Rubio stops short of rejecting Graham’s call to assassinate Putin

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Sunday stopped short of criticizing and rejecting a suggestion by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in which the South Carolina Republican called for “somebody in Russia” to take out Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Asked by co-anchor Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union” if he agreed with Graham, Rubio suggested that his colleague’s tweet was fueled by frustration from the Russian invasion.

“People are watching these images, alright, they’re seeing what’s happening there, and people being murdered and suffering, and it makes you angry, and you want something to happen. And you reach the conclusion, ‘oh wouldn’t it be great if someone internally just took this guy and eliminated it?’” Rubio said.

“That’s not the official policy, obviously, of the United States, no one’s talking about the U.S. doing it,” he later added.

Rubio said Graham “will have to answer for what he meant by that other than to say, I think he’s expressing sort of the frustration that a lot of people have that these horrible things are happening.”

“And it doesn’t seem to be anything we can do that immediately brings an end to it, and it’s very frustrating for people,” he added.

The Florida Republican did, however, say there is a high chance that Russian President Vladimir Putin will be removed from power to “hopefully” stand trial for war crimes for targeting civilian sites during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“I would say that at some point, I do think Putin’s gonna be removed from power. I really think the chances of that happening are high… for losing his power, hopefully to stand trial for war crimes for what he’s done,” Rubio said.

Graham on Friday said “somebody in Russia” should take out Putin, adding that such a move would be a “great service” to the world.

“Is there a Brutus in Russia?  Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military? The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out,” Graham wrote on Twitter. “You would be doing your country – and the world – a great service.”

Graham’s tweet elicited some GOP criticism, including from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who called the thought “an exceptionally bad idea.”