Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s fierce defense of President Donald Trump hours after his Oval Office dressing down of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made international waves was subjected to a healthy round of scrutiny by CNN’s Kaitlin Collins.
Rubio appeared on Collins’ primetime show “The Source” in an exclusive interview where he insisted Zelensky should 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,” Rubio said, later adding: “And I think he should apologize for wasting our time for a meeting that was going to end the way it did.
Rubio then launched into an extensive analysis of the situation surrounding the bloody Ukraine and Russia conflict, while assailing Zelensky for attacking Russian President Vladimir Putin, “no matter how anyone may feel about him personally.”
That’s when Collins jumped in to offer the former Florida senator a brutal reality check – using his own words against him.
“You yourself have said previously that Putin cannot be trusted in negotiations,” Collins told Rubio. “That was the point that President Zelensky was ultimately making during that conversation...I mean, do you still feel that way, that Putin cannot be trusted in these negotiations?”
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“Well, I was there yesterday when the president said in front of the media that our approach is going to be trust but verify,” Rubio told the CNN, host before touting the president as a “dealmaker” who has “made deals his entire life.”
“He's not going to get suckered into some deal that's not a real deal,” Rubio said.
Collins then presented a different variation of her question, reminding Rubio that he previously said he believes “Putin is a war criminal, that that is a widely accepted fact.”
"You've called him a butcher, and you've said that as a secretary of state, you do believe it's important for someone with such global influence as you have to speak with that kind of moral clarity," Collins told Rubio.
"Yeah and at this moment, as secretary of state, my job working for the president is to deliver peace, to end this conflict and end this war," he said. "Ultimately, that is the job of the State Department, the State Department doesn't fight wars, it ends them, it tries to end them.
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