Brian S. King

Anne Applebaum nails it:

Donald Trump told the story of how he decided on the war, which was that stock prices were so high he could afford to attack Iran. To get advice on the decision he asked Susie Wiles. Now you know why they had no clue the Strait of Hormuz would shut down. Try to read it. “We're doing great. I went to Susie my beautiful Susie Wiles. There's nobody like Susie. I went to Susie. Right? And everybody's with her and she's a great woman really she's a great woman. But I went to Susie. I always go to Susie. I said Susie do you mind if I take a little excursion here? Do you mind if I you know we're hitting all these records, right? Most more people are working in the United States today than ever before as I can name this I don't want to bore you Because this is all about Ireland but you're a big part of it because you're a big part of this country but I said do you mind if I take a little excursion my chief of staff because I want to do this. I have Marco here. We have a lot of our great people JD is here. They're all here and I say let's let's do this. We're gonna do it right should have been done by many presidents should have been done Long before 47 years. It's 40 years of living in terror You know, they're they're called the bully of the Middle East But they're really the bully of the world because he used oil to bribe right? He used oil to bribe and to you know gain power. I don't know what they gained. What are they gained? What the hell? How are they doing? Not so good. They're all gone now. Every one of them. They're all gone. We don't even know who to our biggest problem. We don't know who to deal with over here. I can call the speaker of the house He's so powerful. I can call him. I can make a deal maybe I can even call your Democrat counterpart this guy. I said to Kelly. What do you think of your counterpart? He said he's a great guy. This is Republican Democrat. I never thought I was gonna hear that about you. Let me shake your hand. When Kelly when Kelly tells me that I said that's the way it used to be You know, that's the way it not so long ago and maybe someday that's the way it'll be again. It's really great. But I said you mind of I take a little excursion Because we have to do something and it'll be a short term excursion? But we have all these great things going and we had to say you know, we could have. What could have gone up up? It was only going in one direction. But I think now it's gonna go much higher than it would have gone had we not taken this little journey. And so I appreciate all of the people that have worked with us I was not an easy decision to make we have a country that was hotter than any country anywhere in the world and Doing great in every way and I say oh, we have to put out this this cancer. It's a cancer We had to take that operation and we did and it was very successful and continues frankly as somebody said very they could leave today. And it would take ten years to rebuild the damage has been done. But I think we have to make it a little bit more permanent because no other president has to go through this and we shouldn't have any other President having to go through this kind of a thing and If they didn't want to do it if for some reason they didn't want to do it. Would have the same problem. We don't ever want to have that problem again Not with lunatics. We can't have lunatics controlling nuclear weaponry. So I just want to thank everybody.”

In the dramatic circumstances of war, information must guard against the risk of turning into propaganda. It is every journalist's duty to verify the news, so as not to become a megaphone for power. They must show the suffering that war always brings to populations, which entails showing the face of war and recounting it through the eyes of victims.

Hassett: "If the war were to be extended, it wouldn't really disrupt the US economy very much at all. It would hurt consumers, and we'd have to think about what we'd have to do about that, but that's really the last of our concerns right now."

Hassett: "If the war were to be extended, it wouldn't really disrupt the US economy very much at all. It would hurt consumers, and we'd have to think about what we'd have to do about that, but that's really the last of our concerns right now."