Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is lying about President Donald Trump’s proposal to share his nation’s rare earth minerals.

The secretary of state spoke to Catherine Herridge and said that the United States, with Trump, is not going to be “hustled” by Zelensky.

“I think President Trump is very upset at President Zelensky and – and some – and rightfully so. Look, number one, Joe Biden had frustrations with Zelensky. People shouldn’t forget it. There are newspaper articles out there about how he cursed at him in a phone call because Zelensky, instead of saying thank you for all your help, is immediately out there messaging what we’re not doing or what he’s not getting,” the secretary of state said.

“I think the second thing is, frankly, I was personally very upset because we had a conversation with President Zelensky – the Vice President and I, the two – three of us. And we discussed this issue about the mineral rights, and we explained to them, look, we want to be in a joint venture with you – not because we’re trying to steal from your country, but because we think that’s actually a security guarantee. If we’re your partner in an important economic endeavor, we get to get paid back some of the money the taxpayers have given – close to $200 billion. And it also – now we have a vested interest in the security of Ukraine. And he said, sure, we want to do this deal; it makes all the sense in the world – the only thing is I need to run it through my legislative process, they have to approve it. I read two days later that Zelensky is out there saying: I rejected the deal; I told them no way, that we’re not doing that. Well, that’s not what happened in that meeting. So, you start to get upset by somebody – we’re trying to help these guys,” Rubio added.

“One of the points the President made in his messaging is it’s not that we don’t care about Ukraine, but Ukraine is on another continent. It doesn’t directly impact the daily lives of Americans. We care about it because it has implications for our allies and ultimately for the world. There should be some level of gratitude here about this, and when you don’t see it and you see him out there accusing the President of living in a world of disinformation, that’s highly, very counterproductive,” Rubio said.

“And I don’t need to explain to you or anybody else Donald Trump’s not – President Trump’s not the kind of person that’s going to sit there and take that. He’s very transparent. He’s going to tell you exactly how he feels. And he sent a message that he’s not going to get gamed here. He’s willing to work on peace because he cares about Ukraine, and he hopes Zelensky will be a partner in that and not someone who’s out there putting the sort of counter-messaging to try to hustle us in that regard. That’s not going to be productive here,” he said.