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In a sometimes combative interview Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio posited that the thing that matters most when it comes to the Russia-Ukraine war is getting Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table — and everything else is just noise.
Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Rubio said: “The only way it ends is if Vladimir Putin comes to a negotiating table. And right now President Trump is the only person on Earth who has any chance whatsoever of bringing him to a table to see what it is he would be willing to end the war on.”
Rubio, who was present at Friday’s ugly White House meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said to host George Stephanopoulos that the issue was not how well Trump and Vice President JD Vance treated Zelenskyy — something that drew widespread criticism nationally and internationally.
He said that the cause of peace would not have been advanced if Trump were to have spent Friday’s meeting joining Zelenskyy in saying how untrustworthy Putin is.
“We’ve spent three years calling Vladimir Putin names,” Rubio said. “That’s not the point. And the point that we’re at now is, we’re trying to get the man to a table, the Russians. And I’ve said from the very beginning, maybe they don’t want a deal either. We don’t know. But we haven’t talked to them in three years. But maybe they do.”
Rubio repeatedly circled back to the importance of getting Putin to the negotiating table, even when Stephanopoulos tried to push him on specific points about Friday’s heated meeting. For instance, the former Florida senator, when asked about the security guarantees that Zelenskyy is seeking, said it was premature to be talking about things that need to be negotiated, should negotiations occur.
“The security guarantees which I actually like to call deterrents is all contingent upon there being a peace. Everybody is saying security guarantees to secure the peace. You first have to have a peace. We don’t even know if the peace is possible,” Rubio said.
He also said Zelenskyy should have understood that going into Friday’s Oval Office meeting.
“What Zelenskyy did unfortunately,” he said, “is he found every opportunity to try to Ukraine-splain on every issue.”
He also said Trump deserves support for attempting to bring about peace.
“I really am puzzled why anyone thinks that trying to be a peacemaker is a bad thing,” Rubio said.
