►萬斯盧比奧兩強專訪: 談判桌上暗潮洶湧，土地交換與安全保證背後的公平與權力博弈◄(中英對照-即時新聞)

Secretary of State Marco Rubio joins us now. All right, Secretary, you were in the room this afternoon with President Trump, Zelensky, all the European leaders. Was there a big moment that happened? Well, I think the whole thing was a big moment. Unprecedented, really, when you think about all these European leaders came here, seven that were there, and that included the head of NATO and the head of the EU. And they all said the same thing, which is this, you know, after three years of sort of deadlock and no talks and no change in circumstances, this is the first time where there seems to be some movement. Now, look, this is a complicated war. There's no doubt about it. I mean, this has been going on for three and a half years. A lot of people have died. A lot of territories exchange back and forth. So it's not an easy thing to unwind. But nothing was happening on this war. Literally, the only option that we were given under the previous administration was continue to fund Ukraine for however much they need, for however long it takes. And now you have people actually talking about pathways towards ending it. Now, it's going to take a little bit more work and a little bit more time, but we are making progress. It's not me saying it. That is virtually every leader there today said that in front of the cameras. And they're saying it for a reason, because it's true and they're witnessing it and they've been a part of it. So these European nations and some of these are NATO countries, are they willing to put troops on the ground in Ukraine to cement this peace deal? Would that make Ukraine kind of like a NATO ally? Well, what's being contemplated, look, any sovereign country in the world has a right to enter into security alliances with other countries. You know, it's not just NATO. We have such alliances with South Korea. We have it with Japan. Other countries have it with each other. And so I think everyone would acknowledge, including, by the way, for the first time, the Russian side under President Trump's sort of pressure or, you know, a suggestion is that, in fact, a Ukraine post-conflict has a right to enter into a security agreement with other countries. And we will work with our European allies and non-European countries, by the way, to build such a security guarantee. We're working on that right now. We'll continue to work on that. And that'll be something that'll have to be in place after a peace deal so that Ukraine can feel safe moving forward. And we're coordinating that as we speak. We're involved in the coordination of it. So, yeah, there are a number of countries that are willing to step forward and provide Ukraine security guarantees. But as the Ukrainians have said to us, and I think have said publicly, you know, the strongest security guarantee they can come up with in their future is to have a strong military moving forward. And that's the other dynamic that's changed. We're no longer giving Ukraine weapons. We're no longer giving Ukraine money. We are now selling them weapons. And European countries are paying for it through NATO. They're using NATO to buy the weapons and transfer them to Ukraine. That's another big change from the way this war was approached just a few, you know, just under the Biden administration, for example. Absolutely. And the minerals deal is also a nice security guarantee. Correct. Another way. Were you in the room when the president talked to Vladimir Putin? I was. I was. And in that conversation, you know, what came from it is that, you know, the president suggested that Zelensky and Putin meet. So we're working on that now to try to set that up for them to meet somewhere, which, again, would be unprecedented. And then if that goes well, hopefully the next meeting will be a meeting between Presidents Putin, Trump and Zelensky, where we hope to finalize a deal. We're not there yet, but that's what we're aiming towards. And that's one of the things that was discussed today is how to get to that point. But just the fact that Putin is saying, sure, I'll meet with Zelensky. That's a big deal. I mean, I'm not saying they're going to leave that room best friends. I'm not saying they're going to leave that room with a peace deal. But I think the fact that people are now talking to each other, this wasn't happening for three and a half years. This was a stalemated war of death and destruction. And let me tell you something. This president hates war and he hates it. He thinks it's a waste of money and a waste of lives. And he has made it a priority. President Trump has to bring about peace. If he sees an opportunity to step in and broker a peace, he wants to do it. He's been successful already six times in six months and achieving that. And he wants to achieve it with Ukraine and Russia as well. So the timeline it looks ideally is Vladimir Putin meets with Zelensky and then President Trump and Zelensky and Vladimir Putin meet the three of them and hopefully cement some sort of peace deal. Then the the issue about giving land back seems to be the sticking point. Is that the main sticking point is that Russia wants to keep the land that it's taken militarily. And how do you get around that? What's the negotiation over there? Yeah, I don't think it's helpful to go into all the details of that, obviously, because these negotiations, frankly, work best when they're done privately and in our negotiation setting. You don't want to do it on national TV, on Jesse Waters' primetime secretary? I mean, that's just crazy. When we have a deal, I'll describe it to you for sure. But but look, that's why you got to give these guys space to work. I mean, they have their own constituencies, OK? They have their own considerations. And you don't want to give away one side's leverage in that regard. But let me just say this about it. I think everyone understands that some of the key elements to bringing this about is Ukraine has to be a feel safe moving forward. In essence, they have to believe that at the end of this war, they are in a position to never get invaded again. I think what's also true, and I think it's common sense, and I don't know why it's so hard for a lot of people to understand it is in any negotiation to bring about the end of a war or any conflict, for that matter, it's going to require both sides to receive, but also to give. In essence, one side is not going to get 100 percent here. Each side is going to have to make some concessions. And obviously, land or where you draw those lines where the war stops is going to be part of that conversation. And it's not easy and maybe it's not even fair, but it's what it takes in order to bring about an end to a war. And that has been true in every war. The only wars that don't end that way are the ones that have unconditional surrender by one side or the other. And we're not going to see that in this conflict. So obviously, the issue that will be talked about and the president's been very clear in the end, what those lines look like are up to Putin and up to Zelensky and up to the Ukrainian side to decide what each one can live with. We are going to be there to facilitate that and make that possible and make sure that both sides are talking. And by the way, President Trump is the only leader in the world, acknowledged by all the Europeans, the only leader in the world that can talk to both of them and bring them both to a meeting is Donald J. Trump, the president of the United States. He's the only one. And the fact that he's willing to do it is something that every American, including Democrats, should be happy that we have a peace president. We should be proud that we have a president that's made peace a priority in his administration. Absolutely. And I think Zelensky symbolically already making some concessions because he put on kind of a suit. So that is progress. They look good, right? I think it looked great. Yeah. We like to see. Yeah. Well, great job and keep up the great work. I know it's tough stuff, but looks like there is a lot of momentum here. Thank you. Now on to Ukraine. Your February meeting with Zelensky and the president, that was quite something to behold. How did you all break the ice this time? Take us into the room because we're all dying to know that. Well, I think when so so President Zelensky walked into the Oval Office, I was chatting with him, with the president, with some of the senior Ukrainian delegation. I said, Mr. President, so long as you behave, I won't say anything. And he just chuckled a little bit. It was a good little icebreaker. I mean, what the president's trying to do, meaning our president is trying to do is bring a three and a half year, very brutal conflict to a stop. It's killed way too many Ukrainians, way too many Russians. It's completely transformed the economy of Europe and of big parts of Asia. We just got to get back to peace. And I really do think you heard Vladimir Putin say this, that if Donald Trump had been president in 2022, this war would have never started. And now the president is really spending a lot of time, a lot of effort to stop Joe Biden's war, because I think it is Joe Biden's war without him being weak and provocative. I don't think that Russia would have invaded Ukraine. And now we have a situation where a president is trying to be strong and bold and trying to bring this thing to a close. Now, take us into the room when the president said, I'm going to call Putin now. And you got all the Western leaders. They've all come to Washington. Now, what was their facial expression at that point? Did they anticipate that this was going to happen because it was what, eight hours ahead Moscow time? Yeah, it was like one in the morning Moscow time and they had no anticipation. So we're actually in the east wing of the White House. And the president says, you know, we've had a pretty good meeting. I'm going to call Vladimir Putin, see what he says about it. And everybody's like, oh, you're going to call him next week. And he's like, no, what time is it in Moscow? Let's call him right now. And I think one of the I've realized about president Trump's leadership is he cuts through the BS of some of these diplomatic protocols and just says, I'm going to get things done. If I want to talk to somebody, I'm going to talk to somebody. You had a lot of the Europeans who were saying, no, no, no, there needs to be proper vetting. And the teams have to prepare the phone call and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the president was like, no, no, I want to talk to the guy. I'm going to talk to the guy. And I think that kind of no holds barred, no BS diplomacy is part of the reason why we've made the progress we have. And we've made a lot of progress, Laura. Like, look, who knows what's going to happen? The president tells me this all the time. You can never say with certainty what the outcome in this situation is going to be. But we now have the Russians talking to the Ukrainians. They're talking details about what would be necessary on each side to stop the fighting and stop the killing. We've made more progress in three months than the country had made in three years in stopping this conflict. And I think it's because sometimes you just need a president who will pick up the phone call somebody when I'm going to say when Vladimir Putin meets with Volodymyr Zelensky. Can we assume that all the big details will have been discussed and generally agreed upon, namely the security agreement and land swap? It's a good question. I think that if you go through the bureaucratic process, then the answer is yes. But I think the president's preference and my preference would be let's have the meet regardless. You don't have to figure out every issue. And sometimes leaders sitting down face to face can break the logjam that their teams don't necessarily have the ability to do. There really are two big questions lingering out there. And in some ways it's very simple, but in some ways it's very complicated. Number one is Ukraine wants to know that it's not going to get invaded again by Russia. It wants to know that it's got territorial integrity long into the future. The Russians want certain pieces of territory, most of which they've occupied, but some of which they haven't. So that is really where the meat of the negotiation is. The Ukrainians want security guarantees. The Russians want a certain amount of territory. Again, we finally got the details. We're working on them, but we haven't figured everything out. And I don't think that we should force, you know, we shouldn't say that they can't sit down until you've figured out every little detail. Sometimes them sitting down is what facilitates figuring out those details. You have been so strong on the idea of Europe paying for Europe's defense. And I think a lot of Americans don't understand that the EU GDP last year was about $19.18 trillion, give or take. And the UK's is about $2.9 trillion. Ours is $29.8 trillion, right? You know the numbers better than I do. You should be treasury secretary. This is a lot of money. Europe has the money to defend itself. So the security agreement, my question to you is, why should America carry the lion's share of the burden from now until Lord knows when for Europe when Europe has the money to defend itself? Well, I don't think we should carry the burden here. I think that we should be helpful if it's necessary to stop the war and to stop the killing. But I think that we should expect, and the president certainly expects Europe to play the leading role here. And what he said very clearly is, look, the United States is open to having the conversation, but we're not going to make commitments until we figure out what's going to be necessary to stop the war in the first place. And I think that it's, you know, the president is very good. He never takes anything off the table. He never puts anything fully on the table because he doesn't want to give away his leverage. And this is the private conversation that we're all going to have about what's necessary to stop the war. But no matter what happens, no matter what form this takes, the Europeans are going to have to take the lion's share of the burden. It's their continent. It's their security. And the president's been very clear they're going to have to step up here. What's it like meeting Putin? What was he like just one on one? So I've actually never met Putin. The president did that meeting. I've talked to him on the phone a number of times. You know, it's interesting. He's more soft spoken than you would necessarily expect. You know, the American media has a particular image of him. He's soft spoken in a certain way. He's very deliberate. He's very careful. And I think fundamentally, he's a person who looks out for the interests as he sees it as of Russia. And I think one of the reasons he respects the president United States is because he knows the president looks out for the interests of the American people. And while they often disagree about issues, and obviously the president has been very critical of Vladimir Putin, the president's also willing to work with anybody if he thinks it's going to accomplish an important goal for America. And we all agree an important goal is to stop the killing.