VIDEO: Marco Rubio Masterfully Defends Trump After Intense Zelensky Meeting

VIDEO: Marco Rubio Masterfully Defends Trump After Intense Zelensky Meeting

After an explosive Oval Office meeting on Friday—where President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy engaged in one of the most intense shouting matches ever captured on camera inside the White House—shockwaves rippled across the globe, with world leaders reacting in real-time, scrambling to assess the fallout and what it meant for the future of U.S.-Ukraine relations.

You can watch the full meeting here:

Really important to watch the whole meeting video. Until the end when Z decided to pick a fight in front of the cameras, it was positive and nothing like portrayed in the media and by NeverTrumpers on X. https://t.co/bsSp9U1GD8

— William A. Jacobson (@wajacobson) March 1, 2025

By evening, Trump’s allies were in full force, pushing back against the media-driven narrative that placed the blame solely on Trump. That’s when Secretary of State Marco Rubio stepped in. He joined Caitlin Collins—both of whom were in the room during the confrontation—to break down the fallout, outline the strategy, and assess whether anything could still be salvaged in U.S.-Ukraine relations.

In the full interview, Rubio delivered a masterclass on what the media got wrong about the meeting, providing crucial context on why Zelenskyy made the disruptive choices he did.

You can watch the full interview from CNN here:

TRANSCRIPT EXCERPTS

Provided by the Secretary of State (May contain transcription errors. Lightly edited for transcript clarity.)

COLLINS: And my source tonight is the Secretary of State, who was in that room today, Marco
Rubio. Thank you so much, Secretary Rubio, for being here. We just heard from President Zelenskyy. He said he does not think that he owes President Trump an apology for what happened inside the Oval Office today. Do you feel otherwise?

SECRETARY RUBIO: I do. I do. Because you guys don’t see – you guys only saw the end. You saw what happened today. You don’t see all the things that led up to this, so let me explain. The President’s been very clear; he campaigned on this. He thinks this war should have never started. He believes – and I agree – that had he been president it never would have happened. Now here we are. He’s trying to bring an end to this conflict. We’ve explained very clearly what our plan is here, which is we want to get the Russians to a negotiating table. We want to explore whether peace is possible. They understand this. They also understand that this agreement that was supposed to be signed today was supposed to be an agreement that binds America economically to Ukraine, which, to me, as I’ve explained and I think the President alluded to today, is a security guarantee in its own way because we’re involved; it’s now us, it’s our interests.

That was all explained. That was all understood. And nonetheless, for the last 10 days in every engagement we’ve had with the Ukrainians there’s been complications in getting that point across, including the public statements that President Zelenskyy has made. But they insisted on coming to D.C. This agreement could have been signed five days ago, but they insisted on coming to Washington and there was a very – and should have been a very clear understanding: Don’t come here and create a scenario where you’re going to start lecturing us about how diplomacy isn’t going to work. President Zelenskyy took it in that direction and it ended in a predictable outcome as a result. It’s unfortunate. That wasn’t supposed to be this way, but that’s the path he chose, and I think, frankly, sends his country backwards in regards to achieving peace, which is what President Trump wants at the end of the day – is for this war to end. He’s been as consistent as anyone can be about what his objective is here.

COLLINS: But what specifically do you want to see President Zelenskyy apologize for?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, apologize for turning this thing into the fiasco for him that it became. There was no need for him to go in there and become antagonistic. Look, this thing went off the rails. You were there, I believe. It went off the rails when he said: Let me ask you a question – to the Vice President – what kind of diplomacy are you talking about? Well, these – this is a serious thing. I mean, thousands of people have been killed – thousands – and he talks about all these horrible things that have happened to prisoners of war and children. All true, all bad. This is what we’re dealing with here. It needs to come to an end. We are trying to bring it to an end.

The way you bring it to an end is you get Russia to the table to talk, and he understands that. Attacking Putin, no matter how anyone may feel about him personally, forcing the President into a position where you’re trying to goad him into attacking Putin, calling him names, maximalist demands about Russia having to pay for the reconstruction – all the sorts of things that you talk about in a negotiation. Well, when you start talking about that aggressively – and the President’s a deal maker, he’s made deals his entire life – you’re not going to get people to the table. And so you start to perceive that maybe Zelenskyy doesn’t want a peace deal. He says he does, but maybe he doesn’t. And that act of open undermining of efforts to bring about peace is deeply frustrating for everyone who’s been involved in communications with them leading up to today. And I think he should apologize …
COLLINS: But can I ask you —

SECRETARY RUBIO: — for wasting our time for a meeting that was going to end the way it did.

COLLINS: You yourself have said previously that Putin cannot be trusted in negotiations. That was the point that President Zelenskyy was ultimately making during that conversation, is that there cannot be an agreement without security guarantees, because he was talking about all the ceasefire agreements before or agreements that Putin has just blown past. I mean, do you still feel that way, that Putin cannot be trusted in these negotiations?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I was there yesterday when the President said in front of the media that our approach is going to be trust but verify. Donald Trump has made – President Trump’s made deals his entire life. He’s not going to get suckered into some deal that’s not a real deal. We all understand this. We understand it on our end for certain. And so the goal here is to get to a place – we have to explore whether peace is possible. I’ve said this repeatedly. I don’t know; I think it is based on what they’ve said so far. But we have to explore that.
How else is this war going to end? I ask people: What is the European plan to end this war? I can tell you what one foreign minister told me, and I’m not going to say who it was but I can tell you what one of them told me, and that is that the war goes on for another year and at that point Russia will feel so weakened that they’ll beg for peace. That’s another year of killing, another year of dying, another year of destruction, and by the way, not a very realistic plan in my point of view.

So if there’s a chance at peace, even if it’s a 1 percent chance, that needs to be explored – and that’s what President Trump is trying to do here.

COLLINS: President Trump said just when he was leaving the White House after that meeting that he doesn’t think President Zelenskyy wants peace. But isn’t that why the Ukrainian leader was in the Oval Office for that meeting today?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, he was in the Oval Office to sign a minerals rights deal. That’s what he was in the Oval Office to sign today. But again, when you have comments that deliberately – appear to be deliberately – I mean, after having discussed this repeatedly, deliberately appear to be geared towards making the argument that peace is not possible. Again, I turn to the – he turns to the Vice President: What kind of diplomacy are you talking about? Almost as if to say, these people, you can’t deal with them; we can’t – you can’t have any negotiations with Putin because he can’t be trusted and you’re just wasting your time on negotiations. Well, he’s directly, basically, undermining everything the President has told him he’s trying to do.

Look, there’s no need for that. You start to suspect, does he really want an end to this war? Does he just think that we have to do whatever he says and give him anything he wants without any end game? That was the Biden strategy. That was the Biden strategy. We were funding a stalemate. We were funding a meatgrinder. And unfortunately for the Ukrainians, the Russians have more meat to grind, and they don’t care about human life. We’ve seen it – human waves, the North Koreans, et cetera. And so this is a very complex thing, it’s very delicate, it’s very costly, it’s very bloody. It needs to be brought to and end. But it isn’t going to be brought to an end with public pronouncements and maximalist demands in the public, but in real diplomacy.

The Vice President was right.

COLLINS: When you say they don’t care about life, you – are you talking about the Russians or the Ukrainians?
SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, the Russians. I mean, they’re conscripting by the hundreds of thousands. They’ve brought in —

COLLINS: Okay, I just —

SECRETARY RUBIO: — North Korean troops that were slaughtered in Kursk, and they keep going because they’ve got more people. That’s the other fact. Look, and it’s – again, we go back to the same point. I’m not going to fall into this trap of who’s bad and who’s evil. People can make those conclusions. People have seen how this narrative has played out and where we are today and how this all started and so forth. The point now is it has to end, and the way it ends is you get people to a negotiating table. And the President, who’s the ultimate deal maker, knows you don’t get people to a negotiating table when you’re calling them names and you’re accusing them of things. Because at the end of the day this is not a political campaign, okay? This is high-stakes international diplomacy and an effort to bring about an end to a very, very dangerous war.

COLLINS: But you yourself, sir, have said before that you believe Putin is a war criminal, that that is a widely accepted fact. You’ve called him a butcher, and you’ve said that as the Secretary of State you do believe it’s important for someone with such global influence as you have to speak with that kind of moral clarity.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Yeah, and at this moment as Secretary of State, my job working for the President is to deliver peace, to end this conflict and end this war. Ultimately, that is the job of the State Department. The State Department doesn’t fight wars, it ends them. It tries to end them. And that’s usually, by the way, celebrated. I mean, throughout history I’ve watched presidents that bring about an end to wars and conflicts, and people celebrate that. They applaud it. I think we should be very proud and happy that we have a President whose prime objective is not to get into wars but to prevent wars and to get out of wars. That is a very noble, laudable goal. Everyone should be applauding it, and he should be given the space to do that – not undermined by demands that he call Putin names or that we say things that impede the ability to conduct real diplomacy, as the Vice President said today.

COLLINS: To follow up on what you just said a moment ago, are you saying that you’re – you have doubts that President Zelenskyy wants this war to come to an end?

SECRETARY RUBIO: What I have doubts about is whether he’s willing to say and do the things that we need in order to get a negotiation. Again, you – this has been going on for 10 days, and to see things in the press saying we’re not coordinating with the Ukrainians, that’s absolutely false. Over the last 10 days the Ukrainians have met with the Secretary of Commerce, the Secretary of State, the Vice President of the United States, had a phone call with President Trump, and he was in the Oval Office today. I’ve talked to the foreign minister of Ukraine three times in the last 10 days. The argument that we’re not engaging – but yet you keep reading these press accounts about, oh, well, they’re leaving us out, we’re not involved, we’re not engaged. None of these things are true and it continues.

So all that led up to today and a deep sense of frustration, and my hope is that this all can be reset and maturity can kick in and some pragmatism, because this war – tonight, people will die in Ukraine. Tonight, people will die in this conflict. We’re trying to bring an end to this conflict, which is unsustainable. It’s an unsustainable, bloody war that has to come to an end. And right now the only leader in the world that can even have a chance of bringing about an end to this is named President Donald Trump, and we need to give him the opportunity to try and do that. And when you see efforts to impede it, when you – when you tell someone don’t say – let’s not talk about these things, let’s not go in this direction because it makes it harder for us to engage, and they insist on doing it anyways, you start to wonder. You start to wonder. I don’t like to impugn people’s motives, but you start to wonder what’s behind it.
So look, again, let’s hope that this —

COLLINS: Can I ask you, Secretary Rubio —

SECRETARY RUBIO: — can be salvaged, but I’m not sure after today.

COLLINS: You don’t believe that this can be – you’re not sure that this can be salvaged? I mean, can this relationship between Zelenskyy and Trump be repaired, in your view?

SECRETARY RUBIO: I think anything is possible, but it has to go back to the point that President Trump is interested in being involved in this for the purposes of bringing about an enduring and lasting peace. That’s what he wants to achieve. And I think if I’m a country, okay, that’s involved in a war with a bigger country, who’s losing thousands of people, who’s had 3 million people leave my country because they can’t be there, who every – is facing these challenges, I would be thanking a president who’s trying to help bring about an end to this war. I would be thanking him and I would be supportive of what he’s trying to do, at least in my public pronouncements and in my public posture. And we didn’t see that today, and we haven’t seen that for the last few days.

Now, will that change? I hope so. It should for the purposes of global peace and stability in Europe and around the world.

COLLINS: Vice President Vance was criticizing Zelenskyy for not saying thank you specifically during that meeting, those 40 to 50 minutes that we were in the Oval Office. But certainly you know very well, Secretary Rubio – your time as a senator here in Washington – that whenever Zelenskyy has come to Washington before, he has very much expressed that kind of gratitude. Just listen to this:

PRESIDENT ZELENSKYY: Thank you for both financial packages you have already provided us.

Really, all my appreciations from my heart, from the heart of Ukrainians, all Ukrainians.

So what can I say to American people in English? My English is poor. To say all my messages and all my thanks to you.

And thank you very much for supporting us, our people.

(Via interpreter) Thank you, United States. Thank you, America.

(Via interpreter) Ukraine is grateful to the United States for its overwhelming support.

COLLINS: Do you think you can make the argument that he hasn’t said thank you?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I think the Vice President said he hadn’t said it today, he hadn’t heard it today in that meeting. And we were hoping that that meeting would begin by: Thank you for everything you’ve done for us, we wouldn’t be where we are today without you, we wouldn’t even have a chance to negotiate a peace without the help you gave us. By the way, without the help you gave us when you were president in the first term, because President Obama refused to provide them defensive capabilities in terms of military hardware. He did provide them blankets —

COLLINS: Yeah, and that was brought up today during that meeting.

SECRETARY RUBIO: — he did provide them humanitarian aid, but – well, but – it was brought up, but I was there. In fact, I vividly recall at the time Vice President Biden saying to me in a meeting that we had at the vice president’s residence that the reason why we didn’t want to provide them those weapons is because they might use them. That was his exact quote and that was the attitude.

I remember clearly then the Ukrainian leaders saying we don’t need more blankets or MREs, we need weapons to defend ourselves. And they didn’t do it. President Trump did. He provided them weaponry, some of it – much of it – which was used at the beginning of this war, and without those weapons being in their stocks, this war could have been over very quickly – two,
three, four days.

Another potshot that Zelenskyy took today – when the President pointed that out, you know what Zelenskyy said? He said, yeah, yeah, we’ve heard that from the Russians. That’s not a Russian narrative. That was the official position, okay, of the United States. I vividly recall being briefed by leaders in the Biden administration telling us that this war was going to be over in five to six days. They believed that. That was their assessment at the time, and it wasn’t the case because of the weapons that Ukraine had in stocks because of President Trump in his first term. So he should have been grateful for that and grateful for what we’re doing now.
And one more point: It’s not just President Trump. There’s – there’s news reports out there from NBC News, at least is one of the places I recall, reporting that Biden had a shouting match with Zelenskyy for not being grateful and not being thankful for everything that was provided back in 2022. Now, that didn’t happen in front of the press. That was leaked, but it got out there. It’s had – these frustrations are not unique to President Trump. There was those frustrations in the previous administration, if NBC News is to be believed.

COLLINS: Yeah, right, but obviously we’ve never seen anything like what we saw today. But the point that Zelenskyy was making there is that everyone predicted his demise, and Ukraine was able to fight and to survive. Zelenskyy was able to survive; the Ukrainian people have been fighting for three years. You yourself have said previously that the United States should assist Ukraine as long as the Ukrainians are willing to fight. So I think the COLLINS coming out of that meeting is: What happens next here? I mean, you are the U.S. chief diplomat. Is there a path for diplomacy? Is a ceasefire still a possibility tonight?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, number one, you know who else said that Ukraine is very brave and very valiant? President Trump. He said it today. He said it repeatedly – your soldiers have been very brave, your fighters have been very brave, your people have been very brave. He said that repeatedly, and everyone recognizes that. But we’re three years into a war that has no end in sight and no exit strategy. The EU doesn’t have an exit strategy. I saw the comments tonight from the leader of the EU saying that we need a new leader of the – of the free world. I mean, these people are just playing silly games and saying these things. What is their exit strategy? What is anybody else’s exit strategy? The only person on the planet who is actively trying to bring an end to this conflict is named Donald Trump, the President of the United States. He’s the only one that’s trying to do it and we should be helping him to achieve it.

COLLINS: Can I ask you –

SECRETARY RUBIO: And so do I think it’s possible? Yeah, I hope it’s possible, because that’s what we do try to do at the Department of State, is we try to bring end to conflicts, not start new ones and certainly not extend them.

(Break.)

COLLINS: Senator Lindsey Graham, after having lunch with President Trump today, said Zelenskyy either needs to resign or they need to send someone over that we can do business with. Do you feel that President Zelenskyy needs to resign?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, that’s Lindsey’s feeling, because he feels very passionately. He’s been a very strong supporter of Ukraine. Lindsey Graham has been one of the strongest voices for Ukraine.

COLLINS: But what is the United States’s position?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, the United States – the President’s taken no position on that. What he said today is let him come back when he’s ready to do peace. That’s what he said. Let him come back when he’s ready to do peace. So I can’t speak for what anybody else said. I can only go off the words from the President of the United States, and that is today we’re not – this is not going to be productive any further. When Zelenskyy’s ready to make peace and he’s serious about peace, let him come back then, and that’s when we’ll re-engage with them.
And what he means by that is he understands —

COLLINS: And how will you measure that?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I think it’s everything I’ve said already, and that is: How are you going to get Vladimir Putin and the Russian Federation to a table to discuss even the opportunity, whether there – even to explore whether there’s an opportunity for peace? You’re not going to do it by calling him names. It makes everybody feel very good. You can pass resolutions, you can put out very strongly worded statements. Senators can do it. I did when I was in the Senate. House members can do it, commentators can do it, and countries that have no real skin in the game can do it. But when you are the President of the United States of America and you’re trying to bring about peace the way Donald Trump is trying to bring about peace, the only way to do it is you have to create space for people to come to the table and talk. And that is something we should all be applauding, not criticizing —

COLLINS: The one —

SECRETARY RUBIO: — and not pretending that we can just extend this war forever until – and that everybody has unlimited resources to continue to fund it – on both sides, by the way.

COLLINS: And President Zelenskyy has said he does want this war to end, he just cares about how it ends. We heard that from the other European leaders who came to the Oval Office also this week. President Trump said to me today before that shouting match erupted in the Oval Office that he doesn’t believe there have to be security guarantees in place before the ceasefire, that you can come to a ceasefire agreement and then put those in place. Do you agree with that?

SECRETARY RUBIO: That’s not what he said. What he said is why am I going to be talking about security guarantees, let me get a peace deal first, is what he said. That doesn’t mean they can’t happen —

COLLINS: Right.

SECRETARY RUBIO: — as part of that negotiation, but you have to an agreement. What is there – what peace is there to secure if you first don’t have an agreement on peace? Like, what do the Russians need in order to end this conflict? What do the Ukrainians need?

COLLINS: So you’re saying it would happen as part of the negotiations?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, again, why do you end a war? You have to find out what the combatants require in order to stop shooting at each other. What are the Russians’ needs? What do they need to see in order for them to stop fighting? What do the Ukrainians need in order to stop fighting? And then once you have that in place, then you can decide the next step, which is, and what do we need to do to make sure this never happens again – that it doesn’t happen in two years, three years, five years? I don’t think President Trump is interested in a one-year ceasefire; I don’t think he’s interested in a six-month ceasefire. He wants this thing to end. He has said that repeatedly.

But again, he’s not going to use the kind of language that maybe plays well in the public sphere and the political sphere for people that want to take shots at him but it’s not going to allow us to have a negotiation or even to explore a potential negotiation. President Donald Trump is a man who’s made deals his entire life in business, and he’s bringing those principles to government, and he’s the only one in the world that has any chance. If Donald Trump tomorrow decides I don’t care about Ukraine, I don’t care about Russia, and I don’t care about this war, and he walks away, I ask you – I ask everyone – well, who on this planet has any chance whatsoever, even a 1 percent chance, of getting the combatants to the table? The answer is there is no one. He is the only one on Earth right now that has any chance. If there is a chance at peace, he’s the only one that has a chance to deliver on it.

COLLINS: Is he – do you still see a meeting happening with President Putin there, President Zelenskyy, and President Trump? Is that still possible?

SECRETARY RUBIO: Well, I think that’s premature. I mean, what would they – you first need to make sure that this is even a possibility and you have to explore it. And look, there’s good signs, I think, maybe, somewhat about at least the Russians’ willingness to engage. And – but we have to explore all that. But that’s not going to be done in front of cameras, it’s not going to be done in an open ballroom. There’s a lot of work to be done before we get to this point. This is a complex war that has causes behind it that go back a number of years. There’s a lot to navigate, a lot that’s been invested on both sides. Gains have been made by the Russian Federation in some places. All of these things have to be worked through, but it’s not going to be done through press conferences and in the media. It has to be done through what the Vice President said today: the serious work of diplomacy.

It’s – it’s a lot easier to just say, well, we’re with Ukraine all the way no matter what, however long it takes. Well, 15 years?

COLLINS: Yeah.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Twelve years? I mean, that’s absurd. That’s not sustainable and everybody knows it. The President wants to end this war. He wants to explore whether there’s the possibility to do it and do it quickly. He campaigned on it. It was a promise of his and he intends to – when he says these things, he doesn’t just say them, he means them. And he’s doing it, and it’s the first time we’ve seen that in a long time in American politics.

COLLINS: Secretary Marco Rubio, thank you for your time tonight and joining us on such a historic day. I really do appreciate your time.

SECRETARY RUBIO: Thank you.

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