Sec. Marco Rubio On The War Between Russia And Ukraine: 'Both Sides Are Going To Have To Make Concessions'

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At a House Appropriations Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sec. Marco Rubio spoke to lawmakers about the war between Russia and Ukraine.

Transcript

00:00the the ranking member uh chairman cole uh thank you and just before i ask my question to that

00:05point it would be helpful and i know you're trying to do this if you could urge omb to get us

00:10a full budget and we are months behind when one should happen i give any new administration a lot

00:17of latitude nobody can possibly meet the congressional deadlines on this but we're at

00:21the time now if we're going to give you the budget you need in a timely fashion we need the kind of

00:26information that you and the ranking member of the subcommittee were talking about and we need a

00:30detailed proposal more than we've gotten so i would just ask you to lend your voice help us help you

00:35uh now my question um you know obviously you walked into officer came into office at a time of

00:43unprecedented international upheaval war in places we did not expect to see war europe in particular

00:49have not seen it on a scale like this since 1945 um you know it's been a tragedy obviously the

00:56loss of life and i commend you and the president for talking about that in those kinds of terms

01:01this is a contest that does need to end on the other hand i look at it and i see an unmitigated

01:08disaster for russia to this point i mean they pushed sweden and finland into nato they suffered 900

01:15casual thousand casualties or so uh they uh you know are busy rearming europe uh for quite frankly and

01:23the president was right on that in his first term warning the europeans about the danger of this

01:27kind of threat but they are rearming and and doing so rapidly uh i know you've been in discussions

01:33obviously uh with russia and its leaders and i know the president has as well as recently as yesterday

01:39so i'm just curious of what your assessment the state of play is and what you think the united states

01:46ought to be doing to try and bring the war to an end without rewarding an aggressor well first the state

01:51play i think is as follows and that is that russia wants what they do not have they want to conquer

01:57lands they do not currently occupy and ukraine wants what they cannot get which is pushing russia all the

02:04way back to the lines in 2014 or even before that when the the previous incursions happened and so what

02:10we have here basically is in many ways a protracted stalemated conflict in which people are dying every day

02:15and in fact that's why you're seeing these long-range strikes since they can only make small advances in

02:19one direction or another on the front lines they they launch uavs and they launch drones and they

02:24launch rockets into populated areas far from the battlefield and and inflict tremendous harm as we

02:29see every single night the president's goal is to end it in order to end this war this war has no

02:34military solution it will not this war will end at some point in a negotiated settlement and the

02:40question is when does that happen the sooner it happens the less people will die the less destruction

02:44there's going to be it has to be a negotiated settlement to a peace that is sustainable not a

02:49peace that lasts for three years and then restarts another war in order to get to that peace in order

02:54to get to that negotiation you have to be able to talk to both sides and both sides are going to have

02:58to make concessions as hard as that sounds both sides are going to have to give up things they want

03:03and give the other side things they want that's the way negotiations work the president has wanted to

03:08preserve our opportunity to be able to engage with both sides of this debate and that's what we've done

03:13the president's also been clear and we've been clear with the russian side number one that the

03:17president retains sanctions authorities that he has not yet used all the current sanctions remain in

03:22place none of the sanctions that were in place on the day he became president have been lifted but

03:26there are additional sanctions and he's alluded to those and the others which i and others have

03:31directly reminded the russians of is there's a congressional effort to impose sanctions which at some

03:37point in time congress will lose its patience with the pace of advances on a peace deal and may very well

03:42impose sanctions that in some ways are even more crippling than what the president could do on his

03:46own but we hope we can have a peace deal again it's difficult the russians are supposed to produce

03:51a document or a memorandum of peace as they've called it in the next few days that will outline

03:56what they will require for a ceasefire that could then lead to a broader negotiation and then a final

04:01settlement and i think we'll learn a lot from what that memorandum of peace contains if it's if it's

04:08reasonable then i think we've made progress if it's not um then i then i think we're not any closer

04:13here and the president will have options available to him let's hope it's the former not the latter

04:17thank you very much that's very helpful uh i don't have a lot of time but i want to ask one quick

04:22question take what little time you have to respond look i was a ranking member and i the full committee

04:29we're actually in the middle east in october um egypt jordan uh saudi arabia israel

04:36i'm enormously impressed with what the president accomplished in this recent visit could you talk to

04:43us briefly about the opportunities that you see coming out of that visit well there are a number

04:48the first is to attract foreign investment into the united states and for a bunch of different

04:52industries here and i think that's always important i think the second obviously is the ability to

04:56find strategic joint partnerships in different ventures like for example ai and and in particular

05:02semiconductors the production of semiconductors is heavily energy dependent and so to find nations

05:08that have surplus availability of energy that they can dedicate to the production of semiconductors

05:12and increase the global supply chain of semiconductors so we're not overly reliant on one chip plant in

05:19taiwan uh is is critical to our national security but frankly to global stability and i think the third and

05:26really was meaningful was the speech the president gave in saudi arabia at the forum it was i i think

05:31a pretty important speech if you go to it where he said a number of things he doesn't believe in

05:35permanent enemies he's a builder not a destroyer he wants to see peace he actually outlined these two

05:41paths that exist the path of destruction and war and then the path of prosperity as as witnessed in

05:46these uh three countries that he visited and that's what we are hoping to advance and i think we

05:51helped advance in an important part of the world thank you very much mr secretary you'll back mr chairman well

05:56thank you

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