This agreement could have been signed five days ago, but they insisted on coming to Washington https://legalinsurrection.com/2025/03/video-marco-rubio-masterfully-defends-trump-after-intense-zelenskyy-meeting/COLLINS: And my source tonight is the Secretary of State, who was in that room today, Marco Rubio. Thank you so much, Secretary Rubio, for being here. We just heard from President Zelenskyy. He said he does not think that he owes President Trump an apology for what happened inside the Oval Office today. Do you feel otherwise?
SECRETARY RUBIO: I do. I do. Because you guys don’t see – you guys only saw the end. You saw what happened today. You don’t see all the things that led up to this, so let me explain. The President’s been very clear; he campaigned on this. He thinks this war should have never started. He believes – and I agree – that had he been president it never would have happened. Now here we are. He’s trying to bring an end to this conflict. We’ve explained very clearly what our plan is here, which is we want to get the Russians to a negotiating table. We want to explore whether peace is possible. They understand this. They also understand that this agreement that was supposed to be signed today was supposed to be an agreement that binds America economically to Ukraine, which, to me, as I’ve explained and I think the President alluded to today, is a security guarantee in its own way because we’re involved; it’s now us, it’s our interests.
That was all explained. That was all understood. And nonetheless, for the last 10 days in every engagement we’ve had with the Ukrainians there’s been complications in getting that point across, including the public statements that President Zelenskyy has made. But they insisted on coming to D.C. This agreement could have been signed five days ago, but they insisted on coming to Washington and there was a very – and should have been a very clear understanding: Don’t come here and create a scenario where you’re going to start lecturing us about how diplomacy isn’t going to work. President Zelenskyy took it in that direction and it ended in a predictable outcome as a result. It’s unfortunate. That wasn’t supposed to be this way, but that’s the path he chose, and I think, frankly, sends his country backwards in regards to achieving peace, which is what President Trump wants at the end of the day – is for this war to end. He’s been as consistent as anyone can be about what his objective is here.
COLLINS: But what specifically do you want to see President Zelenskyy apologize for?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, apologize for turning this thing into the fiasco for him that it became. There was no need for him to go in there and become antagonistic. Look, this thing went off the rails. You were there, I believe. It went off the rails when he said: Let me ask you a question – to the Vice President – what kind of diplomacy are you talking about? Well, these – this is a serious thing. I mean, thousands of people have been killed – thousands – and he talks about all these horrible things that have happened to prisoners of war and children. All true, all bad. This is what we’re dealing with here. It needs to come to an end. We are trying to bring it to an end.
The way you bring it to an end is you get Russia to the table to talk, and he understands that. Attacking Putin, no matter how anyone may feel about him personally, forcing the President into a position where you’re trying to goad him into attacking Putin, calling him names, maximalist demands about Russia having to pay for the reconstruction – all the sorts of things that you talk about in a negotiation. Well, when you start talking about that aggressively – and the President’s a deal maker, he’s made deals his entire life – you’re not going to get people to the table. And so you start to perceive that maybe Zelenskyy doesn’t want a peace deal. He says he does, but maybe he doesn’t. And that act of open undermining of efforts to bring about peace is deeply frustrating for everyone who’s been involved in communications with them leading up to today. And I think he should apologize …
COLLINS: But can I ask you —
SECRETARY RUBIO: — for wasting our time for a meeting that was going to end the way it did.