Marco Rubio recently advised ABC News that negotiating prowess was a key to understanding why U.S. President Donald Trump had been cozying up to Vladimir Putin despite Russia’s brutal and unrelenting invasion of Ukraine.
"We have to bring them to the table. You’re not going to bring them to the table if you’re calling them names, if you’re being antagonistic,” the secretary of state noted. "That’s just the president’s instincts from years and years and years of putting together deals as someone who’s in business.”
Rubio was grasping at straws, of course. He had sat idly by at the White House while Trump and Vice President JD Vance gave Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a searing, reckless tongue-lashing in front of reporters and the rest of the world. The perils of name-calling and antagonism hadn’t restrained Trump in that instance — hardly a surprise given his long-standing preference for flame-throwing whenever he has encountered lackluster obeisance.
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