Sec. Rubio Says Zelenskyy Accepted the Mineral Rights Deal During the Meeting and Then Went Out and Said that He Rejected It

EXCERPT:

RUBIO: “I think the second thing is, frankly, I was personally very upset because we had a conversation with President Zelenskyy, the vice president and I, the three of us, and we discussed this issue about the mineral rights and we explained to them, 'Look, we want to be a joint venture with you, not because we’re trying to steal from your country, but because we think that’s actually a security guarantee and we're your partner in an important economic endeavor. We get to get paid back, some of the money the taxpayers have given, close to $200 billion, and also now we have a vested interest in the security of Ukraine.' And he said, 'Sure, we want to do this deal. It makes all the sense in the world. The only thing is, I need to run it through my legislative process. They have to approve it.' I read two days later that Zelenskyy is out there saying, 'I rejected the deal, I told them no way, that we’re not doing that.' Well, that's not what happened in that meeting. So, you start to get upset by somebody. We’re trying to help these guys. One of the points that president made in his messaging is not that we don’t care about Ukraine, but Ukraine is on another continent, you know, it doesn’t directly impact the daily lives of Americans. We care about it because it has implications for our allies and ultimately for the world. There should be some level of gratitude here about this. And when you don’t see it, and you see him out there, accusing the president of living in a world of disinformation, that's highly — very counterproductive. And I don’t need to explain to you or anybody else, Donald Trump’s not — President Trump’s not the kind of person that’s gonna sit there and take that. He’s very transparent. He's gonna tell you exactly how he feels. And he sent a message that he’s not gonna get gamed here.”