[Trending News] Rubio Melts Down on Air Over Accusation U.S. Is ‘Placating Putin’

Secretary of State Marco Rubio threw a tantrum in an interview with ABC News after This Week presenter George Stephanopoulos claimed the Trump administration had “taken steps to placate Putin.”

Rubio was fuming as he dodged questions from Stephanopoulos and made an eyebrow-raising comparison between the war in Ukraine to conflicts in the Middle East.

Throughout the Sunday segment, which lasted over ten minutes, Rubio insisted Trump’s central mission was to open peace negotiations with President Vladimir Putin.

“The president is basically saying, there’s this horrible war,” Rubio said. “It’s been going on for three years. It is a bloody stalemate, a meat grinder-type war, and he wants it to end. How does it end? It’s very simple. The only way it ends is if Vladimir Putin comes to a negotiating table.”

“Right now, President Trump is the only person on earth who has any chance whatsoever of bringing him to a table to see what it is he would be willing to end the war,” he added.

But just moments later, Rubio admitted that the Trump administration had no idea what Putin’s demands were for a peace agreement to be made, despite several talks between American and Russian officials over the last month.

This includes at least one conversation held on the phone between Trump and Putin as well as a long and intimate meeting between the Russian leader and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow in February.

Rubio also met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Saudi Arabia.

“Maybe…their demands will be unreasonable,” Rubio speculated. “We don’t know, but we have to bring him to the table.”

Rubio even suggested that peace may not be possible as he surprisingly claimed that Americans had not negotiated with Putin since before Russia’s full-scale invasion began in 2022, despite engagements in the last month.

“I’ve said from the very beginning, maybe they don’t want to deal either. We don’t know, but we haven’t talked to them in three years,” he said.

The interview became more fiery after Stephanopoulos asked Rubio why Trump officials refused to call Putin a “dictator” when they had so readily made the same claim about Zelensky.

“We’ve spent three years calling Vladimir Putin names. That’s not the point,” he said.

“We all understand that Putin is not going to be an easy negotiator,” he added. “In this regard. We all get that, but we have to start the process to see if something is even possible. And I honestly am puzzled. I just don’t understand!”

The secretary of state had lost his temper by the time he made a bold comparison between Trump’s treatment of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and former President Joe Biden’s treatment of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

“The Biden administration berated Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israelis put all kinds of conditions and pressure on them to try to get a cease fire. In this particular case, we’ve been nice by comparison, and all we’re trying to do here is figure out whether a peace is possible,” he claimed.

But the interview’s climax came when the ABC News presenter pointed to Senator Lisa Murkowski’s comments slamming Trump.

“Even some of your Republican allies are puzzled by the steps that President Trump has taken to placate Vladimir Putin,” Stephanopoulos began.

“Which steps has he taken?” Rubio snapped back. “Which ones? Are we arming the Russians?”

Another tense moment came when Stephanopoulos pointed out that America had voted with Russia and Belarus in a United Nations resolution that called for an end to the conflict and contained no criticism of Russia.

“The job of the UN is to bring about peace in the world. I thought that’s what the UN was created to do, to stop wars and to prevent them, and that’s what the resolution did. Was it antagonistic towards the Russians? Back to the point, but it also didn’t praise the Russians,” Rubio answered. He failed to mention that the U.S. also voted against a European-drafted resolution that condemned Russia as an aggressor.

The final conflict between Rubio and Stephanopoulos came as the ABC News host asked what concessions America expected Russia to make during negotiations.

“Why would I say that on the news broadcast?” Rubio cracked. “That’s what negotiations are about. That’s the problem here. Again, this is not a messaging exercise, okay? This is ‘can they get to a table?’ And then there’s hard work to be done.”