WATCH: Rubio Spars With Margaret Brennan On Russia Summit: ‘Stupid Media Narrative’

While speaking on Sunday’s installment of “Face The Nation,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio got into a heated discussion with CBS host Margarett Brennan over the Trump Administration’s recent meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the state of peace talks in the Ukraine conflict.

Democrats have attacked the Trump Administration for being what they claim was overly cordial with Putin. U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) claimed that Putin should have “been arrested” on U.S. soil — a move that likely would’ve resulted in a third world war — while Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) accused Trump of being a “Kremlin asset” for engaging in diplomacy.

Brennan — in addition to ABC’s Martha Raddatz — continued with this line of attack when Rubio hit the Sunday show circuit after Friday’s summit. Right off the bat, Brennan claimed there were “concerns” that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will be “bullied” into signing an agreement when he travels to Washington D.C. on Monday.

“That’s why you have these European leaders coming as backup tomorrow. Can you, reassure them…” the CBS host asked before Rubio immediately jumped in to refute the claim.

“That’s not true. No, but that’s not true. They’re not coming here tomorrow to keep Zelensky from being bullied,” the secretary shot back. Brennan — who has exhibited anti-Trump bias on numerous occasions — went on to accuse the administration of attacking Zelensky during the contentious Oval Office meeting back in April.

Trump abruptly ended that meeting when Zelensky claimed that the United States will be attacked by Russia if taxpayer-funded assistance did not continue, a comment that enraged President Trump. The two leaders have since spoken on numerous occasions, however, with both indicating that there is no bad blood.

This was noted by Rubio. “Do you know how many meetings we’ve had since then?” Rubio asked, to which the supposedly unbiased reporter replied with, “Oh, no, I know. And I was just up in Alaska watching the one with Vladimir Putin where red carpet rolls rolled out.”

The secretary went on to dismiss the “stupid media narrative” that Trump was going to “bully” Zelensky, adding that behind the scenes discussions with Ukraine and European allies have been ongoing for weeks. Brennan then spoke as if she was at the Putin meeting herself by claiming that Trump said he would walk out of a meeting with Putin if a ceasefire was not agreed to, at which point the secretary was forced to note that both sides said they agreed to a framework.

“Our goal here is not to stage some production for the world to say, ‘oh, how dramatic you walked out,’ our goal here is to have a peace agreement to end this war, okay? And obviously we felt, and I agreed, that there was enough progress, not a lot of progress, but enough progress made in those talks to allow us to move to the next phase,” Rubio said.

“If not, we wouldn’t be having Zelensky flying all the way over here, we wouldn’t be having all the Europeans coming all the way over here.”

The secretary stressed that while progress needs to be taken “with a grain of salt” and that no final agreement has been reached, there was no”enough movement” to justify further discussions. He also reiterated that additional pressure can be placed on Russia in the form of sanctions if further progress is not made.

“Look, at the end of the day, if peace is not going to be possible here and this is just going to continue on as a war, people will continue to die by the thousands. The president has that option to then come in and impose new sanctions. But if he did this now, the moment the president puts those additional sanctions, that’s the end of the talks. You’ve basically locked in at least another year to year and a half of war and death and destruction,” Rubio continued.

“We may unfortunately wind up there, but we don’t want to wind up there. We want to wind up with a peace deal that ends this war so Ukraine can go on with the rest of their lives and rebuild their country and be assured that this is never going to happen again.”

The secretary left Brennan with a parting lesson on basic diplomacy.

“That’s the goal here. We’re going to do everything possible to make that happen if it’s doable. It will require both sides to make concessions. It will require both sides to get things they’re asking for. That’s how these deals are made, whether we like it or not.”