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ruben gallego
Rubio Suggests Trump Joined Israel's Planned Attack on Iran Instead of Stopping It
"This is the most insane and absurd definition of an 'imminent threat' I have ever heard in my life," said one journalist.
Mar 02, 2026
"What the fuck happened to America First?" US Sen. Ruben Gallego asked on social media Monday in response to a video of Secretary of State Marco Rubio attempting to justify President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war on Iran.
As the death toll climbed above 550 in Iran, with at least six US service members killed, Rubio told reporters on Capitol Hill that "there absolutely was an imminent threat, and the imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked, and we believed they would be attacked, that they would immediately come after us. And we were not gonna sit there and absorb a blow before we responded."
According to Rubio, the US Department of Defense assessed that "if we waited for them to hit us first after they were attacked... by someone else—Israel attacked them, they hit us first, and we waited for them to hit us—we would suffer more casualties and more deaths. We went proactively, in a defensive way, to prevent them from inflicting higher damage. Had we not done so, there would've been hearings on Capitol Hill about how we knew that this was gonna happen, and we didn't act preemptively to prevent more casualties and more loss of life."
In a follow-up post, Gallego (D-Ariz.), an Iraq War veteran, added: "So Netanyahu now decides when we go to war? So much for America First."
The senator wasn't alone in ripping Rubio's remarks. Congresswoman Sarah Jacobs (D-Calif.) said that "Secretary Rubio says the quiet part out loud: This is an unnecessary war of choice. Israel forced our hand—there was no imminent threat to the United States. And instead of talking Israel out of going to war, President Trump went along with it and put US lives at risk."
Stanford University political science professor Michael McFaul said: "Such strange logic. We had to go to war because Israel was going to attack Iran? So Bibi gets a say as to whether the US goes to war but the US Senate and the American people do not?"
Zeteo editor-in-chief Mehdi Hasan declared: "This is the most insane and absurd definition of an 'imminent threat' I have ever heard in my life. Our ally and proxy, Israel, that we arm and fund, was about to illegally attack Iran so we joined in the attack because that illegal attack would have led to an attack on us."
Progressive organizer and attorney Aaron Regunberg also weighed in on social media: "Quite literally—and I've used that word too freely in the past, but in this case I mean literally—Rubio is saying they've made America into Netanyahu's bitch. We go where Bibi points, regardless of the American blood it will cost. Trump is an absolute cuck. Pathetic."
While critics of Trump's "Operation Epic Fury" have slammed it as illegal and clearly motivated by regime change, Rubio claimed that the Trump administration would welcome a new government in Iran, but the war—which has taken out top Iranians, including the supreme leader, Ayatollan Ali Hosseini Khamenei—is about preventing the Middle Eastern nation from developing a nuclear weapon.
A year ago, a US intelligence report said that "we continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003, though pressure has probably built on him to do so." Despite that conclusion, the Trump administration bombed the country's nuclear facilities a few months later—and, as CNN's Aaron Blake pointed out last week, Trump has repeatedly said that his June airstrikes "obliterated" Iran's program.
There are now mounting calls for the Republican-controlled Senate and House of Representatives to end Trump's assault on Iran by passing a war powers resolution. Despite the US Constitution giving Congress clear authority to declare war, several presidents have taken military action without any such declaration.
Discussing the administration's interaction with Congress about Iran, Rubio said Monday that "we notified the Gang of Eight," which is made up of the Senate and House leaders for both major parties, as well as the chairs and ranking members of each chamber's intelligence panel. Before taking on his current role, the secretary was the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
"There's no law that requires us to do that. The law says we have to notify them 48 hours after beginning hostilities. We've done that," Rubio said, referring to a requirement in the War Powers Act of 1973. "But we can't notify 535 members of Congress."
"If they want to take a war powers vote, they can do that. They've done that. They’ve done that a bunch of times," he added. "There's no law that requires the president to have done anything with regards to this... No presidential administration has ever accepted the War Powers Act as constitutional—not Republican presidents, not Democratic presidents."
Congressman Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) responded: "Dear Secretary Rubio: There is a law. It's called the frickin' Constitution of the United States."
Separately on Monday, the State Department urged Americans to leave a list of Middle Eastern countries.
Lieu responded: "Dear Secretary Rubio: You told Americans to depart now via commercial means when you know many airports/airspace are closed. YOU MUST IMMEDIATELY SCHEDULE US GOVERNMENT EVACUATION FLIGHTS FOR THE STRANDED AMERICANS IN DANGER. Maybe you should have thought of a frickin' plan first."
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Platner Wins Second Senate Endorsement as Gallego Praises Him as 'Fighter' for Working Families
"This is the candidate that can win," the Arizona senator said.
Mar 02, 2026
Senate hopeful Graham Platner has picked up a critical endorsement in Maine's Democratic primary as he seeks to take down five-term Republican incumbent Susan Collins in November.
In a move challenging the party establishment, freshman Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) has endorsed the 41-year-old Marine veteran over the state's Democratic governor, Janet Mills, who has the backing of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and other leading centrists.
Platner, a proponent of progressive economic policies like Medicare for All and an extreme wealth tax, and an outspoken critic of US military interventionism, already has the endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Now, as a recent poll shows him comfortably in the lead for the nomination and more likely than Mills to win in the general, Gallego said he thinks Platner's approach is the best chance Democrats have to nab Maine in November, which will be essential in their bid to flip the Senate blue.
“I think right now what people need and want is authenticity and a certain level of populism that they’re not going to get from Gov. Mills and they’re certainly not going to get from Collins,” Gallego told the Washington Post. “This is the candidate that can win.”
In a post to social media, he elaborated that Platner, "is the kind of fighter Maine hasn’t seen in a long time, someone who tells you exactly what he thinks, doesn’t owe anything to the special interests, and wakes up every day thinking about working families."
Gallego, who is also a Marine veteran, noted Platner's similar background, saying he "reflects the grit and independence that defines Maine, and that’s exactly why I’m proud to endorse him."
Platner's unexpected ascendancy in Maine has been described as a challenge to the conventional wisdom held by some Democratic strategists that moderation is the key to mass appeal, especially in a purple state. Platner described Gallego's endorsement as a sign that this narrative is starting to fray.
“I’ve never heard the powers that be in Washington refer to Sen. Gallego as some kind of radical, and I think that he understands my actual politics and what we’re doing," Platner told the Post.
The Post noted that Gallego has endorsed other candidates favored by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in competitive primaries, including Reps. Angie Craig (D-Minn.) and Haley Stevens (D-Mich.).
Thanking Gallego in a post to social media, Platner said, "Together in the Senate we will break the power of the billionaire class and end forever wars."
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'One Family Is About to Control CBS, CNN, HBO, and TikTok': Alarm Grows Over Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger
"When Democrats win back power we are going to break up these anti-democratic information conglomerates," said Sen. Chris Murphy. "All of them."
Feb 27, 2026
Concerns are mounting about the state of the US media landscape now that it looks increasingly likely that Paramount Skydance—a company controlled by the son of billionaire Larry Ellison, a donor to President Donald Trump—will succeed in its bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.
One day after Netflix announced that it was dropping its previously accepted bid to buy Warner, many critics demanded that antitrust laws be invoked to block the Paramount-Warner merger from going through.
Alvaro Bedoya, former commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission, warned that the Ellison family could soon use their control over vast swaths of US media properties to engage in mass censorship, and he pointed to their decisions to cancel Stephen Colbert's program and to refuse to air an interview with Democratic US Senate candidate James Talarico.
"One family is about to control CBS, CNN, HBO, and TikTok," he wrote in a social media post. "They’ll buy [Warner Bros. Discovery] with $24 billion in money from the Saudis, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi. To win over Trump, they canceled Colbert... and blocked Talarico. Much more will follow. Block this rotten deal."
Craig Aaron, co-CEO of Free Press, said the proposed Paramount-Warner merger was "even worse" than the proposed Netflix-Warner merger.
"This deal endangers our democracy by giving a family of pliant billionaires even more control of vast swaths of our news coverage, TV stations, and movie studios," Aaron said. "Allowing more mergers in the already highly concentrated movie business will harm filmmakers and industry workers when Paramount delivers on its promise to make deep cuts to please its Wall Street backers."
Writing in the American Prospect, David Dayen described the Paramount-Warner merger as the "worst-case scenario" that has "echoes of media-political consolidation as we see in dictatorships the world over."
Dayen argued that state governments still had time to block the merger, but warned that they were in a race against time given that Paramount's consultants "are trying to speed run the deal in a matter of weeks."
"The states could challenge the merger even after the feds bless it," Dayen continued, "but by then, Paramount and Warner Bros. would have likely commingled their assets, engaged in layoffs, and made it very difficult to untangle the merger, particularly for judges who are inherently conservative on these matters."
Some Democratic lawmakers are warning that they aren't going to stop fighting the Paramount-Warner merger even if it goes through.
In an interview with Semafor, Sen. Ruben Gallego (R-Ariz.) predicted that the Ellisons would come to regret aggressively buying up US media properties.
"Once we take power, whoever the president is, we’re going to break up your companies," said Gallego. "So all the investment you did to create these mergers are going to be for naught. Your investors are going to be pissed at you, and you’re likely going to end up getting fired as the CEO because you wasted so much money and corrupted yourself in the process."
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) echoed Gallego's argument in a social media post.
"Paramount should enjoy its growing news monopoly while they have it," he wrote, "because when Democrats win back power we are going to break up these anti-democratic information conglomerates. All of them."
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