Secretary of State Marco Rubio with Martha Raddatz of ABC This Week

QUESTION:  And I’m joined now by Secretary of State Marco Rubio.  Good morning, Mr. Secretary.  Thanks for joining us this morning.  President Trump has touted this summit as a huge success, but the President going into that said he wanted a ceasefire, he wanted the killing stopped, and there would be consequences.  Let’s take another listen to what he said just before that summit.

QUESTION:  Will Russia face any consequences if Vladimir Putin does not agree to stop the war after your meeting on Friday?

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  Yes, they will.  Yeah.

QUESTION:  What will the consequences be?

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  There will be consequences.

QUESTION:  Sanctions?  Tariffs? 

PRESIDENT TRUMP:  There will – I don’t have to say.  There will be very severe consequences.

I won’t be happy if I walk away without some form of a ceasefire.

QUESTION:  So, Mr. Secretary, the fighting hasn’t stopped, the killing hasn’t stopped, and there is no ceasefire.  What changed President Trump’s mind?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I don’t think his mind has changed at all.  I think, ultimately, if this whole effort doesn’t work out, then there’s going to have to be additional consequences to Russia.  But we’re trying to avoid that by reaching a peace agreement, and that’s not going to be easy.  It’s going to take a lot of work.  I think there were things that were identified in those talks that we just had a couple days ago that made some progress in some directions. 

Now, obviously, in order for us to get a peace agreement, Ukraine has to be a part of it.  They have to be included.  They have to be involved.  That’s why the President called them on the phone immediately after we got on the airplane, within an hour.  He talked to them for long periods of time.  That’s why President Zelenskyy will be traveling to Washington tomorrow, along with several European leaders as well, to continue to work on this.

We made progress in the sense that we identified potential areas of agreement, but there remain some big areas of disagreement.  So we’re still a long ways off.  I mean, we’re not at the precipice of a peace agreement.  We’re not at the edge of one.  But I do think progress was made towards one, and – but again, I mean, this is going to —

QUESTION:  But Secretary Rubio, we don’t know what any of that progress is, and the President went into that meeting —

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah, you’re not going to.

QUESTION:  Okay.  The President went into that meeting saying he wanted a ceasefire, and there would be consequences if that – if they didn’t agree on a ceasefire in that meeting.  And they didn’t agree to a ceasefire.  So where are the consequences?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I don’t – that’s not the aim of this.  I mean, look, first of all, you’re not going to reach a ceasefire or even a peace agreement —

QUESTION:  The President said that was the aim.

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Yeah, but you’re not going to reach a ceasefire or a peace agreement in a meeting in which only one side is represented.  That’s why it’s important to bring both leaders together, and that’s the goal here.  The President said what he’d like to see at some point is we make enough progress so both leaders, Zelenskyy and Putin, can meet somewhere and finalize this.  The only way to finalize a peace agreement is you have to have both sides agree to it and both sides of it involved.  How many times have we heard, from the Ukrainians and from others, there can – there is nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine?  Well, Ukraine wasn’t at the meeting.  But this was a very important meeting.

Now, ultimately, if there isn’t a peace agreement, if there isn’t an end to this war, the President’s been clear:  There are going to be consequences.  But we’re trying to avoid that, and the way we’re trying to avoid those consequences is with an even better consequence, which is peace, the end of hostilities.  That’s the aim.  That’s the goal here.  And the President – he deserves a lot of credit.  This is not our – look, when he says this, it’s true.  The United States is not at war.  This is not our war.  Ultimately, what daily life in America looks like would not be materially altered one way or another about what happens in Ukraine.  We have dedicated time and energy to this because this President has made it a priority of his administration to promote peace and end or prevent wars.  He’s made that a priority.

And I think he deserves a lot of credit for the amount of time and energy that we have invested in something like this, and he’s the only one in the world that could do it.  Okay?  None of these other leaders in Europe could get Putin to a meeting to talk seriously about any of this.  So this is going to be difficult.  It’s been going on for three and a half years.  You have two very entrenched sides.  And we’re going to have to continue to work and chip away at it.  I think we made some real progress.  You talked about not knowing what was discussed; these peace deals, these peace agreements and negotiations, they don’t work when they’re conducted in the media, either through leaks or through lies.  And usually they’re both the same thing, lying leaks.  Okay?  They don’t work if you do it that way.  And they don’t work —

QUESTION:  Mr. Secretary —

SECRETARY RUBIO:  — if you go out and say aggressive and abrasive things about one side or the other because then they just walk away.

QUESTION:  Can you name any concessions that Vladimir Putin made during this meeting?  Has he – has – have any concessions —

SECRETARY RUBIO:  I wouldn’t name them on your program.

QUESTION:  Have any concessions been asked?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  I wouldn’t name them on your program.  Why would I do that?

QUESTION:  Where is the pressure?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, of course, because you can’t have a peace agreement – no, you can’t have a peace agreement unless both sides give and get.  You can’t have a peace agreement unless both sides make concessions.  That’s a fact.  That’s true in virtually any negotiation.  If not, it’s just called surrender, and neither side is going to surrender.

So both sides are going to have to make concessions, so of course concessions were asked.  But what utility would there be of me going on a program and tell you, we wagged our finger at Putin and told him, you must do this and you must do that?  It’s going to make – it’s only going to make it harder and less likely that they’re going to agree to these things.

So these negotiations – as much as everyone would love it to be a live pay-per-view event, these discussions only work best when they are conducted privately, in serious negotiations, in which people who have to go back and respond to constituencies – because even totalitarian governments have constituencies they have to respond to – people have to go back and defend these agreements that they make.  And so – and figure out a way to explain them to people.

So we need to create space for concessions to be made, but of course concessions were asked.

QUESTION:  Do you – does the President favor giving up territory that Ukraine now controls, specifically in the Donetsk region?  Sources are telling us that’s what was asked.

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, okay.  Well, first of all, I mean, Putin has given repeated speeches for two and a half years – there’s one they always cite – which talks about taking most of Ukraine, and his view of history and how all – so forth and so on.  The second thing the President – so we know what their side is demanding, and we obviously know the Ukrainians are not in agreement with any of that. 

The second point I would make is the President has said repeatedly, when it comes to territories and territorial claims, that’s ultimately something Ukraine will have to decide.  It’s their territory.  It’s their country.  Ultimately, what they’re willing to live with is what they’ll have to decide on.  Maybe the answer is they’re not willing to live with any of this; we don’t know, but that’s what we need to explore. 

In the meantime, the one thing we do know that Ukraine has said repeatedly, and publicly talked about, is security guarantees.  They need to be able to enter into security guarantees that ensure that this is never going to happen again, that they’re not going to get reinvaded in two and a half or three years or four years or whenever it may be.  They don’t want to be back here again.  They want to be able to go on to rebuild their country and live their lives.  That’s a very reasonable request.  That’s something we’re working on, and that’s something the Russian side has to understand, obviously, is that as a sovereign country, Ukraine has a right – like every sovereign country – to enter into security alliances and agreements with other countries. 

So these are one – some of the things that we’ll be discussing.

QUESTION:  Critics of President Trump will say the pomp and circumstances – the pomp and circumstance, the red carpet, the warm handshake – that President Trump simply lost that, that Putin gained there just by being on the world stage and walking down a red carped with the President.  Your reaction to that?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, I mean, critics of President Trump are always going to find something to criticize.  I don’t pay attention to it anymore.  But I will tell you this:  Putin is already on the world stage.  He’s already on the world stage.  The guy’s conducting a full-scale war in Ukraine; he’s already on the world stage.  He has the world’s largest tactical nuclear arsenal in the world, and the second largest strategic nuclear arsenal in the world.  He’s already on the world stage. 

When I hear people say that – oh, it elevates him – well, all we do is talk about Putin all the time.  All the media has done is talk about Putin all the time for the last four or five years.  That doesn’t mean he’s right about the war.  That doesn’t mean he’s justified about the war.  Put all that aside.  It means you’re not going to have a peace agreement without – between Russia and Ukraine, you’re not going to end a war between Russia and Ukraine, without dealing with Putin.  That’s not – that’s just common sense.  I shouldn’t even have to say it.

So people can say whatever they want.  Ultimately, at the end of the day, we have to get the Russian side to agree to things that they don’t want to agree to if we’re going to have peace.  If not, there’ll just be a war, they’ll keep killing each other, and life will go on in America and in the rest of the world but not for Ukraine.  So the President has invested a lot of time in trying to bring an end to this war.  He deserves credit for doing that.  He gets criticism for doing that.  He could have just let this war go on.  The President could have just said, this is Biden’s war, it started under him, we’ll do what we can for Ukraine, but we’re going to focus on other things.  He could have easily said that.

QUESTION:  But there – let – just a final point here.

SECRETARY RUBIO:  But he’s the only leader in the world that can get Putin to a meeting to talk about serious things.

QUESTION:  Just a final point here.  So at this point, even though he demanded sanctions – no sanctions, no ceasefire, and no deadlines?

SECRETARY RUBIO:  Well, but ultimately – first of all, about deadlines, the deadline is as soon as possible.  We want this war to end as soon as possible.  I mean, that’s why we’re working on it.  In terms of sanctions, look, at the end of the day, if we can’t reach a peace agreement here and this war continues and so forth, then I anticipate you’ll see the President take further action.  He’s already made that clear. 

The problem is this – let’s use our heads here.  The problem is this:  The minute you levy additional sanctions, strong additional sanctions, the talking stops.  Talking stops.  And at that point, the war just continues.  You’ve probably just added six, eight, nine, 12 more months to the war, if not longer.   More people dead, more people killed, more people maimed, more families destroyed, okay?  That’s what happens if you do that.

Now, we may end up being at a point where we have to do that, where there is no other recourse and that’s the end.  By the way, there already are sanctions on Russia.  The President hasn’t lifted any sanctions on Russia.  They’re already facing sanctions – severe sanctions – and they’re facing them from the Europeans as well.  So we may very well reach a point where everyone concludes no peace is going to happen here, we’re going to have to do more sanctions; but when you do that you are basically walking away from any prospect of a negotiated settlement here, which is what everyone is asking us to do. 

Everyone, including the Ukrainians and all the countries of Europe, are begging the United States to be engaged, engage Putin, and try to get him to agree to a peace agreement.  They’re all asking us to do that.  They all are.  And the minute you levy new sanctions, those talks probably stop for the foreseeable future, and that means the war continues for the foreseeable future.  I hope that doesn’t happen.  We may very well wind up there, but we’re going to try to do everything to prevent it because we want to reach a peace agreement.

QUESTION:  Okay.  Thanks very much, Secretary Rubio.  We hope you – that happens.