During Thursday’s State Department press briefing, Spokesperson Tammy Bruce answered questions about the Trump Administration's minerals deal with Ukraine and negotiations with Russia.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Do you believe that the recent mineral deal with Ukraine sends a clear message to those who have accused President Trump of being sympathetic to Russia?
00:08I think that there's a lot of media that goes on when you're dealing with issues of negotiations.
00:14The answer, of course, is not to not speak to people.
00:18And that was the idea and the theory for the last administration, where Russia wasn't spoken to for at least three years.
00:26And so even a lot of heat of the idea of speaking to Putin.
00:30There was a lot of heat when you went to visit Kim Jong-un.
00:34But Secretary Rubio is very similar when it comes to what President Trump's view is, is that people have to be spoken with face-to-face, one-on-one,
00:45that diplomacy is about human beings making arrangements, talking about things, finding a common ground.
00:51And you really, in all honesty, I know we got used to a lot of, like, non-human contact during COVID.
00:57And that is one of the biggest disasters to hit humanity that we can imagine that was enforced on us.
01:05So it is now clear that there is a commitment and an understanding of the importance of this kind of diplomacy.
01:12So don't, I'm not going to guess at the nature of what President Trump and Putin might discuss.
01:19I do know that President Trump is doing it for a reason, and that is to accomplish an end to bloodshed and massacres.
01:28When you think about it, it's something that has to happen.
01:31That is what has always driven him.
01:33And with Ukraine, the same situation.
01:35You have the president of that country in your house, in the Oval Office.
01:38You're supposed to have signed this deal that day when President Zelensky decided that was just not going to happen, I guess.
01:48And yet, it didn't end the relationship.
01:50They meet in Rome.
01:52They sit down with each other.
01:53And then this happens again.
01:55We know this is important to all of us and to those men and the women as well involved in these negotiations.
02:02But it is something that is with a goal to solve something.
02:09And I don't think we should look at the minerals deal as a statement about Russia.
02:16Or if you talk to Putin on the phone, it's not a statement about something else.
02:20Trump has been very clear about his mission.
02:23And that is how we should have, we should look at through that lens.
02:26We should look at through that lens.