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.” He added, “That’s just common sense.” (Note to Marco: You’re dealing with a person who lacks any and all common sense.)
.@SecRubio nukes ABC for asking about the “red carpet” for Putin: “You’re not going to end a war between Russia and Ukraine without dealing with Putin… [@POTUS] is the only leader in the world that could get Putin to a meeting to talk about serious things.” pic.twitter.com/daqIzXA9H6
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 17, 2025
Both Raddatz and Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press” asked Rubio repeatedly why Trump didn’t walk away from the meeting with a ceasefire agreement with Putin — something the administration and Trump himself said was unlikely to happen. The secretary responded numerous times to these women that you can’t reach an agreement in a meeting in which only one side is present. He said the ultimate goal is to have Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky meet and then maybe there will be a ceasefire or peace agreement, but he concluded that this was just one step of many in a complicated situation.
He also reminded them that this isn’t our war. The conflict between Russia and Ukraine doesn’t necessarily impact the daily lives of people here in the United States, outside of the fact that we’ve supported Ukraine. But he reminded these women and the world that President Trump wants peace, and he’s spent months working on this in an attempt to get there — not because he has to. “We happen to be in the role of the only country in the world with the only leader in the world that can actually bring Putin to a table to even discuss these things,” he added.
.@SecRubio: “This is not our war. The United States is not in a war. Ukraine is in a war… We happen to be in the role of the only country in the world with the only leader in the world that can actually bring Putin to a table to even discuss these things.” pic.twitter.com/aX9huHe4ha
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 17, 2025
He also gave Welker a lesson on how making deals work — both sides have to give and get a little bit. “If it was easy, this wouldn’t have been going on for three and a half years,” he said.
.@SecRubio: “The only way to reach a deal is for each side to get something and each side to give something — and that’s been very difficult. If it was easy, this wouldn’t have been going on for 3.5 years… That’s why Zelensky is coming tomorrow.” pic.twitter.com/Z5h2tv9wRz
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 17, 2025
Another point Rubio made numerous times on Sunday was that President Trump is the only person in the world who can sit down and talk to Putin. “The President could have just said, ‘This is Biden’s war. It started under him. We’ll do what we can for Ukraine, but we’re gonna focus on other things.’ He could have easily said that. But he’s the only leader in the world that can get Putin to a meeting to talk about serious things,” he told Raddatz, and he doubled down on that point while appearing on “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo.
Putin’s not gonna meet with Macron, he’s not gonna meet with the U.K., with all due respect to these leaders. None of these leaders are gonna be able to bring him to the table and talk to them. There’s only one leader in the world that has any chance of bringing these two sides together. If there is a chance, there’s only one leader in the world that can do it, and that’s President Trump.
And you forfeit that role the minute you put additional sanctions on him. We may get to that point, unfortunately, but if we do, it means that peace talks are no longer possible, and that would be very unfortunate. Because the real world ramifications are that while we’re here calling each other names and doing TV interviews about this stuff and all that in American politics, there are people who today will be injured and killed in the battlefield and in cities in Ukraine on the front lines and even in Russia.
Even as we speak, people that have nothing to do with this war are suffering as a result of it. And I think we are very fortunate and blessed and should be thankful to have a president that has made peace and the achievement of peace a priority of his administration. We’ve seen it in Cambodia and Thailand, we’ve seen it in India, Pakistan, we’ve seen it in Rwanda and the DRC, and we’re gonna continue to pursue any opportunities we can find to bring about peace in the world.
Here’s the full video. The secretary gets pretty passionate about this point.
.@SecRubio: “Putin’s not going to meet with Macron, he’s not going to meet with the UK… There’s only one leader in the world that has any chance of bringing these two sides together… that’s President Trump, and you forfeit that role the minute you put additional sanctions… pic.twitter.com/C5QizDBOdA
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 17, 2025
He made the same points on “Face the Nation” with Margaret Brennan, the worst of them all. If you’ll recall, this isn’t the first time Rubio has schooled Brennan this year. It’s not even the second or the third, but I digress. Rubio made some of the same points he made on the other shows, but Brennan literally accused the Trump administration of bringing Zelensky into Washington, D.C. — he’ll be in town on Monday — to “bully” him into signing something. She said that’s why several other European leaders are coming, too — for “back-up.” She was dead serious.
Rubio, in disbelief, said “This is such a stupid media narrative.” He said Trump himself invited the European leaders and went on to explain, yet again, how deals are made, “whether we like it or not.” If you didn’t watch any of the other videos, at least watch this one. It’s good.
.@SecRubio nukes Margaret Brennan: “This is such a stupid media narrative that [European leaders] are coming here tomorrow because Trump is going to bully Zelensky into a bad deal. We’ve been working with these people for weeks… WE invited them to come.” 🔥 pic.twitter.com/YoiyyA3xsp
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 17, 2025
I have no idea in which order Rubio taped these interviews this morning, but I hope for his sake that Brennan was the last. I’d need a nap and a stiff drink after dealing with her.
Rubio gave a masterclass on diplomatic negotiations and making deals on Sunday morning, but it came across more like a father dealing with his ignorant, bratty teenage daughters. That’s because the mainstream media refuses to report anything honest or that might accidentally make the Trump administration look good, even if means giving up a chance for peace and leads to the deaths of thousands more people.
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