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Business Recorder
6 days ago
- Politics
- Business Recorder
PARTLY FACETIOUS: President Trump is a kind man, a man of peace?
'President Trump has placed portraits of those of his most recent predecessors with whom he had a contentious relationship to less prominent locations.' 'So that would mean pretty much all the recent former presidents - from Bush 1 and 2, Obama and…and where did he place Joe Biden's portrait?' 'It's not yet ready but I have it on good authority that it would be adorned on the wall of the guest bathroom used by those the neocons force him to deal with but he really doesn't like them - Ukrainian Zelensky and the European Union President Ursula von der Leyen.' 'Netanyahu?' 'Nah the guy uses the facilities before any meetings at the White House. So the portrait would face the toilet or…' 'President Trump is a kind man, a man of peace, so he has instructed that Biden's portrait be placed above the toilet so it will catch the eye as you enter but then…' 'You are being facetious.' 'The bathroom in use by himself would have the portrait of Andrew Jackson, President Trump's favourite former president.' 'You know I was just thinking we have no history of changing the placement of a single former president - elected, selected, self-appointed.' 'I don't think the incumbent occupant is going to change any placement — a long time ago he did consider changes that take place every three years as opposed to those with a life-long tenure…' 'Water under the bridge.' 'Right anyway you know you go to the Federal Board of Revenue and you have photographs of all the previous Chairmen on the wall, you go to any other government office and you see the same thing, my point is shouldn't at least the ones who were, how can I put it, forcefully evicted for wrongdoing – perceived or otherwise…' 'And that is precisely why no one touches the placement of the photographs in this country. One year perceived to be guilty, the next year convicted and the third year unperceived if you will.' 'Unperceived? Is that a word?' 'I am so proud of you – you fixated on the right word.' 'Sarcasm won't…' 'Let it be, that's all I have left.' Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
The Guardian
24-06-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Marjorie Taylor Greene slammed Trump's Iran strike – but Maga voters stand by him: ‘That's biblical'
Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia congresswoman and Maga firebrand, was quickly critical of missile strikes ordered Saturday by Donald Trump on Iranian nuclear facilities. Her constituents are not. In the past week, Israel and Iran traded strikes until the US attempted to intervene, both with its own bombs on three sites, and then with an attempted Trump-brokered ceasefire on Monday, which crumbled within hours. Greene took to social media on Saturday to stridently argue (in her longstanding style) that the US involvement wastes resources to feed the military-industrial complex. 'I've watched our country go to war in foreign lands for foreign causes on behalf of foreign interests for as long as I can remember,' Greene wrote on X. 'America is $37 TRILLION in debt and all of these foreign wars have cost Americans TRILLIONS AND TRILLIONS of dollars that never benefited any American. American troops have been killed and forever torn apart physically and mentally for regime change, foreign wars, and for military industrial base profits. I'm sick of it.' 'It feels like a complete bait and switch to please the neocons, warmongers, military industrial complex contracts, and neocon tv personalities that MAGA hates and who were NEVER TRUMPERS!' she said in another post. It was a sentiment often repeated by Trump allies throughout his electoral campaign in 2024, when the president repeatedly promised to bring world peace. But in interview after interview in Georgia's heavily Republican 14th district, voters generally expressed satisfaction with the president's decision to attack Iran, offering the president wide latitude for the use of military force. 'This should have happened 15 years ago,' said Richard Hodges of Rome, Georgia, having a midday drink with a friend. Iran would destroy the United States if it had the power to do so – they chant as much as rallies, he said. 'They can't have a nuclear bomb. They can't. They're liars, basically. We gave them the opportunity to do nuclear energy, but they want to enrich it. They're close to having a nuclear weapon. We back Israel.' His friend had reservations. 'I wish Trump didn't have to do it,' said Brooke Brinson of Rome, Georgia. 'My opinion'. Last year, Trump both pledged to avoid committing America to additional wars and threatened to blow Iran to 'smithereens' if it attacked the United States, while repeatedly describing the Biden administration as leading the country down the path to the third world war. 'I don't think that they can't be trusted,' Brinson said of Iran. 'I wish nobody had nukes. That's my opinion. I wish nobody had nukes and we could all get along. But that's not going to happen.' Greene's district is more conservative than 93% of House districts. Greene herself, though a close Trump ally, draws mixed reviews. 'She probably would not be who I would vote for if there was another Republican alternative, but there's not,' said Angela Hilliard, who lives near Rome. She supported Trump's decision to bomb Iran, describing the country as 'a persistent threat' and this action as a frightening moment. 'I feel like it ultimately is the right thing to do, but I'm not going to lie, it was very scary, and I'm still kind of just, not, 100% for sure. I think it was the right decision, but I still think there could possibly be consequences.' Greene's comments over the weekend raised eyebrows among conservatives, prompting her to issue a string of comments about her support for the president. Nonetheless, it is another heterodox position that draws attention to Greene, and to her district. For Michelle Gibson of Murray county, Georgia, Greene is the default choice. 'I mean, I'm always going to vote with my party–I'm not saying I have always done that–but usually it aligns more with my beliefs than the other side,' she said. 'Do I think she's a little bit extreme sometimes? Yes.' Gibson does not begrudge Greene for her views on attacking Iran, she said. 'Even though I'm for it, I realize everybody else is not going to be. And ultimately, whoever the president is, I have to try and support their decision,' Gibson said. 'And I do agree with it. I think we should stop [Iran] now. I think a lot more people, and leaders and countries over there are so glad we did it, even though they're not going to come out and say it, because [Iran is] a threat to everyone, especially over there.' Her views on Iran are strongly shaped by her Southern Baptist faith, Gibson said. 'This is all about religion,' she said. 'This isn't about politics. You're looking at it from a wrong standpoint. I guess because I was raised Southern Baptist, you just always protect God's people.' Gibson was aware of broad concerns about the conduct of the Israeli government, but said her faith prompts a tradeoff. 'I think with anything we do in life, there's always going to be a good and a bad to it, and you just have to pick whatever decision you make in life. What's the good and does it outweigh the bad? And supporting Israel, to me, outweighs the bad.' Many conservative voters in the district Greene represents hold overtly Christian Zionist views not primarily out of political alignment, but because they see the modern state of Israel as a necessary step in God's prophetic timeline, tying Jewish sovereignty to their eschatological beliefs about how the world will end and Christ will return. 'I think America needs to stand with Israel. It clearly states in the Bible that any friend of Israel is a friend of Him,' said Johnny Hames of Aragon, Georgia, expressing support for the military strikes. 'I'm not real political, and I don't look at what's going on a lot … for me it's just processing towards the end of the world, and I think Israel will never be defeated again. That's biblical.' He was surprised Greene came out against the strike, he said. 'Everybody's got their own opinion. I wouldn't want somebody in office that agrees with the president on everything he does if she thinks it's wrong,' Hames said. 'I thought she was a big Trump supporter, but then again, she got her own mind and she got her own reasons.' Iran's nuclear threat against Israel demanded action, said Kevin Bishop, of Taylorsville, Georgia. 'Well, I mean, I'm a strong Christian,' Bishop said. 'Israel is fatherland, homeland, whatever you want to call it. I don't think that Iran needs any nuclear bombs. They have no good intentions with them. So, we just got rid of them and I think it was a good thing to do.' One thing Greene and her Republican constituents continue to have in common is that at the end of the day they remain true to Trump above other political interests. After Trump declared the ceasefire on Monday, Greene was quick to clean up. 'Thank you, President Trump, for pursuing PEACE,' she posted on X.
Fox News
22-06-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Thomas Massie says he feels ‘misled' by Trump after Iran strikes: 'He's engaged in war'
Print Close By Elizabeth Elkind Published June 22, 2025 EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Thomas Massie is accusing President Donald Trump of falling short of his campaign pledges with his Saturday night strikes on Iran. "I feel a bit misled," Massie told Fox News Digital in a Sunday afternoon interview. "I didn't think he would let neocons determine his foreign policy and drag us into another war." "Other people feel the same way, who supported Trump — I think the political danger to him is he induces a degree of apathy in the Republican base, and they fail to show up to keep us in the majority in the midterms." Massie, a conservative libertarian who has long been wary of foreign intervention by the U.S., has been one of the most vocal critics of the Trump administration's recent operation. RUBIO DECLARES IRAN'S DAYS OF 'PLAYING THE WORLD' OVER AFTER TRUMP'S DECISIVE STRIKE U.S. stealth bombers struck three major nuclear enrichment facilities in Iran Saturday night. Trump and other GOP leaders hailed the operation as a victory, while even pro-Israel Democrats also offered rare praise. "Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated," Trump said Saturday night. "And Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not. future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier." But progressives and the growing isolationist wing of the GOP blasted it as a needless escalation of tensions in the Middle East, at a time when Israel has been engaged in a weeklong conflict with Iran as well. Top officials up to Trump himself have said the U.S. is not seeking war with Iran. Vice President JD Vance told NBC News' "Meet The Press" Sunday, "We're not at war with Iran. We're at war with Iran's nuclear program." Massie told Fox News Digital those assurances were "ludicrous." DEMOCRATIC LAWMAKERS CRITICIZE ISRAEL'S DEFENSIVE STRIKES AGAINST IRAN'S NUCLEAR SITES "He's engaged in war. We are now a co-belligerent in a hot war between two countries," the Kentucky Republican said, arguing that conflict separates this action from Trump's strikes that killed deceased Iranian General Qassem Soleimani. "You can't say this isn't an act of war, that it's a strike outside of a war," he said. "This is inside, geographically and temporally, of a war." The Kentucky Republican notably has broken from Trump on several other occasions, and has been one of the few GOP officials to openly clash with the president — particularly on government spending and foreign intervention. He's co-leading a resolution to prevent the "United States Armed Forces from unauthorized hostilities in the Islamic Republic of Iran" alongside Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., which they introduced days before the strikes. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., is leading a Senate counterpart. Massie noted his team was looking at ways to get the resolution on the House floor — while conceding likely opposition from pro-Israel groups and congressional leaders. "We're going to try to use the privileges of the House to get this to the floor," he said. "People were saying, 'Why did you introduce this resolution? The president's not going to strike Iran.' He has struck Iran. And now the the naysayers said, 'Oh, well, you don't need this resolution." ISRAEL-IRAN WAR DIVIDES DEMOCRATS, BUT TRUMP'S DIPLOMACY ALSO SPLITTING REPUBLICANS Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said during a Sunday morning press conference that the administration properly notified Congress about the strikes within existing statute — even as progressives and some conservatives accuse him of bypassing a co-equal branch of government. "They were notified after the planes were safely out," Hegseth said. "We complied with the notification requirements of the War Powers Act." But Massie noted that the same War Powers Act also requires Congress to vote on U.S. military intervention in foreign countries within 60 days, if the conflict continues. "Even if they're able to circumvent a vote on the resolution that Ro Khanna and I have introduced, we're going to have to vote at some point if this becomes a protracted engagement," he said. War powers resolutions can be called up for a House vote after 15 days of inaction by the relevant committee, after the legislation is referred to that committee. When reached for comment, the White House pointed Fox News Digital to Trump's most recent Truth Social post calling Massie a "grandstander" and threatening to recruit a primary challenger against him. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP "Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky is not MAGA, even though he likes to say he is," Trump wrote. "Actually, MAGA doesn't want him, doesn't know him, and doesn't respect him. He is a negative force who almost always Votes 'NO,' no matter how good something may be." "MAGA should drop this pathetic LOSER, Tom Massie, like the plague! The good news is that we will have a wonderful American Patriot running against him in the Republican Primary, and I'll be out in Kentucky campaigning really hard. MAGA is not about lazy, grandstanding, nonproductive politicians, of which Thomas Massie is definitely one. Thank you to our incredible military for the AMAZING job they did last night. It was really SPECIAL!!!" Fox News Digital also reached out to Speaker Mike Johnson's office for comment. Print Close URL
The National
18-06-2025
- Politics
- The National
Will he, won't he? The world waits as Trump considers attacking Iran
In a speech while visiting Riyadh last month, US President Donald Trump attacked America's foreign policy record in the Middle East, saying the neocons who had tried to 'nation build' had wrecked far more countries than they had constructed. 'The interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand,' he told the Arab Islamic American Summit. The President's remarks found a receptive audience from Arab observers, who hope America's future ties to the Middle East will be based primarily on investment partnerships rather than destabilising military entanglements. But barely one month later, Mr Trump appears poised to let loose America's dogs of war and intervene in a complex society, by joining Israel as it strikes Iran. For now, Mr Trump is maintaining a degree of strategic ambiguity, saying he ' may or may not ' strike Iran. But he has dropped some very heavy hints that the US will be helping Israel as it strikes suspected Iranian nuclear sites. On Tuesday, he demanded the ' unconditional surrender ' of Tehran's government and said the US could kill supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – but prefers not to, 'for now'. Mr Trump has consistently said that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, but his increasingly bellicose tone marks a departure from his previous insistence that a deal could be reached with Tehran over its nuclear programme. On Wednesday, he said it was 'very late to be talking' and seemed to rebuff what he claimed was an Iranian attempt to restart talks. The vibe in Washington definitely feels more war-war than jaw-jaw. Iran denied it had asked to 'grovel at the gates of the White House', and the Ayatollah has called Mr Trump's remarks 'unacceptable'. Much has been made of another potential restraining factor ahead of a war announcement, namely Mr Trump's Make America Great Again base, which has long insisted the US must not enter another costly overseas conflict. Maga maven Marjorie Taylor Greene said this week that anyone wishing for war with Iran was ' disgusting ' and lamented America's previous military engagements in the Middle East. 'Anyone slobbering for the US to become fully involved in the Israel/Iran war is not America First/Maga,' she wrote on X. 'Wishing for murder of innocent people is disgusting. We are sick and tired of foreign wars. All of them.' Although he has said he wants to be remembered as a unifier and peacemaker, Mr Trump seems to be leaning into joining Israel's war – and to an extent already has. The Pentagon has assets positioned across the Middle East and is helping to defend Israeli skies from Iranian missiles. And as we saw during his military parade at the weekend, which depending on your viewpoint was either a badly attended embarrassment or a patriotic triumph of military might, he loves looking at American materiel in action. 'Nobody does it better than the good ol' USA,' he said on Tuesday when extolling American military gear, saying that 'we' had complete control of Iranian skies, hinting at close co-ordination with Israel as it bombs Tehran. When asked whether he was concerned a new war would alienate his Maga base, Mr Trump shrugged it off, rightly surmising that there is very little he can do to upset his true believers. 'My supporters are more in love with me today, and I'm in love with them more than they were even at election time,' he said. Some members of Congress have also begun to assert that they should have a say in whether America goes to war, with bipartisan legislation being introduced to force a vote on military action. But any prospect of the rubber-stamp Republicans opposing in a meaningful way is remote. For now, it appears Republican hawks and Israel have more of the President's ear than the Maga wing of his party. 'I'm not looking to fight. But if it's a choice between fighting and having a nuclear weapon, you have to do what you have to do," he said in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
Irish Times
17-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Donald Trump sounds more like a Chinese leader as he rejects the liberal world order
Donald Trump's speech in Riyadh last week was noteworthy in a number of ways, including the fact that it ended with YMCA, the 1970s gay anthem he has adopted as a campaign song, blasting out to his Saudi audience. But the most remarkable moment came when he praised the cities and skyscrapers that stand as gleaming monuments to the triumph of commerce throughout the Arabian peninsula. 'And it's crucial for the wider world to note this great transformation has not come from western interventionists or flying people in beautiful planes giving you lectures on how to live and how to govern your own affairs. No, the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation-builders, neocons, or liberal nonprofits like those who spent trillions and trillions of dollars failing to develop Kabul, Baghdad, so many other cities,' he said. 'In the end, the so-called nation-builders wrecked far more nations than they built, and the interventionists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves. They told you how to do it, but they had no idea how to do it themselves. Peace, prosperity and progress ultimately came not from a radical rejection of your heritage, but rather from embracing your national traditions and embracing that same heritage that you love so dearly.' These words, which could have been spoken by a Chinese leader, were Trump's most emphatic rejection to date of liberal interventionism and interference in the internal affairs of other countries. And they should banish any doubt that the United States, the architect and arbiter of the 'rules-based international order', has turned its back on it. READ MORE Critics of that order, including many in the Global South, argue that it was never more than an instrument of American foreign policy and that its rules seldom bound the hegemon itself. But European policymakers are eager to keep it alive, fearing that the only alternative is great power rivalry, spheres of influence and the law of the jungle. Trump's threat to annex Greenland and his relaxed approach to the use of force to change internationally agreed borders reinforces such fears. And many Europeans see Vladimir Putin's Russia as a potentially existential threat unless it can be kept in check. Former British prime minister Gordon Brown is among those who have called for a new multilateralism, led by a 'coalition of the willing'. Reacting to Trump's humiliation of Volodymyr Zelenskiy in the Oval Office in February, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas had another idea. 'Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It's up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge,' she said. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas. Photograph: Carlos Jasso/Pool/AFP via Getty Without the US, what Kallas calls the free world is a greatly shrunken and less powerful coalition and the rest of the world does not recognise the EU as a moral leader. The contrast between the EU's approach to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and to Israel's actions in Gaza has done nothing to diminish this scepticism. While Trump was trashing liberal interventionism in Riyadh, the EU delegation in Beijing was hosting a conference to mark the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and the EU. In a world that is becoming more multipolar and less multilateral, the EU and China share an interest in defending multilateral co-operation and the United Nations system. But while the EU champions the 'rules-based international order', China advocates what it calls 'true multilateralism'. Beijing says it is committed to keeping the existing multilateral institutions centred on the UN but it wants to make them more representative and democratic. Much of the Global South shares China's ambition to reform institutions that still reflect the balance of power at the end of the second world war, leaving Europe and the US massively over-represented. The EU is open to discussing such reforms, and it welcomes China's regular expressions of loyalty to the UN Charter. The problem lies in their competing interpretations of the charter and the emphasis each places on various elements of it. There is widespread and growing scepticism about the EU's bona fides on human rights At the heart of China's foreign policy are the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence first formulated in an agreement with India in 1954. They are: mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty; mutual nonaggression; mutual noninterference in each other's internal affairs; equality and co-operation for mutual benefit; and peaceful coexistence. It is the third principle, of noninterference in each other's internal affairs, that creates the sharpest tension between China and the EU, particularly in the area of human rights. China's view, shared across much of the world and echoed by Trump in Riyadh last week, is that states should govern themselves more or less as they choose and other countries should mind their own business. The EU, like the rest of the West, has always placed greater emphasis on civil and political rights than economic, social and cultural rights. When the EU published its human rights priorities for 2025, only one of its 48 sections dealt with economic, social and cultural rights. For China, of course, the emphasis is the other way around with the main focus on economic and development rights and little more than lip service paid to civil and political rights. Elsewhere across the Global South the picture is differentiated but there is widespread and growing scepticism about the EU's bona fides on human rights. This is not only on account of the weaselly response to the atrocities in Gaza but because of the EU's own treatment of people fleeing war, famine, oppression, destitution and the impact of climate change. Rather than protecting their human rights, the EU treats them as criminals, incarcerating thousands in detention centres along its borders and across the Mediterranean. The EU's commitment to defending the rights of minorities and political dissidents in countries such as China is commendable and important and should not be abandoned or weakened. But to be a more effective human rights champion, the EU must look more closely at its own record and rebalance its approach to take more account of economic, social and cultural rights. Instead of clinging to the idea of a contest between democracies and autocracies, the EU should focus on strengthening the UN institutions, working with China as well as middle powers such as Brazil and South Africa to restore authority to the multilateral system. Making progress through consensus is a slow and frustrating process, but it may prove to be more effective than confrontation and condescension in raising human rights standards across the world.
