Weekend Quotables
When it comes to war funding, Trump may have found a friend in Hakeem Jeffries.
The US is already the world’s largest military spender at nearly $1 trillion in 2025, exceeding the combined total of the next nine countries. Trump aims to increase this amount to $1.5 trillion by 2027.
Writing for Al Jazeera, Hanna Duggal and Mohamed A. Hussein shine a light on the biggest war profiteers. While the economy around them is crashing, defence stocks have reached all-time highs, driven by the need to produce billions of dollars of weapons systems. The biggest defence companies in the United States have agreed to “quadruple production” of what Trump describes as “exquisite class” weaponry after a meeting at the White House.
The meeting on Friday was attended by the chief executives of RTX (formerly Raytheon), Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, L3Harris Missile Solutions, and Honeywell Aerospace, all of which are sitting on billions of dollars of order backlogs, some of which dwarf the gross domestic products (GDPs) of several nations.
The Trump administration is reportedly preparing to request an additional $50 billion in funding for the war, and it looks like they’ve found a friend in Democratic House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York). In an interview with NBC on Sunday, Jeffries wouldn’t speak out against the war itself and refused to rule out backing a White House request to Congress to consider additional funding.
Weekend Quotables
Sen. Lindsey Graham
“You just wait and see what’s going to come in the next two weeks…We’re going to blow the hell out of these people.” — Fox News
Trump went on Fox& Friends this morning and demanded that oil tanker pilots risk their lives and go through the Strait of Hormuz. “These ships should show some guts; there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
He could set a heroic example by standing on the tanker’s deck together with Hegseth, Vance, and Rubio as it passes through the Strait? Amazing how quickly “show some guts” rolls off the tongue when the guts in question belong to merchant mariners and not to the person on the yacht sailing the other way.
Iran just issued its most direct economic threat of this war:
“If you can tolerate oil at more than $200 per barrel — continue this game.” — Brian Allen
Trump, when asked if the U.S. bombed an Iranian desalination plant…
“They are among the most evil people ever on earth, they cut babies’ heads off, they chop women in half, what they did, take a look at October 7th... if they’re complaining about a desalination plant, we complain about the fact that they shouldn’t be chopping babies’ heads off, okay?” — Talking to press on AF1
Sec. of War Pete Hegseth (Drunk or Delusional)
“We set the terms of this war from start to finish,” U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said during a Pentagon briefing on the U.S. and Israeli combat operations in Iran one week ago. U.S. aims “are realistic, scoped to our interests and the defense of our people and our allies.” — FP
Solidarity File
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez
“You may have heard that Spain is alone [..] We are not alone; we are the first. Those who will end up alone are those who defend the indefensible.” — Tribune Populaire
UNICEF’s James Elder
168 girls killed in a school in Iran… When the killing of children doesn’t dominate the news or politics, something fundamental has shifted… if a child can be killed and it doesn’t feel like a loss for all of us, then I think we’ve lost more than we realize. — Aljazeera
Belgian MP Paul Magnette
“Not a single soldier or weapon should go for Trump’s war in Iran. We must say No to Trump as Spain did.” — Parliament speech
“Americans are very lucky, because wherever they go to bring freedom… they find oil.” —Italian journalist, Michele Serra