Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) criticized his former Senate colleague Marco Rubio, sharing regret that he voted for him to become secretary of state in the Trump administration.
“How do you feel about your vote to confirm Sen. Rubio as secretary now?” CNN host John Berman asked the Maryland Democrat on Monday.
“Well, I regret that vote,” Van Hollen responded.
“Because, you know, when it was Sen. Rubio, Sen. Rubio was somebody who understood that Putin was the aggressor and the Russians were the aggressor,” he continued.
Rubio was in the Oval Office last week with President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance when their meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky grew heated about peace negotiations.
On Sunday, the secretary defended against criticisms of Trump’s approach to diplomacy with Zelensky and called him a “peacemaker.”
“Shouldn’t we at least try to see if there is a way to end this war in a way that’s acceptable to both sides and is enduring and sustainable? How is that a bad thing?” Rubio said during an appearance on ABC News’s This Week.
“I really am puzzled why anyone thinks that trying to be a peacemaker is a bad thing. It’s only a bad thing when it’s Donald Trump trying to do it. When it’s President Trump. It’s absurd to me,” he continued.
Van Hollen told CNN that he believed Rubio had changed since leaving the Senate.
“He didn’t go around calling Zelensky a dictator. But it seems like he’s had a, you know, a total lobotomy or heart transplant. I don’t know what it is,” the Maryland senator said.
He went on to suggest Rubio has allowed billionaire Elon Musk to essentially “take over the operations of the State Department.”
“Now he is just parroting Donald Trump. Now, if that’s why he took on the job, just to do the dear leader thing with Donald Trump, then I’m extremely disappointed. But that seems to be the direction that he’s headed,” Van Hollen criticized.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) also made digs at Rubio by suggesting regret for voting in favor of his nomination.
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Murphy said to CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that he made “a mistake” when he voted for Rubio.
“I regret that, though, because, as a member of the Senate, Secretary Rubio was somebody who stood up for American values and American principles,” he added.
