Secretary of State Marco Rubio emphasized Friday evening that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky owes President Donald Trump an apology for his behavior in the Oval Office earlier in the day.
Rubio discussed the dramatic Zelensky meeting during a Friday evening interview on CNN, where he stressed that Trump is trying to bring an end to the conflict between Ukraine and Russia — and that Zelensky’s behavior signaled a lack of respect for the United States. Trump told Zelensky to leave the White House on Friday, a White House official shared with The Daily Wire, after a fiery end to an otherwise pleasant Oval Office meeting to finalize a mineral deal between the United States and Ukraine.
Zelensky departed the White House without signing the deal and without attending a formal lunch that had been prepared for him — a lunch that was reportedly eaten by White House staff.
“We’ve explained very clearly what our plan is here, which is we want to get the Russians to a negotiating table,” explained Rubio. “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,” he argued. “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.”
And yet, Rubio said, the Ukrainians insisted on coming to Washington, D.C.
He continued: “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,” the Secretary of State added, “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.”
Rubio said that Zelensky should apologize for turning Friday’s meeting into “the fiasco for him that it became,” pointing to the moment that Zelensky asked Vance, “What kind of diplomacy are you talking about?”
“There was no need for him to go in there and become antagonistic,” he said of Zelensky.
“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,” he continued. “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.”
Zelensky’s undermining of efforts to bring about peace is “deeply frustrating” for those involved in the communications that led up to Friday, Rubio said: “I think he should apologize for wasting our time for a meeting that was going to end the way it did.”
During Friday’s meeting, Vance questioned Zelensky: “Do you think that it’s respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?”
“Right now you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems,” argued Vance, adding “You should be thanking the president for trying to bring an end to this conflict.”
“During war, everybody has problems, even you, but you have a nice ocean and don’t feel now, but you will feel it in the future,” Zelensky responded.
“You don’t know that,” Trump said, cutting in as Zelensky continued to try to interrupt. “Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel…You’re in no position to dictate what we are going to feel. We are going to feel very good…You’re right now not in a very good position. You’ve allowed yourself to be in a very bad position and [Vance] happens to be right about it.”
“You don’t have the cards right now,” Trump added. “With us you start having cards. You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War III, and what you’re doing is very disrespectful to the country.”
Vance then cut in, asking Zelensky if he had said “thank you” at all during the meeting.
“You went to Pennsylvania and campaigned for the opposition in October,” Vance said. “Offer some words of appreciation to the United States of America and the president who is trying to save your country.”
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