Secretary of State Marco Rubio has blasted the “stupid media narrative” that President Donald Trump is going to “bully” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into signing a bad deal with Russia.
Rubio pushed back during a Sunday appearance on CBS, where he was asked about the European leaders attending the negotiations with Zelensky and if this was to ensure he isn’t “bullied into signing something away” by Trump.
Trump is set to meet Monday with Zelensky, several European leaders and NATO’s secretary-general. Trump met with Putin for nearly three hours Friday at a U.S. military base in Anchorage. In their first meeting in six years the two leaders discussed the war in Ukraine. Trump has pushed for peace in the region but no ceasefire deal came out of the talks.
“That’s why you have these European leaders coming as backup tomorrow. Can you reassure them?” Margaret Brennan asked Rubio.
“That’s not true,” Rubio replied. “They’re not coming here tomorrow to keep Zelensky from being bullied. They’re coming here tomorrow because we’ve been working with the Europeans. We talked to them last week. There were meetings in the U.K. over the following, the previous weekend.”
He added that the suggestion of bullying was a “stupid media narrative”.
“They’re coming here tomorrow because they chose to come here tomorrow. We invited them to come. We invited them to come. The president invited them to come,” Rubio insisted.
The secretary of state noted that the U.S. has met with Zelensky many more times than with Putin.
Brennan recalled Trump’s meeting with Zelensky in Washington, D.C. during which Vice President JD Vance asked the Ukrainian leader how often he’d said “thank you” for America’s help with the war.
“You’re right now, not in a very good position. You’re not in a good position. You don’t have the cards right now with us,” Trump also said to Zelensky during the extraordinary meeting. His fiery response came after Zelensky told Trump the U.S. would “feel it in the future” if Trump ignored Russia’s actions in Europe.
“I’m not playing cards right now, I’m very serious Mr President. I am a wartime president,” Zelensky replied, further infuriating Trump.
“You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War Three,” Trump shouted. “You’re gambling with World War Three, and what you’re doing is very disrespectful to the country, this country, far more than a lot of people say they should.”
After that, Vance asked Zelensky “have you said thank you once?”
“A lot of times. Even today,” Zelensky replied. Rubio was present in the Oval Office for that meeting.
Rubio also appeared Sunday on NBC’s morning show where he was asked if he could name a single concession that Trump was going to ask Russia to make. Rubio refused to answer, insisting that doing so would potentially degrade the negotiations.
“Well I’m not going to name those things because if I do, you can imagine, our negotiations could fall apart,” Rubio said. “I know everybody wants to know what’s happening — and to a certain degree that’s important — but what’s more important is these negotiations work.”
