Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Ukrainian President Voldimia Zelensky should apologise to President Trump in Friday's heated oval office showdown, expressing doubts about whether Ukrainian leaders would like to create a peace deal to end the war in Eastern Europe.
The country's top diplomat told CNN's Kaitlan Collins that the Kyiv leader should “apologise for turning this into Fiasco for him, who became him. There was no need for him to go there and become hostile. Come on, this thing went off the rails.”
“When you started talking actively about it, and the president is a trading maker. He's been trading for a lifetime, you're not going to take people to the table,” Rubio added.
The Secretary of State added that he is not sure if he wants to arrive at a peace agreement that will end a three-year conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
“So you start to realize that Zelensky may not want a peace deal. He says he does, but maybe he is not, and weakening that effort to open up that active, peace-producing effort is extremely frustrating for everyone who has been involved in communication with them to this day,” Rubio said.
Hours before Rubio's interview with “Source,” Zelensky told Fox News that he would not apologise for Friday's White House meeting. He added that the intense exchange between him, Trump and Vice President Vance is bad for both countries.
“No, I respect the President and I respect the people of America. I think we have to be very open and very honest. I don't know if we've done anything wrong,” Zelensky replied when Fox News' Brett Bayer was asked at the meeting if he would apologize.
“Anyway, this is not good for both parties. I was very open, but I can't change Ukrainian attitudes towards Russia,” he said.
The meeting on Friday, which didn't end with signing a deal that revolves around Ukraine's rare minerals, went from warm to hostile when Vance insisted that Trump would use diplomacy to get the deal done.
Vance said Zelensky was “disrespectful” to come to the oval office to “try to litigate this in front of American media.”
“Right now, you're forcing drafting to the forefront because of talent issues. We should thank the President for trying to end his conflict,” Vance said.
Vance accused Zelensky of not appreciating US military aid after the Ukrainian president said he didn't feel the effects of the war because the US president is far from Europe, saying he has little leverage to mediate the deal for Ukrainian leaders, and he is igniting another world war.
“You don't have a card right now,” Trump told Zelensky, “You're gambling with millions of people, you're gambling with World War II.
Rubio said, similar to Trump in the first half of Friday, he could return to the oval office when Zelensky is “ready to make peace and taking peace seriously.”
On CNN Friday, Rubio said that the way the Russian-Ukurean war would end was “let the people win a table of negotiations and the ultimate deal maker, the president, knows not to take people to a table where you negotiate when you're calling them by name.
“It's international diplomacy and an effort to put an end to a very dangerous war,” he said.
After a fierce meeting at the White House, many European prime ministers and top-level diplomats provided support to Zelensky, saying Kiev was “not alone.”
Kaja Karas, head of foreign policy for the European Union in Estonia, said that “the need for a free world” requires a new leader, while at the same time repeating her full support for Zelensky and the Ukrainian people.
Rubio fought back against Karasu and other European officials, claiming that the EU has no “strategy” to end the devastating conflict.
“I mean, these people are just playing stupid games, they're just saying these things, what's their exit strategy? What's their exit strategy? What's someone else's exit strategy? The only person on the planet that is actively trying to put an end to this conflict is named Donald Trump, the President of the United States,” Rubio told CNN.
“He's the only person trying to do it and we should help him achieve it,” he added.
