Reporter: Have you had any conversations with Iran in the last few days, and are you planning on it?

Trump: I have had, and I am planning on it.

We have a lot of very big, powerful ships sailing to Iran right now. It would be great if we didn’t have to use them.

Reporter: What message did you share with Iranians?

Trump: I told them two things: number one, no nuclear, and number two, stop killing protesters.

They are killing them by the thousands.

They are going to have to do something.

Trump on Cuba:

I think Cuba will not be able to survive.

Reporter: What do you think about the UK getting into business with China?

Trump: It’s very dangerous for them to do that, and it’s even more dangerous for Canada to get into business with China. Canada is not doing well.

They’re doing very poorly. And you can’t look at China as the answer.

The first thing they’re going to do is say you’re not allowed to play ice hockey anymore. Canada’s not going to like that.

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Trump:

We have a group headed out to a place called Iran, and hopefully we won’t have to use them.

Trump is considering expanded military options against Iran, including strikes on nuclear and missile sites and possible raids inside the country.

The plans go beyond earlier proposals linked to Iran’s recent protests, which have now been crushed.

Options range from targeted airstrikes to covert operations and efforts to destabilize Iran’s leadership.

Source: NYT

Journalist Patrick Howley to Senator Graham:

“Hey Lindsey, why don’t you just admit that you’re gay, and then people won’t blackmail you anymore?”

Trump is expected to nominate former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh as the next Federal Reserve chair.

An announcement is planned for Friday. Warsh, who advised Trump and served on the Fed from 2006 to 2011, would replace Jerome Powell when his term ends in May.

Source: Bloomberg

Trump:

Agitator and, perhaps, insurrectionist, Alex Pretti’s stock has gone way down with the just released video of him screaming and spitting in the face of a very calm and under control ICE Officer, and then crazily kicking in a new and very expensive government vehicle, so hard and violent, in fact, that the taillight broke off in pieces.

It was quite a display of abuse and anger, for all to see, crazed and out of control. The ICE Officer was calm and cool, not an easy thing to be under those circumstances!

Iran warned that the European Union's formal designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization would lead to "hazardous consequences."

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Spanish football manager Pep Guardiola:

Let me say two things. I think when I see a child in these past two years, with these images on social media, on television, recording himself, pleading, “Where is my mother?” who is collapsed among the rubble, and he still doesn't know it.

And I always think: what must they be thinking? And I think we have left them alone, abandoned.

I always imagine them saying, “Where are you? Come help us.” And even now, we haven't done it.

Burkina Faso’s military government dissolved all political parties by decree on Thursday, citing social division and state failure.

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Türkiye’s Defense Industries President Prof. Dr. Haluk Görgün:

In the last quarter of the previous year, following years of civil war and destruction and as Syria began to regain stability, we successfully implemented a comprehensive export package that included many of our products, in line with the cooperation established between our Presidency and the Syrian Ministry of Defense to meet Syria’s defense and security needs.

Russia is using Starlink satellite terminals on attack drones to bypass Ukrainian defenses and extend the range of its strikes, Ukrainian officials say.

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U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth will skip next month’s NATO Defense Ministers’ meeting and send his deputy, Elbridge Colby, instead.

Colby, a hardliner who favors reducing U.S. involvement in Europe, helped draft a new defense strategy that downgrades Europe and shifts the focus to China and homeland defense.

Source: POLITICO

Zelensky:

If Russia halts its strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, Ukraine will not strike Russia’s energy.

Zelensky:

Of course, it’s impossible for me to meet with Putin in Moscow.

It would be the same as meeting with Putin in Kyiv.

Zelensky:

I am publicly inviting Putin to Kyiv, if he dares, of course.

Zelensky:

I am ready for any format of leaders’ summit, but not in Moscow or Belarus.

Zelensky:

There have been no direct talks or direct agreements between us and Russia on stopping strikes against energy facilities.

Spanish football manager Pep Guardiola:

Remembering the memory of what has happened, not only during these past two or three years, but for decades of oppression, of lack of freedom, of taking away what every people has the right to—to simply be what they want to be.

We have to take a step forward, and just the fact of being here is already a lot.