* “What is history but a fable agreed upon?”–Napoleon Bonaparte.
* “We are a country that is fighting to get away from a legacy of populism that has failed.”–Marcos Pena, chief of cabinet ministers under Argentinean President Mauricio Macri.
* “The United States is not seeking war with the Iranian regime, but we are fully prepared to respond to any attack, whether by proxy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or regular Iranian forces.”–National security adviser John Bolton, in addressing the Trump Administration’s message with its deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the Middle East.
* “It is John Bolton, not Iran, who poses the greatest threat to American national security today.”–Scott Ritter, the American Conservative.
* “I believe that Kim Jong-un fully realizes the great economic potential of North Korea and will do nothing to interfere or end it. He also knows that I am with him and does not want to break his promise to me. Deal will happen!”–President Donald Trump.
* “Trump promised a disruptive foreign policy that would deliver results, but instead is alarming Americans with impulsive and erratic decisions that leave us less safe and less respected.”–Jeffrey Prescott, senior Middle East policy director at the National Security Council during the Obama Administration.
* “(Beijing poses) a new kind of challenge; an authoritarian regime that’s integrated economically into the West in ways that the Soviet Union never was.”–Mike Pompeo.
* “Tariffs will make our Country MUCH STRONGER, not weaker. Just sit back and watch!”–Donald Trump.
* “We appear to be in a slow motion train wreck, with both sides sticking to their positions. As is often the case, however, the losers will not be the negotiators or presidents, but the people.”–William Reinsch, trade analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
* “The question is how do you use U.S. leadership? Do you use it to try to force a major counterpart to capitulate and do it in a humiliating way? Or do you use your moral leadership, which has driven the process forward in the past?”–Former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, who served in the Obama Administration.
* “It will not be indefinite.”–Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, on the status of those 4,364 military troops on the Southwest border.
* “The House’s most appropriate response to an attorney general who has dissembled about the Mueller report, refused to produce the report for Congress and defied a duly passed contempt citation would be impeachment. Impeachment of a cabinet secretary (the first since Reconstruction) would be a fitting capstone to a career that will be defined by William Barr’s rabid partisanship and disdain for the Constitution.”–Jennifer Rubin, New York Times.
* “Why do rural areas support Trump? A lot of it has to do with cultural factors. In particular, rural voters are far more hostile to immigrants than urban voters… . Rural voters also feel disrespected by coastal elites, and Trump has managed to channel their anger.”–Paul Krugman, New York Times.
* “Sexual violence is a national crisis that requires a national solution. We miss that point if we end the discussion at whether I should forgive Mr. Biden.”–Anita Hill.
* “There’s a lot of hate out there on the internet. Violent extremists around the world have access to our local communities to target and recruit and spread their messages of hate on a global scale.”–Mike McGarrity, the FBI’s top counterterrorism official.
* “My career in the CIA was cut short by partisan politics, but I’m not done serving our country.”–Valerie Plame, the former CIA officer whose cover was blown in a leak that touched off a political scandal during the George W. Bush Administration, in announcing that she plans to run for Congress as a Democrat representing New Mexico.
* “Silicon Valley’s touted utopia helped deliver our current dystopia.”–Maureen Dowd, New York Times.
* “Senate Bill 168 (“Federal Immigration Enforcement Act”) is a solution for a problem we do not have in Hillsborough County. It has long been our practice in Hillsborough to cooperate with federal law enforcement and that will not change.”–Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister.
* “My position is that we’re too big of an area to lose a professional sports team. I believe there are spots throughout the area that would work. If it turns out to be in Pinellas County, that’s fine. We want the team to stay in the area, and I believe that’s what the Rays want too.”–Tampa Mayor Jane Castor.