to torpedo Trump's Russia-Ukraine peace deal: Report



President Donald Trump and members of his administration have worked doggedly over the past year to broker a lasting peace between Russia and Ukraine.

While there have been multiple instances when an end to the bloodshed appeared within reach, Presidents Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin have both repeatedly thrown up obstacles to sealing the deal — in most cases over proposals regarding territorial concessions and security guarantees for Kyiv.

There are, however, others actors in the mix who appear content to stymie the U.S.-mediated peace negotiations.

English-language notes allegedly detailing a conference call held on Monday between Zelenskyy, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, and numerous other EU leaders revealed the extent of the contempt and distrust some European leaders have for the United States as it relates to Washington's role in the peace talks.

According to the notes that were leaked to the German publication Der Spiegel, Macron suggested that there was a chance that the U.S. — a nation that has kept Ukraine viable with the help of hundreds of billions of dollars and top-notch armaments as well as by sanctioning its foe — might "betray" Ukraine.

"There is a chance that the U.S. will betray Ukraine on territory without clarity on security guarantees," Macron reportedly said, adding that the territorial matter presents "a big danger" for Zelenskyy.

Macron was among the EU leaders who rejected Trump's original 28-point peace plan last month and echoed an old complaint that certain proposals would require EU consent. His office has claimed that he "did not express himself in these words" as described in the notes but did not indicate how he had expressed himself.

RELATED: Zelenskyy's hold on power uncertain as criminal charges reach his inner circle

Photographer: Nathan Laine/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Merz, whose nation is set to pass a new conscription scheme, reportedly said that Zelenskyy must be "very careful" in the talks ahead, noting that "they are playing games with both you and us." Der Spiegel indicated that the "they" Merz referred to was likely Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and the president's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who have been working on the peace negotiations.

Alexander Stubb — the Finnish president who complained in a recent interview that "all the conditions for a just peace we’ve talked so much about over the past four years are unlikely to be fulfilled" — reportedly said on the conference call, "We must not leave Ukraine and Volodymyr alone with these guys," again apparently referring to the U.S. representatives.

The notes for the call, which several participants confirmed to Der Spiegel had taken place, indicate that Rutte agreed, stating, "I agree with Alexander that we need to protect Volodymyr."

While a spokesperson for Zelenskyy told Der Spiegel he did not want to comment on the content of the call, the Ukrainian president said in a statement on Thursday, "Ukraine is prepared for any possible developments, and of course we will work as constructively as possible with all partners to ensure that peace is achieved — and that it is, after all, a dignified peace. Only a dignified peace provides real security, and we fully understand that this requires — and will continue to require — the support of our partners."

The White House did not respond to Blaze News' request for comment.

On Tuesday, Putin suggested European leaders were undermining the peace process, stating, "They don’t have a peace agenda; they’re on the side of the war," reported the Associated Press.

The Russian president further accused the Europeans of introducing "demands that are absolutely unacceptable to Russia," thereby "blocking the entire peace process."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Violent attacks against Christians spike in Europe; France leading the way with anti-Christian hate crimes: Report



Christians are brutally persecuted the world over. According to the watchdog group Open Doors, over 380 million Christians suffer high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith, and over 4,476 were killed for their faith in 2024 alone.

While the top 10 worst countries for Christians are all in Africa, Asia, and the Indian subcontinent — Nigeria, for instance, saw over 300 Christian schoolchildren abducted during a raid by bandits on Friday — Christians are also subjected to violent attacks, discrimination, and state suppression in supposedly civilized Western nations.

'15 incidents featured satanic symbols or references.'

The U.S. and Canada have together, for instance, seen thousands of acts of hostility against churches in recent years.

Across the Atlantic, a British court handed a grieving father a criminal sentence last year for praying silently near the abortion clinic that killed his unborn son. In France, Christians were reportedly arrested at gunpoint for peacefully protesting the mockery of their faith during the 2024 Olympics opening ceremony. In Spain, a maniac broke into a monastery in November 2024, savagely attacking several people and fatally bludgeoning a Franciscan monk. Farther afield, an Islamic terrorist stabbed an Assyrian bishop on April 15, 2024, in an Australian church.

The Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe, a Vienna-based watchdog group, recently revealed that violent attacks on Christians spiked in Europe and the U.K. last year.

The watchdog noted in its annual report that a total of 2,211 anti-Christian hate crimes were documented by European governments and civil society organizations in 2024.

OIDAC hinted that the actual number of hate crimes may be much higher, as surveys indicate they are grossly underreported. In Poland, for example, nearly 50% of Catholic priests surveyed indicated that they were met with aggression sometime in the past year, yet over 80% failed to report such incidents.

RELATED: 'Mass slaughter': Trump moves to help Nigerian Christians under attack

Photo by VALERY HACHE/AFP via Getty Images.

Nevertheless, OIDAC indicated that this reflects a general decrease over 2023 — a year when there were 2,444 reported hate crimes. The decrease is partly the result of a dip in recorded incidents in France but largely the result of "lower figures reported by U.K. police, which noted a change in methodology in its official report," the report reads.

Of the 516 anti-Christian hate crimes independently recorded by OIDAC last year, the most frequent form of violence was vandalism, at 50% of reported incidents, followed by arson attacks, 15%; desecration, 13%; physical assaults, 7.5%; theft of religious objects, 5.5%; and threats, accounting for 4% of incidents. These figures do not account for burglaries at religious sites, of which there were nearly 900 additional recorded cases.

While reported anti-Christian hate crimes have generally decreased, the number of personal attacks — including assault, harassment, and threats — "rose from 232 in 2023 to 274 in 2024."

The watchdog indicated on the basis of police and civil society data that the top five European nations most affected by anti-Christian hate crimes last year were, in descending order, France, Britain, Germany, Austria, and Spain.

Among the incidents highlighted in the worst-rated country, France, were the destruction of historic Church of the Immaculate Conception in Saint-Omer by an arsonist on Sept. 2, 2024, and the March 11, 2024, vandalism of a church and desecration of the cemetery in the village Clermont-d'Excideuil, where "Isa will break the cross" and "Submit to Islam" were spray-painted on graves, the war memorial, and the church door.

Since many of the offenders have not been apprehended, the watchdog group could not say definitively what is driving this trend. However, among the 93 cases OIDAC documented wherein the perpetrators' motives or affiliations could be established, "the most common were linked to radical Islamist ideology (35), radical left-wing ideology (19), radical right-wing ideology (7), and other political motives (11). Additionally, 15 incidents featured satanic symbols or references."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Trump comes out on top with EU tariffs deal, proving haters wrong and leaving some Europeans stunned



President Donald Trump set to work in April on radically transforming how trade is conducted internationally, unveiling a sweeping list of new tariffs targeting scores of nations — friendly and adversarial nations alike — that have long imposed higher fees on the U.S. than the U.S. has placed on them in return.

Trump has in the months since received a lot of flak from liberals at home and abroad over this campaign to end the trend of foreign nations ripping off America. There have, for instance, been legal challenges, condemnations by Democrats and even some Republicans, threats of retaliation, and constant media chatter about economic doom.

'It's a big deal. It's a huge deal. It will bring stability.'

Trump has, however, surmounted the opposition, proven the haters wrong, and repeatedly come out on top.

The president's latest victory — announced in the ancestral homeland of his mother just days after striking a favorable trade agreement with Japan — is likely his most consequential to date.

Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen jointly announced in Turnberry, Scotland, on Sunday that they struck a deal.

Per the terms of the agreement, the EU will buy $750 billion worth of energy over the next three years; invest $600 billion in the U.S. in addition to what it is already investing; open member countries to tariff-free American exports; and purchase "a vast amount" of American military equipment at a value that has yet to be determined.

RELATED: Trump says he's considering 'a little rebate' for Americans from tariff revenue

Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

The U.S. will, in return, impose a 15% import tariff on most European goods — half of the rate Trump planned to impose on Aug. 1 in the event the deal fell through and 12.5% less than the tariff currently imposed on European automotive exports to the United States.

"I think it's great that we made a deal today instead of playing games," Trump told von der Leyen.

"I think it's the biggest deal ever made. Thank you very much."

Von der Leyen, who in 2021 claimed that Trump's first term may have "permanently damaged" democracy, said, "We have a trade deal between the two largest economies in the world. It's a big deal. It's a huge deal. It will bring stability. It will bring predictability that's very important for our businesses on both sides of the Atlantic."

RELATED: Business spending reaches near 30-year high under Trump: 'It's the real deal'

— (@)

Von der Leyen later noted that Trump is "a tough negotiator, but he is also a dealmaker."

While von der Leyen said that the 15% tariff might be a "challenge for some," she emphasized that the deal ensures continued access to the American market while Europe simultaneously diversifies to other regions of the world and taps new markets.

'It is a dark day.'

"The European Union is going to open its 20 Trillion dollar market and completely accept our auto and industrial standards for the first time ever," noted Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

"Today is a historic day for U.S. trade and will strengthen our relationship with the European Union for decades to come."

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent praised Trump, stating that the president "is the world’s great negotiator, and the American people are the beneficiaries."

A number of national leaders from the 27 EU member states who will have to sign off on the deal expressed optimism, including Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who said she considered it a "positive." German Chancellor Friedrich Merz welcomed the agreement, noting in a statement, "It is good that Europe and the U.S. have agreed and avoid unnecessary escalation in transatlantic trade relations."

Others weren't so keen.

French Prime Minister François Bayrou suggested on X that "it is a dark day when an alliance of free peoples, brought together to affirm their common values and to defend their common interests, resigns itself to submission."

"It is obvious to me that this is not an agreement," said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. "It wasn't a deal that President Donald Trump made with Ursula von der Leyen — it was Trump eating von der Leyen for breakfast. This is what happened."

Orbán suggested that Trump's deal with the United Kingdom was far better and that von der Leyen was a "featherweight," reported Euractiv.

Trump has now secured critical trade deals with China, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Britain, and Vietnam.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Macron's office initially denies authenticity of video showing French president's manhandling by his geriatric wife



Video went viral early Monday appearing to show 72-year-old Brigitte Macron manhandling her former student and now husband, French President Emmanuel Macron, just before they deplaned in Hanoi, Vietnam. The president's office initially denied the video's authenticity.

The footage has not only prompted an evolving explanation from the French president but also debate online both over what qualifies as abuse and over the nature of the Macrons' controversial relationship.

In the video, captured by the Associated Press, the 47-year-old president can be seen in the open doorway of the landed plane speaking to his wife. Mrs. Macron seemingly throws her hands into the president's face, impressing upon him a momentary look of shock. Realizing he is in full view of the public below, Mr. Macron smiles, steadies himself, and waves.

After getting his bearings, Mr. Macron turns to exit the plane, offering his elderly wife his arm. She elects instead to rely on the railing, then descends the stairs beside her husband.

'It was a moment of togetherness.'

Macron's office initially denied the authenticity of the images, but when it became clear that denial was a losing strategy, Mr. Macron told reporters that the altercation was all in fun, reported Le Monde.

"My wife and I were squabbling, we were rather joking, and I was taken by surprise,," said Mr. Macron, adding that the physicality was overblown and it has now "become a kind of planetary catastrophe, and some are even coming up with theories."

He suggested further that this was the latest of a number of videos that have been misinterpreted online.

"For three weeks ... there are people who have watched videos and think I shared a bag of cocaine, that I had a fight with the Turkish president, and that now I'm having a domestic dispute with my wife," said Macron. "None of these are true."

RELATED: Florida teacher accused of 'disturbing' sexual misconduct against student — including in classroom just hours before arrest

Photo by LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP via Getty Images

One of the videos to which Mr. Macron was likely referring showed him tucking away a white object while seated next to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz while en route to Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 9. Critics concluded that the white object was a bag of cocaine. French officials suggested it was just a crumpled tissue.

Macron's office said of the incident on the plane in a statement obtained by CNN, "It was a moment when the president and his wife were unwinding one last time before the trip began, playfully teasing each other. It was a moment of togetherness."

'He preferred to spend his time talking with the teachers.'

Even though Mr. Macron and his office ultimately confirmed that the footage was genuine, CNN still insinuated it was being misinterpreted for the purposes of "disinformation."

Some critics online discussed whether the incident was indicative of a toxic or abusive relationship.

Normalcy advocate Robby Starbuck, for instance, suggested that "if you're in a relationship where someone puts hands on you, LEAVE. It's not normal and there's no excuse for it. People who love and respect you don't hit you."

Other critics suggested the incident might be just the latest insight into a relationship that started in 1993 when then-Brigitte Auziere, a 39-year-old high school teacher, fell for a 15-year-old boy who was a classmate of her daughter Laurence. Auziere supervised the drama club the boy was a member of.

Mr. Macron's former sports teacher told Bloomberg, "At 15, Macron had the maturity of a 25-year-old," adding, "He preferred to spend his time talking with the teachers rather than his classmates."

Mrs. Macron's family discovered her affair with the minor in 1994, prompting disgust and fury.

The age of consent in France is 15.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Klaus Schwab stepping down as World Economic Forum chair after investigation, collapse of globalist dream



Klaus Schwab's days as chairman are numbered at the World Economic Forum, the technocratic globalist organization he founded in 1971 that hosts an annual conference of supposed elites in Davos, Switzerland.

Schwab told the WEF's board of trustees and staff in a letter on Tuesday seen by the Financial Times that he was beginning a year-long process of stepping down, having already stepped down as the organization's executive chairman last May.

The shake-up in Davos comes between the American-led unrealization of Schwab's proposed "great reset" of capitalism and in the wake of a probe into allegations of discrimination at the WEF.

Toxic workplace

Days after his previous title-drop, the Wall Street Journal published a damning report claiming — on the basis of internal complaints, email exchanges, and interviews with current and past WEF employees — that "under Schwab's decades-long oversight, the forum has allowed to fester an atmosphere hostile to women and black people in its own workplace."

The report noted that at least six female employees were allegedly "pushed out or otherwise saw their careers suffer" when pregnant or coming back from maternity leave. Other women claimed that senior managers had sexually harassed them.

'That was the most disappointing thing.'

"It was distressing to witness colleagues visibly withdraw from themselves with the onslaught of harassment at the hands of high-level staff, going from social and cheerful to self-isolating, avoiding eye contact, sharing nightmares for years after," said Farid Ben Amor, a former media executive who worked at the WEF before resigning in 2019.

Former staffers who worked closely with Schwab told the Journal that the problems went all the way to the top, alleging that the founder "made suggestive comments to them that made them uncomfortable."

The Journal also indicated that black employees complained about managers using racial slurs as well as about allegedly being passed over for promotions. When one employee filed a lawsuit in New York last year claiming the WEF was "hostile to women and black employees," the WEF settled the lawsuit on undisclosed terms.

Cheryl Martin, head of the Center for Global Industries at the WEF, said, "That was the most disappointing thing, to see the distance between what the Forum aspires to and what happens behind the scenes."

The WEF, which routinely lectures the world about racism, the supposed "gender gap," sexism, climate change, and other perceived moral failings, characterized the Journal's report as "inaccurate," stating, "We are an organization that upholds the highest standards of governance, while working to address the most pressing challenges of our time with our high-performance teams, our diverse and global outlook, and an environment that values innovation, inclusion, and well-being."

Tom Clare, legal counsel for the WEF, suggested that the report painting the WEF as a degenerate organization led by hypocrites was both defamatory and illustrative of the Journal's "steady decline."

Toothless investigation

In the wake of the Journal's indications that those keen to control the world were unable to control themselves, the WEF had the law firm Covington and Burling — whose members recently had their security clearances suspended by President Donald Trump — investigate the claims of workplace discrimination and harassment, reported the Financial Times.

The American firm, which conducted its review in conjunction with the Swiss firm Homburger, indicated in a summary of its assessment that it "did not find the forum had committed any legal violations" and "did not substantiate" the misconduct allegations against Schwab.

'Now after the turmoil of the last months, is to recover our sense of mission.'

While the external investigators were unable or unwilling to find proof of guilt, Børge Brende, president and CEO of the WEF, indicated that there was nevertheless an internal desire to make some minor changes.

Brende reportedly noted in an email that the board committee overseeing the law firms' investigation identified "leadership and management issues ... that do not meet our established standards." In addition to affirming the organization's alleged "commitment to a workplace where all employees feel valued and respected," the leadership promised additional training for managers.

Great reset

Schwab is apparently convinced that the WEF has yet to recover its "sense of mission," saying as much in his April 1 letter to trustee board members, including Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva, failed U.S. presidential candidate Al Gore, and Tharman Shanmugaratnam, president of Singapore.

"I am deeply convinced that in today's special context the forum is more important and relevant than ever before," wrote Schwab. "It is also financially very well equipped thanks to successful financial management since its beginning. What is essential now after the turmoil of the last months, is to recover our sense of mission."

The WEF told the Financial Times that Schwab's departure should be completed by January 2027.

Schwab reportedly suggested it was personally significant that he made his announcement on April 1, as it marked the 55th anniversary of the day he began working on the concept of a "global village" — a term coined several years earlier by Canadian intellectual Marshall McLuhan.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!