Q: Why is a stalemate in the Iran war beneficial to the U.S.?

Rubio: It’s not a stalemate. You call it a stalemate. I know it’s not a stalemate. How is it a stalemate?

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Marco Rubio on Iran:

I’m telling you that the Iranian demands are totally unrealistic.

We expect that could change, and if it does, we’ll be prepared for diplomacy.

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Dr. Trita Parsi | Middle East Expert | Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft:
 

The Abraham Accords was not peace. It was to bring Arab states into dependency on Israel & the US for Israel’s strategic edge.
 
Dependent states aren't seen as threats. Jordan can’t act against Israel. All its weaponry & systems are American.
 
That veneer is now gone. Arab states can no longer easily be sold on paying the cost of abandoning the Palestinian cause.

FULL INTERVIEW

Marco Rubio on Iran:

When Obama gave Iran sanctions relief, they didn't use that money to build hospitals and universities.

They used that money to build weapons.

Marco Rubio:

Why would we talk to Iran about Lebanon? That's none of their business.

Marco Rubio:

Talk about all the instabilities in the Middle East: Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, Syria.

Behind all of them is the Iranian regime.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called the Iran campaign a military victory, saying he would carry them out again tomorrow.

He claimed journalists hated Trump more than they loved their country or troops.

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French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot on Ukraine and the 2027 French election:

If certain far-right or far-left forces were to take responsibility, it would be a clear drop in support for Ukraine.

Marine Le Pen has already announced that after six months she would end all French support to Ukraine.

At the moment when empires are awakening, it is the European Union that allows us to resist, that will allow us, if we give ourselves the means, to open a third way and not be the vassals of either side.

Polish PM Donald Tusk:

It is time for the internet, the virtual space, to be treated with the utmost seriousness.

What happens in the virtual world influences people's minds and actions just as strongly, and sometimes even more strongly, than what happens in the real world.

What is prohibited and illegal in real life must also be prohibited and eliminated from the virtual world.

Polish PM Donald Tusk:

The Krakow killer actually passed psychological examinations less than a year ago when he applied for a firearms permit.

We cannot create a perfect world here, but I want us to be certain that Poland remains, as it has been until now, a relatively safe country, if not one of the safest in this respect.

This is the first such case. Let us do everything to make sure it is the last.

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AfD co-leader Alice Weidel on development aid and Ukraine funding:

Germany is the world's largest payer of so-called development aid, most recently 26 billion annually. We are the global leader, ahead of the USA.

Germany is also the main payer for Ukraine aid, and is currently in danger of becoming the sole financier of a war in which the USA has long since lost interest.

Friedrich Merz is now threatening today to freeze funds so that everyone participates.

German AfD Leader Alice Weidel:

The primary reasons are the cost of living and the war against Iran.

The Republicans went into the election campaign promising not to start any wars.

At the latest, when they started the war against Iran, when they intervened in Iran, they broke that campaign promise.

That came back to bite them brutally.

German AfD Leader Alice Weidel:

I am not defending ICE's actions at all. The Americans have to judge that for themselves.

I don't believe that should be our approach in Germany. We would prefer a different approach.

German AfD Leader Alice Weidel:

A quota for something is always discrimination against something else.

If you have a quota for women, you discriminate against men. That's simply how it is.

Rep. Thomas Massie:

Hegseth has been effective. He was effective at killing 200 schoolchildren.

He was effective at bombing fishing boats that may or may not have had people who were guilty of smuggling drugs.

He's been effective at waging an unconstitutional kidnapping in Venezuela.

In some aspects, he has been effective. And that's what we're impeaching him for: his effectiveness in breaking the law and violating the Constitution.

Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Bulgaria have rejected German Chancellor Merz’s push to link approval of the EU’s next long-term budget to new financial aid for Ukraine.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico called the move a “textbook case of blackmail” and threatened to use his veto, declaring: “We are a sovereign country. We have our own views.”

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Rep. Thomas Massie:

I still put it at a high probability that Pete Hegseth won't make it until December 31st of this year.

Rep. Thomas Massie:

First of all, impeachment is actually kind of a polite thing. I'm not proposing Hegseth go to prison. I'm not proposing that he be exposed to civil liability.

We're just saying you need to be out of the job right now.

And when the Democrats get control in January, they are not going to be as polite as I am.

Hungary's PM Péter Magyar:

Serbia can count on Hungary.

Serbia's new leadership can count on Hungary. We will be there and we will help them, whether it concerns European integration, the EU accession process or other matters.

I would be delighted to be among the first to visit the new leadership in Belgrade, or to invite them to Budapest.

Rep. Thomas Massie:

If you're looking at this entire administration and you're saying, "Who has violated more laws and violated the Constitution more than anybody?"

Pete Hegseth is the undisputed winner of that.

And that's why we directed these at him and not the president.