White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wouldn’t get into details about Tuesday’s scheduled call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. But she sounded optimistic that the talks can help push Russia closer to a deal to end it’s three-year war in Ukraine. “I won’t get ahead of those negotiations, but I can say we are on the 10th yard line of peace,” Leavitt told reporters Monday. “And we’ve never been closer to a peace deal than we are in this moment. And the president, as you know, is determined to get one done.” Trump on Monday explicitly linked the actions of Yemen's Houthi rebels to the group's main benefactor, Iran, warning Tehran would “suffer the consequences” for further attacks by the group. The comments by Trump on his Truth Social website escalate his administration's new campaign of airstrikes targeting the rebels, which killed at least 53 people this weekend alone and appear poised to continue. “Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN, and IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!” Trump added. Asked for a reaction after a French politician made headlines in his country for suggesting the U.S. is no longer worthy of the Statue of Liberty, Leavitt shot back. "My advice to that unnamed low level French politician would be to remind them that it's only because of the United States of America that the French are not speaking German right now," Leavitt said. "So they should be very grateful to our great country." Raphaël Glucksmann, a member of the European Parliament and co-president of a small left-wing party in France, in a speech this weekend said that some Americans “have chosen to switch to the side of the tyrants.” The statue was a gift from France nearly 140 years ago.