Marco Rubio tackles media questions on Russia and Ukraine negotiations with patience.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is a busy man, but he was kind enough to spend his Sunday morning taking one for the team, sitting down the various various harpy hosts of the mainstream media, who did everything from asking him why Donald Trump met Vladimir Putin on a „red carpet“ to forcing him to explain how negotiations work when you’re trying to end a war. The common theme seemed to be „You need to be meaner to Russia“, and Rubio, who has a lot more patience than I do, had to explain to these folks that real life diplomatic talks aren’t exactly like something you see in the movies or on TV.
First up, let’s talk about his appearance on „This Week“ on ABC with Martha Raddatz, who seemed a bit beside herself that the secretary wouldn’t share every little detail about what Trump and Putin discussed during their meeting in Alaska on Friday. „Can you name any concessions Vladimir Putin made during this meeting“, she asked. „Have any concessions been asked? Where is the pressure?“
„I wouldn’t name them on your program“, Rubio replied before teaching Raddatz how negotiation work. „You can’t have a peace agreement unless both sides make concessions. That’s a fact. That’s true in virtually any negotiation. It’s just called surrender and neither side is gonna surrender.so of course concessions were asked. But what utility would there be of me going on a program and tell you, ‚We wagged our finger at Putin and told him, you must do this and you must do that?'“ It’s only gonna make it harder and less likely that they’re going to agree to these things.“
.@SecRubio: „What utility would there be of me going on a program and telling you we wagged our finger at Putin and told him you must do this? . As much as everyone would love it to be a live PPV event, these discussions ONLY work best when they are conducted privately.“ pic.twitter.com/8LFJj06Fgq— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 17, 2025
Raddatz also couldn’t get past the fact that Putin was given a „red carpet welcome“ because Trump and Putin stood on a carpet that happened to be red on the tarmac in Anchorage on Friday. If I had five or ten minutes to interview Rubio, I can’t imagine I’d waste my time on such silly questions.
„Critics of President Trump will say the the pomp and circumstance, the red carpet, the warm handshake that President Trump simply lost that, that Putin gained there just by being on the world stage and walking down a red carpet with the President. Your reaction to that?“, she asked.
Rubio didn’t miss a beat: „Well, I mean, critics of President Trump are always going to find something to criticize. You don’t even pay attention to it anymore, but I will tell you this: Putin is already on the world stage. He’s already on the world stage. The guy’s conducting a full-scale war in Ukraine. He’s already on the world stage. He has the world’s largest tactical nuclear arsenal in the world and the second-largest strategic nuclear arsenal in the world. He’s already on the world stage.“
The secretary added that, „All the media’s done is talk about Putin all the time for the last four or five years“ and „you’re not gonna end a war between Russia and Ukraine without dealing with Putin.
