Sen. Marco Rubio recently conducted an interview with Greg Stinchfield of Newsmax in which he stated that the main goal for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent chat with President Joe Biden was to find out what he could get away with.
“There’s no doubt that Putin believes, based on his previous interaction with Biden and watching American politics, that Biden is someone he wants to test,” Rubio stated during his appearance on Wednesday’s “Stinchfield,” pointing out that the former KGB agent is a “psychological operative” and “trained intelligence officer.”
Rubio went on to tell the host of the program that Putin was likely thinking, “I’m going to test this guy. How far can I go? What can I do? What is this guy’s pain tolerance?”
“I am certain he went in looking for an assessment, a personal assessment, what was Biden willing to put up with,” the Florida senator added.
via Newsmax:
The true deal-making will be made after Putin knows this information, Rubio said, noting Putin “views this as a zero sum game,” where his world authority is more measured by “his ability to embarrass and frustrate the United States” than actually making diplomatic progress.
“He doesn’t care what the world thinks about Vladimir Putin,” Rubio said. “He’s not trying to be popular in the world. Vladimir Putin wants to restore Russia to great power standing. He can’t do that economically, so he has to do that militarily and asymmetrically by being able to wield power.”
Rubio later commented that it was probably a “wise” decision to not do a face-to-face press conference with Putin.
“Given what we’ve seen recently from this president, it’s probably a wise choice to no put him in that situation one on one,” Rubio continued. “Look, I’m not a fan of Vladimir Putin, but I think he felt in a setting like he could have an advantage and really press the case.”
“We’ll never really know what came up in that conversation,” he added.
Rubio was critical of Biden saying in his solo press conference he made a list of 16 “critical infrastructure” industries that Russia should not attack with cyber warfare.
“That was an unforced error,” Rubio went on to say. “I hope he didn’t really give him that list. I think, if I’m Putin, I’m going to wave that list around and say, ‘hey, it’s not on your list.'”
Hard to believe a president would make such a horrible mistake, but given we’re talking about Biden, it’s to be expected. This is what we have to look forward to for the next few years.
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