Marco Rubio Calls Putin's Regime 'Government of Liars' on Ukraine Crisis

Appearing on NBCs Meet the Press on Sunday, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, weighed in on the increased tensions between Russia and the Ukraine. Rubio hammered the Putin regime as a government of liars. On Saturday, Politico published a piece from Rubio in which the Florida Republican lays out options on how President Barack Obama can respond to Russias actions in the Crimea.

We know that the Russians have basically violated every major treaty theyve ever entered into, Rubio said. "Weve seen how theyve basically lied. Lets call it what it is. They are lying and this government is a government of liars, the Russian government.

Youre dealing with a government that lies as a matter of course, and its very difficult to enter an understanding with them on anything when they are willing to lie and cover things up in this way, Rubio added.

David Gregory, the host of Meet the Press, pressed Rubio on the matter. Youre saying, as you did in a piece that you wrote for Politico about how to confront Russia, that weve got to the use blunt talk, Gregory said. So I ask you for some blunt talk. Is Russia an enemy of the United States now?

I think theyre increasingly behaving like an enemy of international peace and international norms, Rubio answered. If you look, after the end of World War II and certainly through the Cold War era, the spread of democracy and freedom established norms for nations to interact with one another so we would never have another world war. Russia, under this President Putin, does not seem interested in any of that. So they are an enemy of that. And they are certainly, as it regards to that, an enemy of the United States with regard to those things I just outlined. And if you look at the positions theyve taken, on issue after issue, Russia has been an obstacle to U.S. national interests.