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“We’ve spent $8 trillion in the Middle East. And we’re not fixing our roads in this country. How stupid is it? We’re not fixing our highways, our tunnels, our bridges, our hospitals, even.”
“In its war against Iran, the White House has already failed: to offer evidence that the country posed a direct threat to Americans; to provide a consistent justification for the attack; or to explain under what terms the conflict might end. … Now the evidence is piling up that this rather unjustified and thoroughly unexplained war could very likely lead to an energy crisis, just as the US economy is showing new signs of weakness …. Surely, one thing the US economy doesn’t need right now is a war of choice shutting down a major trade route, blowing up oil markets, and driving up the cost of energy for Americans, just as the labor market seizes up.”
“The defense secretary [Pete Hegseth] appears unable to approach matters of life and death with even the slightest bit of reverence or humility.”
“If we don’t stop them or if we didn’t stop them or if we didn’t start, you would have had a nuclear war and they would have taken out many countries because you know what? They’re sick people. They’re angry, they’re sick.”
— President Trump, speaking to reporters about his decision to attack Iran.
“We understand some will reflexively oppose this, people don’t love the idea of war. But people like winners. They are drawn to it. If we do this quickly, I think it will be seen as what it is: successful.”
— A Trump adviser, quoted by NBC News, dismissing the anger of the president’s America First base over attacking Iran.
“The most radical fantasy in the speech was its claims of a new golden age of prosperity. That misstatement surely deceived nobody. Prices continue to rise; the job market stagnates. In almost every way that can be measured, Americans are communicating economic anxiety and discontent. Trump insisted that they are all wrong. … It is as if the nation were being soaked by a torrential downpour, water rolling over umbrellas and into boats, soaking everyone’s clothes—and the leader whose job it is to lead them through the deluge insists that it is not raining at all, that in fact it is sunny, the sunniest day ever.”
“Well, that was exhausting — or would have been, if I had watched it. But I am not a masochist. I waited to read the transcript. … Trump’s State of the Union was historic in at least one respect: It was the longest SOTU ever. Was the plan to turn public opinion around by boring America into submission?”
“The single biggest threat to the world economy, the single biggest point of single failure, is that 97 percent of the high-end chips are made in Taiwan. If that island were blockaded, that capacity were destroyed, it would be an economic apocalypse.”
— Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, quoted by the New York Times.
“Fake polls — I got one today. I saw one today that I’m at 40%. I’m not at 40%. I’m at much higher than that. I’d love to run against anybody. The real polls say ‘you’d kill everybody, it wouldn’t even be close.’”
— President Trump, speaking to reporters.
“Your tariff taxes wreaked havoc on farmers, enraged our allies, and sent grocery prices through the roof,’ wrote Pritzker, a possible 2028 presidential candidate and frequent Trump critic. ‘This letter and the attached invoice stand as an official notice that compensation is owed to the people of Illinois, and if you do not comply we will pursue further action.”
— “Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker sent a letter — and invoice — to the White House on Friday demanding $8.6 billion be refunded to his state’s 5.1 million households, roughly $1,700 each,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
