Marco Rubio’s whistlestop tour of four major TV networks on Sunday appears to have left him a little hazy on what exactly Donald Trump actually said ahead of the president’s much-panned Alaska summit with dictator Vladimir Putin.
“We never said there was gonna be a deal coming out of the meeting,” the Secretary of State told Fox News of Trump’s historic sit-down with the Russian president, held Friday primarily to discuss terms of a prospective ceasefire to the Kremlin’s three-year war on Ukraine.
Trump had in fact told the network just hours before the summit took place, “I won’t be happy if I walk away without some form of a ceasefire” and that “I think we’re close to a deal,” which the U.S. president had previously boasted he could secure on “Day One” of his second stint at the White House.
WELKER: Why not impose more sanctions on Russia and force them to agree to a ceasefire, instead of accepting that Putin won’t agree to one?RUBIO: Well, I think that’s something people go around saying that I don’t necessarily think is true. I don’t think new sanctions on Russia… pic.twitter.com/GoIucsrDmA
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 17, 2025
No such deal has emerged from the meeting. At a subsequent press conference that lasted a matter of minutes, the two leaders made only vague claims of a mutual understanding, providing no details and taking no questions from reporters.
Rubio has since found himself at the forefront of White House efforts at post-summit expectation management, embarking on a slew TV sit-downs as critics continue to lambast Trump for making little progress in talks with Putin, and for quite literally laying out the red carpet in a ceremonious event otherwise widely seen only to have endorsed the Russian dictator’s standing on the world stage.
RADDATZ: The president went in to that meeting saying he wanted a ceasefire and there would be consequences if they didn’t agree on a ceasefire in that meeting, and they didn’t agree to a ceasefire. So where are the consequences?RUBIO: That’s not the aimRADDATZ: The president… pic.twitter.com/fuO9q1Y5ze
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 17, 2025
The secretary of state told NBC that “I don’t think new sanctions on Russia are gonna force them to expect a ceasefire,” adding during his appearance on ABC it was “not the aim” of Friday’s meeting to impose consequences on the Kremlin if it didn’t agree to negotiate an end to the conflict.
President Donald Trump had in fact told reporters Wednesday there would be “very severe consequences” if the Russian president didn’t agree to a peace deal after their Alaska summit, adding Russia would not be “doing business until we get the war settled” while declining to elaborate on what measures he may have been considering.
BRENNAN: If Putin is going to be offered land that he has not seized yet but negotiates his way into, doesn’t this set a dangerous precedent that the US now accepts this concept that it’s okay to seize land by force?RUBIO: Well, Putin has already seized land by forceBRENNAN:… pic.twitter.com/66PvO4khDH
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 17, 2025
Speaking with CBS, Rubio also said Russia would have to “get something” as part of a peace deal and that “territories will have to be discussed,” something President Volodymyr Zelensky has categorically rejected as a red line for Ukraine in any negotiations.
It’s not the first time the secretary of state appears to have contradicted Trump during press appearances.
Earlier in April, as the White House was just beginning to ratchet up its nationwide immigration crackdown, Rubio told NBC that anyone on U.S. soil is “of course” entitled to a fair hearing before being removed from the country, just days after the president himself had said “we cannot give everyone a trial, because to do so would take, without exaggeration, 200 years.”
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