Secretary of State Marco Rubio sparred with Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan on Sunday, pushing back against what he called a “stupid media narrative” during a heated exchange.
Brennan raised concerns that European leaders were stepping in to prevent Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from being pressured into concessions.
“You know there is concern from the Europeans that President Zelenskyy is going to be bullied into signing something away. That’s why you have these European leaders coming as backup tomorrow,” Brennan said, before Rubio cut her off.
“That is not true,” Rubio responded firmly, as both began talking over each other. “They’re not coming here tomorrow to keep Zelenskyy from being bullied.”
The exchange came just days after President Donald Trump hosted Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska for a closely watched summit aimed at ending the war in Ukraine. The conflict, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, has claimed an estimated two million lives, including both military and civilian casualties. Putin had previously seized Crimea and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine in 2014. Trump has made ending the conflict a central foreign policy goal, often insisting it would not have started had he been in office at the time.
Although the Alaska summit did not produce a ceasefire, both Trump and Putin said progress had been made and committed to future talks. Trump is now preparing for a meeting with Zelenskyy and several European leaders to review the summit’s outcomes and outline possible next steps.
Trump has also floated the idea of a trilateral summit involving himself, Putin, and Zelenskyy to try to secure a final deal. His envoy, Steve Witkoff, said major progress was achieved in Alaska, particularly on Ukraine’s security guarantees.
“We agreed on much more robust security guarantees,” Witkoff said. “The Russians agreed on enshrining legislatively language that they would attest to not attempting to take any more land from Ukraine after a peace deal, where they would attest to not violating any European borders.”
Brennan pressed Rubio about the fallout from a tense Oval Office meeting between Trump, Zelenskyy, and Vice President JD Vance. That meeting erupted after Zelenskyy mocked the idea of negotiating with Putin, sparking a fiery exchange.
“We gave you, through this stupid president, $350 billion. We gave you military equipment… If you didn’t have our military equipment, this war would have been over in two weeks… you don’t have the cards,” Trump told Zelenskyy.
The clash ended with Zelenskyy leaving Washington, D.C. earlier than planned, and a minerals deal that initially went unsigned—though it was later ratified.
Rubio dismissed Brennan’s suggestion that Zelenskyy required European backup at the upcoming meeting, insisting that the U.S. and Ukraine have had consistent and constructive engagement.
“We had one meeting with Putin and like a dozen meetings with Zelenskyy… They’re not coming here tomorrow to keep Zelenskyy from being bullied,” Rubio said. “They are coming here because we’ve been working with the Europeans. We talked to them last week. The President talked to these leaders as early as Thursday. This is such a stupid media narrative.”
