Senator Marshall: America is Not the World’s Babysitter: Europe Needs to Step Up

Senator Marshall Joins Pete Mundo on KCMO Radio

Salina - U.S. Senator Roger Marshall, M.D. (R-Kansas), joined Pete Mundo on KCMO Radio to discuss the heightened tensions in Iran and what a path to peace looks like, the rise of socialism and Marxism in the Democrat party, and how the Middle East and Europe need to step up and do their part in the world.

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On increased tensions with Iran:

"Hey, Pete. Yeah, good morning - I'm catching my breath here. I still think that's Trump negotiating. I had a saying that started nine years ago: 'Take everything he says seriously, but not literally.' I'm still locked in on a couple goals as I look forward to the future years: number one, no nukes for Iran; number two, no boots on the ground; number three, keep the Strait open, pay attention to the price of gas and groceries. We may have to bomb the heck out of them some more. Pete, I hate war, and you know that we talked about this before. 'I hate war as only a soldier who lived it can,' that's what President Eisenhower said as well. So, you know, every year we take a step forward, we take two steps backwards. These people are extremists, they're impossible to deal with, but we cannot let them have nukes. So, we'll see what the next chapter is - and it's just literally day by day. Hope that makes sense."

On the future of the war:

"Well, certainly I think that the midterms will be decided by the price of gasoline in October. So, I think if we're going to do something, we got to rip the bandage off and just go in there. And again, I'm not the warmonger - I wish people could get to know me for 20 minutes here. But, if they don't come back to the table here, there's going to be an extreme bombing. But I don't think it's going to take a week - maybe two weeks - for that to happen, and then we'll be done with it and go from there. But we don't want to do that, you know - we don't want to destroy their infrastructure, and then there'll be civilians killed as well. I still think that this is negotiating, the president saying, 'Look, Iran, I'm not sure how many times we've got to play this game with you.' But these are religious fanatics, and they're impossible to deal with. You know, these other countries here - we've defanged Iran - these other Gulf countries need to step up and figure out what they're going to do to manage Iran. It should not be the United States' responsibility."

On whether the U.S. underestimated Iran:

"Yeah, and that's a really hard question for me to answer, because you know I wasn't 'inside, inside' the White House. I think that we maybe underestimated their resolve, if that would be an accurate way to say this. They're just so irrational that they're willing to have their country totally destroyed, and they haven't given up yet - it doesn't make any sense. Anybody with any common sense would have said, 'Okay, we give up, we yield, and what's next in life?' So, if we underestimated something, it was how fanatical these people are - it's so hard for Americans to appreciate how crazy these people are."

On the rise of socialism in the Democrat party:

"Yeah Pete, I think it's just shocking to see the people that are in the Democrat party that are the voice now of the Democrat party - these are radical Marxists and they're certainly left of socialism. I'm not going to call them communists today, but they're certainly Marxist. They want to destroy everything, they hate America, they want to end capitalism. The typical socialist just wants to regulate socialism, and then redistribute the money - higher taxes, and more social programs - but these people want to abolish capitalism, they want to abolish ICE, they want open borders, those types of things. And they're the tail wagging the dog at the Democrat party - this is who Chuck Schumer is kowtowing to right now is his far-left people in his party. So, I think it's pretty concerning."

On moderate Democrats in the Senate:

"Well, they'll talk to us privately. I mean, I've been part of this bipartisan prayer breakfast now for, gosh, three years - there's about 12 Democrats, 12 Republicans and we get to know each other really well. And they truly are, a lot of them that go to that Bible study, are very much the moderates of the party. But they're afraid to be photographed with us, they're afraid to let people even know that they're communicating with us, that they'll be excised from the Democrat party. So yeah, in private it scares them to death, but you know, they're just afraid to say that publicly, because they'll be excommunicated from the party."

On Adam Hamilton performance in the Democrat Primary:

"Well, it's not surprising - you recall the last election Chuck Schumer contributed about $30 million. We were outspent three-to-one, four-to-one dollars, and still won by double digits as well. You know, I think we're actually rooting for Adam Hamilton to win that primary. We think he is going to be a horrible general candidate for them - I think he's going to have a really hard time playing his wokeism across the rest of the state. Anything outside of Johnson County and outside of Lawrence - I just don't think his focus on DEI and being woke and those types of things are going to play well across the rest of Kansas. So, we're kind of quietly rooting for him, and we'll see what happens. I think he's going to have a harder time getting out of that primary, though, than he ever imagined."

On what America needs from the NATO Summit:

"I want Europe to stand up for themselves. Why do we have to babysit them? Why do we have to have 100,000 troops in Europe? Look, World War II is over with. How long ago did that all happen and they still expect us to be their military over there. They talk about going to 4-5% of their GDP on military, and not even half of them reached the 2% goal yet. So, they're all talk. I would be embarrassed if I was a Frenchman and would talk to my wife and daughter and say, 'Hey, honey, we're going to depend on America to protect us.' So, I think that this is tough love from the President - NATO needs to stand up and have somebody besides America paying for everything. If you put all the European countries together, their GDP approaches ours. We've got plenty of problems, we've got plenty of challenges - we've got China to babysit, Russia to babysit from a nuclear standpoint, we have our own borders to protect. So, I'm just looking forward to Trump continuing to push those European countries to stand up for themselves and make a bigger investment in their own military."

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