Gergely Lukacsy

Joe Kernen comes close to having a coronary on air as Pete Buttigieg dogwalks him all over the Squawk Box studio about Trump's economic mismanagement and inflation

This is quite a well put together summary from @megynkelly but what’s interesting about it is that if you take each piece on its own, not a single piece of it is even remotely controversial. Yet adds up to such a damning portrait of this moment.

MAGA thinks Europe can't defend itself without America. Here's what they don't know. 1. France and Britain have 515 nuclear warheads and 8 nuclear missile submarines. 2. European defence spending hit €481 billion this year. That's more than Russia and China spend combined. The EU's ReArm Europe plan is mobilising another €800 billion. 3. European countries have over 1.7 million active troops. Russia has 1.3 million. 4. EU and UK air forces fly over 1,400 combat aircraft. Their navies have five aircraft carriers, over 60 submarines, more than 120 frigates and destroyers. 5. Europe has over 6,000 artillery pieces and that's before the biggest rearmament wave since the Cold War. Poland alone is adding 212 new howitzers. 6. The British SAS invented modern special forces. The US copied them to build Delta Force. From France's Foreign Legion to Poland's GROM, Europe's elite units are among the deadliest on earth. 7. Europe already has joint military commands ready to fight. The UK leads a 10-nation rapid reaction force across Northern Europe and the Arctic. Finland alone can mobilise 900,000 trained reservists all prepared to fight in arctic conditions. 8. Europe has its own satellite navigation (Galileo), its own defence programme (75 active projects) and is building its own rapid deployment force. The "helpless Europe" story was never about defence. It was about keeping Europe dependent and buying American weapons, relying on American intelligence, following American foreign policy. Thanks to Trump, that now ends.

1/2. Notice that after losing the war Trump threatens his allies rather than Russia — even though Russia quite literally helped Iran defeat the US and he knows it.

10/10. No notes.

@ItsHuepelTime @ggreenwald @takenaps How exactly he destroyed Iran’s nuclear capabilities since the story of this war 30 or so days ago? Be specific. And what regime change? The exact same regime is in control in Iran than before. If a country killed the US president would that be regime change? No.

@ggreenwald @takenaps Why are all liberals these goofy looking little bitches. The victory is in what the did to destroy their nuclear capabilities and the regime change. This is just icing on the cake. Now go put your butt plug in and watch CNN and cry your sappy tears you little bitch.

The Big Victory that Trump points to here is that Iran will open the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait of Hormuz was completely open before Israel and the US attacked. It was closed only as a response to the war. So congrats on getting the Strait of Hormuz re-opened. Huge victory.

From a friend: “Am I keeping score correctly? Before the war Iran had 1000 pounds of uranium and the strait of Hormuz was open. And now Iran has 1000 pounds of uranium and the strait of Hormuz might open but with Iran charging a huge toll.”

Iran and Oman will charge fees to ships transiting through the Strait of Hormuz under the current ceasefire plan-AP

@Market_Snitch @MTorres1993 @RepMcGovern If anything all those went up. Iran knows that if they had nuclear weapons US and Israel will never attack them again.

@lukacsy @MTorres1993 @RepMcGovern Capability, desire, maybe willingness. Take your pick.

So he’ll stop bombing Iran in order to reopen the Strait of Hormuz… …which was open before he started bombing Iran. Got it.

@NotTheirScript @ChrisMurphyCT You are missing the point.

@ChrisMurphyCT 7 hours ago: “Call Congress back! The war is spiraling out of control!” 2 minutes ago: “A ceasefire is a history-changing win for Iran!” So war is bad and stopping the war is also bad. You’re not antiwar, Senator. You’re just anti-Trump.

It appears Trump just agreed to give Iran control of the Strait of Hormuz, a history-changing win for Iran. The level of incompetence is both stunning and heartbreaking. What on earth is happening?

@MTorres1993 @RepMcGovern Please elaborate: what changed regarding Iran’s path to nuclear weapons compared to where they had been before US started bombing Iran 30 or so days ago? Be specific.

@RepMcGovern The difference now is that Iran doesn't have a path to a nuclear weapon. Their Navy and Air Force are destroyed. Their top leadership is dead. But yeah, same as before, I guess.

@MeidasTouch Lol, CNN is ordered… it’s private company, Trump is not their boss.

BREAKING: Donald Trump is attacking CNN after the network aired the full statement from Iran’s Supreme National Security Council saying it achieved a “great victory” and forced the U.S. to accept its 10-point plan. In a furious response, Trump called CNN’s reporting a “FRAUD” and demanded a retraction, and said "authorities are looking to determine whether or not a crime was committed"—despite the network simply relaying Iran’s official statement.

@lv715 @meiselasb What concessions specially?

@meiselasb USA won this war. Iran just got some breathing room. America used military action to extract concessions. Iran just bought time and escaped total collapse.

Did Trump just agree to Iran’s “maximalist” 10 point plan that Iran has been talking about for weeks where Iran basically gets everything it wanted and more?

Deeply reported story by @maggieNYT and @jonathanvswan about an extraordinary pitch/presentation Netanyahu made to convince Trump to go to war with Iran, including catastrophically wrong Israeli assumptions about how easy it would be to win.

Christie: It became clear to Trump that Jared and Ivanka would get married. He was not thrilled about this. I was still the prosecutor. He asked me to go out to dinner and said, do you have anything more on the family, so I can break this up?

@ScourgeOfZeus @clashreport Best of luck with the those. It’s a 34 hours round trip flight (and you need mid air refuelling) and US only has 19 B-2 bombers.

@clashreport Oh no, if only we had bombers that could fly straight out of US and land back home directly.

The UK will refuse U.S. requests to use British bases for strikes on Iranian bridges or power plants. UK officials argue these targets are civilian infrastructure and could make such attacks a potential war crime, so permission will not be granted. Source: The i Paper

@thematthew @factpostnews The flip side is that you guys argued that it’s from private money, so it’s all ok, taxpayers won’t be on the hook for a ballroom. And yet, here you go, I am sure you will defend and argue how a ballroom is the right way to spend money with 40 trillion in debt.

@factpostnews Y'all sit here and fight and whine about him trying to do the rennovation via private funding taking it to court etc Then... when he tries to do it through the budget... you whine again This is the point. Its not about the rennovation, its about just being anti trump

Host: Donald Trump is now asking taxpayers to be on the hook for renovations to the executive residence to the tune of $377 million. That is according to the new White House budget request for next year. It marks a more than 800% increase from last year.

Former CIA director: ‘Russia no longer has the upper hand’ in Ukraine war thehill.com/policy/defense…

And what do you think you “proved” here? Even 1.6% is gigantic amount of money to spend on defense. The aggregate GDP of non US NATO countries is 24.6 trillion dollars. 1.6% of that (roughly 400 billion dollars) is more than the military budget of China and Russia combined. Again, that’s what non US NATO members spend even when they are not reaching 2% (which you brought up as your talking point). How is spending more than China + Russia combined is “nothing”?

They didn’t even reach their 2014 target until this year 2%. The Russians are knocking on the door and still they dither. From Grok: The European Union’s collective defense spending (across its 27 member states) stood at approximately 1.9% of GDP in 2024, according to data from the European Defence Agency (EDA) and SIPRI-aligned figures. This marked a significant rise from 1.6% in 2023, driven by increased procurement, equipment investment, and responses to security threats like Russia’s war in Ukraine. In absolute terms, this equated to about €343 billion in 2024. For 2025, estimates project EU defense spending rising further to around 2.1% of GDP (approximately €381 billion in constant prices), potentially exceeding the former NATO 2% guideline on a bloc-wide average for the first time in recent years.

Except that isn’t what happened. European or American leaders (and countries) are not obliged in the treaty to participate in unilateral wars of choice. This is a defensive treaty not an offensive one. It would destroy the concept of sovereignty if anyone accepted your or Trump’s point.