Secretary of State Marco Rubio fiercely defended President Trump’s approach to negotiating a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia on Sunday, saying the media public would be praising his efforts if he were a Democrat.
“Shouldn’t we all be happy that we have a president who’s trying to stop wars and prevent them instead of start them?” Rubio said in an interview on ABC News’s “This Week,” amid a tense exchange with George Stephanopoulos over Trump’s peace-deal efforts.
“I just don’t get it. I really don’t, other than the fact that it’s Donald J. Trump,” he continued.
“If this was a Democrat that was doing this, everyone would be saying, ‘Well, he’s on his way to the Nobel Peace Prize,’” Rubio added. “This is absurd.”
Rubio defended Trump’s approach, which, as Rubio described it, is a departure from the three years of name-calling directed at Russian President Vladimir Putin and is, instead, an effort to achieve peace.
“We are trying to end a war,” he said. “You cannot end a war unless both sides come to the table, starting with the Russians. And that, that is the point the president has made. And we have to do whatever we can to try to bring them to the table to see if it’s even possible.”
The interview comes after Trump and Vice President Vance blasted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in an explosive Oval Office meeting on Friday, after the foreign leader challenged Trump and Vance over Putin’s history of ignoring ceasefire agreements.
