Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that an apology is owed to President Donald Trump from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after the way he acted during their meeting in the Oval Office.

Speaking to CNN on Friday, he said that the president is trying to bring an end to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and that Zelensky’s actions were disrespectful to President Trump.

“We’ve explained very clearly what our plan is here, which is we want to get the Russians to a negotiating table,” the secretary of State said. “We want to explore whether peace is possible. They understand this. They also understand that this agreement that was supposed to be signed today was supposed to be an agreement that binds America economically to Ukraine, which, to me, as I’ve explained and I think the President alluded to today, is a security guarantee in its own way because we’re involved; it’s now us, it’s our interests.”

“That was all explained,” he said. “That was all understood. And nonetheless, for the last 10 days in every engagement we’ve had with the Ukrainians there’s been complications in getting that point across, including the public statements that President Zelenskyy has made.”

“This agreement could have been signed five days ago, but they insisted on coming to Washington and there was a very — and should have been a very clear understanding: Don’t come here and create a scenario where you’re going to start lecturing us about how diplomacy isn’t going to work. President Zelenskyy took it in that direction and it ended in a predictable outcome as a result. It’s unfortunate,” Rubio added.

“That wasn’t supposed to be this way,” the Secretary of State added, “but that’s the path he chose, and I think, frankly, sends his country backwards in regards to achieving peace, which is what President Trump wants at the end of the day — is for this war to end,” he said.

“There was no need for him to go in there and become antagonistic,” Rubio continued.

“The way you bring it to an end is you get Russia to the table to talk, and he understands that. Attacking Putin, no matter how anyone may feel about him personally, forcing the President into a position where you’re trying to goad him into attacking Putin, calling him names, maximalist demands about Russia having to pay for the reconstruction — all the sorts of things that you talk about in a negotiation,” he said.

“Well, when you start talking about that aggressively — and the president’s a deal maker, he’s made deals his entire life — you’re not going to get people to the table. And so you start to perceive that maybe Zelenskyy doesn’t want a peace deal.  He says he does, but maybe he doesn’t.”