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Washington, D.C.  — U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined Fox & Friends to discuss the latest on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the crisis at the southern border, China, and more. See below for excerpts and watch the full interview here. 

On Vladimir Putin’s status and mental state: 
 
“[First, Vladimir Putin] is older. Second, the war is not going well. The reality of it is [the Russians] have probably lost two times as many soldiers already [as] they lost in Afghanistan [during] the entire time of the Afghanistan invasion…. [They have] probably degraded their military forces by 20 percent or 30 percent. They’ve had high failure rates. [With] all that money they spent on the military, their missiles have misfired, some of them never went off, some hit the wrong target. It’s just gone poorly. 
 
“If [Putin] was an American president right now, he’d be impeached, or [Congress would be] at least invoking all kinds of constitutional provisions to get rid of him. So, it hasn’t gone well. Certainly he knows the truth about it. Eventually that’s going to impact somebody. 
 
“I believe [Putin’s] risk calculus is different. I don’t think he’s the way we would describe insane in the normal sense. I think this is a guy who feels like he’s got everything to gain at this point, and losing a war would oust him from power, which is something he can never allow to happen.” 
 
On the border crisis: 
 
“The border has been overrun. It’s as simple as that. [The] reason why is because the [Biden] Administration is listening to radical, left-wing activists that are basically arguing for an open border…. 
 
“There’s a group of people out there that basically believe that people should be allowed to live wherever they want, in any country they want. They should be able to come across the border, and when they do, they should receive benefits from the government. Benefits that people that have worked here their whole lives don’t get.
 
“They’ll say, ‘We’re not doing that.’ But if you’ll notice, one of the six points that [President Biden] lays out is they’re going to give a bunch of money to non-government organizations. What do those non-government organizations do? They buy people plane tickets, give them cash assistance, and, in essence, transfer government money into the hands of [illegal immigrants]. 
 
“This is not about immigration. We admit a million people a year into this country. [We have] green cards. [We have] the most generous immigration program on the planet, and we’ve done that for decades. This is about an overrun border where…fentanyl is flowing into our cities, flooding into our cities. And this administration is encouraging it. They don’t want to do anything about it. 
 
“It wasn’t that long ago they were telling us border guards were whipping people. The President of the United States [said that], and of course, that turned out not to be true. Where’s the apology? Who wants to be a border agent right now, knowing the president, if something goes wrong, is going to come after you or say you don’t work for them, like they did about [Texas National Guard member Bishop Evans, who] lost his life in Texas.” 
 
On the impending supply chain crisis due to the Shanghai lockdown: 
 
“This will be the worst [supply chain crisis]. Shanghai is the busiest port and export facility. 
 
“This is a reminder of something I’ve been talking about since 2019, before the pandemic. We buy too much stuff from China. We’ve got to stop doing that. Buy it from other places. Make it in America. 
 
“You see how Russia is cutting off Poland from natural gas? That’s what [China] will do to us on a host of things, including medicine[, if we enter a conflict with Beijing]. We depend too much on China. We have to stop doing that and start making more things here in America.”