Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio reacted to Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham’s calls to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin on “State of the Union” Sunday.
The Florida senator said Graham advocating for the Russian people to assassinate Putin Thursday was in response to the “frustration” people across the globe are feeling during the ongoing crisis.
“People are watching these images, they are seeing what’s happening there—people being murdered and suffering—it makes you angry,” Rubio told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “And you want something to happen and you reach the conclusion ‘well, wouldn’t it be great if someone internally just took this guy and eliminated it.’ That’s not the official policy of the United States, no one’s talking about the U.S. doing it.”
“Lindsey will have to answer for what he meant by that other than to say I think he’s expressing the frustration a lot of people have that these horrible things are happening and there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do that immediately brings an end to it and it’s very frustrating for people.”
Rubio also predicted the fall of Putin’s power in the near future and said he hopes the Russian president will stand trial for war crimes. (RELATED: Sean Hannity Suggests The U.S. Should Assassinate Putin)
Graham received a wave of backlash from both sides of the political aisle in recent days for publicly calling for the Russian leader’s assassination. Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz called his remarks “an exceptionally bad idea,” instead urging for the U.S. to impose harsher sanctions and “boycott” Russia’s energy sector.
Fox News host Laura Ingraham called the South Carolina senator’s remarks “dangerous and stupid” on a Thursday episode of “The Ingraham Angle.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Friday that assassinating a head of state “is not the position of the United States government” and that the administration will continue to push for “diplomatic” solutions to end the conflict with Russia.
Over 2,000 civilians have died from the launching of airstrikes, missiles and rocket forces as of Wednesday, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service announced. Over one million refugees fled the country in less than a week to neighboring countries, notably Poland.
Civilians’ passage out of the port city Mariupol have been halted due to Russian shelling Sunday, CNN reported. The military captured the city Kherson on Wednesday, taking over the city hall and reportedly implementing a curfew from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. among the population of 280,000 people.