NOW: Sec. Rubio Reveals New Justification For War: Israel

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2:01Your new morning groove Ice coffee from McDonald's any size for just 99 cents to 11 a.m Price and participation may vary, cannot be combined with any other offer Hey there folks, it is Monday March 2nd and Robes, I don't know if Rubio was supposed to say what he just said And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ We have heard from the principles today, have we not hexa? Then Trump, now Rubio, all of them made headlines Rubio certainly just did He certainly did. In fact, we were actually watching something else Had news on in the background and saw Marco Rubio talking to reporters outside of Capitol Hill And his arm started flailing and he was getting very animated So we turned up the volume and honestly my jaw kind of dropped when I heard what he had to say

3:01Because he gave us another justification for the U.S. being involved in this war now This is not what Hegseth in an hour in front of reporters And an opportunity to say and did not say is not what President Trump when he wasn't live In front of a room full of people He also in making prepare for Marx did not let us know robes That we acted because Israel was going to act I was actually shocked and you immediately looked at me and said Like what you just said here Was he supposed to say that? Was he allowed to say that? Because yes, he said that Israel was going to attack Iran period And that Israel attacked Iran Then the U.S. and its assets, its people there in the region would all be targeted in retaliation

4:02So in Marco Rubio's I'll just sum it up, we'll give the verbatim But he basically said we had to pre-eminently or preventively attack them Before they caused more damage and caused more casualties for Americans We rather would be on the proactive side than the reactive side That's not the first time we're hearing it Maybe robes and we should say he's there on Capitol Hill Because he's briefing the gang of eight the top leaders on the Senate and the House So maybe he was going to have to tell them this, he knew it was going to get out And he decided he needed to be him, does that make sense? That would make the most sense Marco Rubio is a seasoned politician He knows what to do, he knows what not to do He is risen to this level and is certainly a statesman Like we haven't seen in a while, he has been a busy, busy secretary of state He has the president's ear and I believe is someone who knows what he's saying It was shocking to us, but I think you make a very good point

5:04This was likely going to have to be told to members of Congress periods So he went ahead and told the American public And he got authorized, I'm sure to get ahead of it But to the rest of us robes who for, I guess this started overnight, what? overnight Friday, so on Saturday, it's Monday We've been told pretty a steady stream of reasons for why this had to happen For why this needed to happen They left out a pretty big detail robes If Israel had not decided that they were going to attack, we would not have That's what it sounded like They said this was going to happen no matter what Marco Rubio definitely said that multiple times He danced around on that one In terms of it needing to happen right now And look, that has been the question from the beginning We've been asking that question And frankly, the president hadn't been in front of reporters And neither had Hegseth who might be asking those very specific questions

6:04We talked about the folks who they allow into these rooms to ask questions Aren't the mainstream press that were used to seeing in previous administrations And they would have tended to be, you would think, demanding the answer to why now? Why this attack now? And they were never specifically asked that until Marco Rubio stood in front of that gag over reporters And he was specifically asked about what was the imminent threat? Why did we have to attack now? You know, reporters in the room, aside They had an opportunity to tell folks why And I don't know, robes, that sounds like even an easier sell if you will That we think we were about to be in danger based on something Versus what they had been telling the public up until Rubio At least was there was this threat of missiles They were trying to, it didn't, it wasn't imminent, it was eventual But he has shaken things up

7:05So let's let you hear And again, as we let you hear now the verbatim of exactly what Marco Rubio said We do want to let you know We're just getting word of an additional two service members That have been killed in this war in Iran bringing the number to six We don't have all the details they also mentioned Rogue over a dozen were seriously is that they put it seriously wounded as well So we are following that But all of that emits to Marco Rubio given us now with I guess is the actual justification I mean this look when things don't make sense and we were all scratching our heads 47 years ago wait what? This makes a lot more sense So here is what Marco Rubio told reporters moments ago The imminent threat was that we knew that if Iran was attacked And we believed they would be attacked They would immediately come after us We were not going to sit there and absorb a blow before we responded If we waited for them to hit us first

8:07After they were attacked by someone else We would suffer more casualties and more deaths We went proactively to prevent them from inflicting more damage Had we not done so There would have been hearings on Capitol Hill about how we knew that this was going to happen And we didn't act preemptively to prevent more casualties and loss of life If that is there look these are the professionals And these are the folks we pay good taxpayer money to make these decisions Who are any of us to say that this was not a legitimate threat assessment that they did And they felt they needed to make this move We were discussing as well Netanyahu, if Trump said don't attack Would he have listened? Was Israel going to do this no matter what the U.S. said? A lot of people have already weighed in Again, these comments from Rubio just came out But a lot of folks are already jumping in and weighing in on that And saying there's no way Israel would have done this

9:09Would have attacked Iran in this way without our support Without our blessing at the very least And so look I don't know what goes on between Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump But it would that would make a lot of sense that Israel would want And some would even argue need our blessing to pursue this because we would be then vulnerable to Iran's retaliation With our troops and our assets in the Middle East But Rome's how do Americans feel? How will we feel now about this war? I don't know if for some folks it's a tough sell Nobody wants the country bogged down in this again Nobody wants to see lives at risk But Rose, does this this is the problem? Is it not every single time? What do you believe? We have the three most important people probably in this war in the administration Spoke today and we don't have a clear picture of what happened I mean maybe Marco Rubio finally just let that out

10:12But there were that was 12 hours during the day to day in live events Why they didn't I don't know It erodes some trustworthiness to have three different press conferences With three different headlines And each time you're learning a little bit more And I think a lot of folks are saying hey here in America We are now targeted as Americans around the world And certainly we could have isolated retaliatory attacks as well That we're all now subjected to And certainly so many people in this country are sending their husbands and wives And brothers and sisters and children to go fight this war Don't we deserve a transparent honest reason as to why And when we heard Marco Rubio just a moment ago It was the first time at least for me as an American citizen where I was like Oh, now that makes sense I'm not saying what I feel about the justification of it all But at least that what he said made more sense in terms of the timing

11:14Nothing that President Trump or Pete Hexeth said made sense about the immediate need to go in now Ah, so you're actually saying even though we got it late It makes the most sense It does, it makes the most sense And I do think though The United States obviously had their own motivations for wanting to support Israel Or at least combine efforts with Israel Maybe President Trump saw Israel's decision or their desire to do this now As an opportunity to take out a threat that they felt like was in fact building And look, Marco Rubio and President Trump both said this the hardest hits are yet to come They say they have a significant amount of attacks happening now and in the future So this is far from over and I don't understand that part of it I would think when you go into war and you go in and you're trying to take out leaders

12:15And you're trying to create chaos and destroy infrastructure and military capabilities You would put your biggest and boldest foot forward But apparently the hardest hits are yet to come What do we know about military? Certainly I know nothing But yeah, stay here folks This meeting is happening now Officials on Capitol Hill are being briefed Maybe they are getting updated about the information he gave before he went into that briefing Marco Rubio, he's meeting with the so-called gang of eight Exactly who's in that crew will tell you stay here This is Sophia Bush from work in progress with Sophia Bush Bring the good with avocados for Mexico Upgrade your meals, your get-togethers, even your everyday life Give your moments a little glow up Either one everyone's glad showed up Because avocados from Mexico spark the joy with every bite And by the way, they're good for you too So elevate your everyday Bring the good flavor, so rich and cravable

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15:41Stack up those rewards to save even more, enjoy savings on top of savings when you shop in store or online for easy Drive up and go, pick up or delivery, restrictions apply, see website for full-terms and conditions All right, we continue here on Amy and TJ after hearing what Like you say, Robes might make the most sense As to a justification for this war, Mark Rubio telling reporters a short time ago that in fact the US had intelligence that Israel was going to attack Iran The US made the determination that Iran would then turn around and target US interests so they joined in for this attack This gang of eight interesting name but it goes to most of these at this point are household names Robes put the gang of eights made up of four house members and four members of the US Senate That is great, so we can start with the House

16:42You've got the Rick Crawford who's a Republican who's the chair, Jim Hines who's the Democrat They're from the House Committee on Intelligence And then you have Tom Cotton, Republican, very familiar name, should be a household name Arkansas Another one, Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia And then on the House side we've got... The Speaker and the Minor Leader of course, Mike Johnson and Kim Jeffries, they are absolutely our household names And then John Thun and Chuck Schumer, the majority of Minor Leader in the Senate Having that meeting right now, I assume they're getting the information that we just got about Israel I don't know how this is going to be straight, go ahead No, I was just saying right now they're saying it's Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe And General Dan Cain who we saw at the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with Hegseth earlier today They are going to brief the full membership of Congress as well but apparently this gang of eight knew about the attack shortly before it happened

17:46So they were made aware, they weren't asked what they thought about it necessarily or allowed to weigh in on it but they were at least notified We did find that out, they knew it was happening shortly before it happened Yeah, just a heads up Oh yeah, we didn't expect this from Rubio but Rubio just got our attention certainly and we had to get it confirmed We were actually watching a network at the time when we heard it and for whatever reason it wasn't the headline when the next show started And we thought okay maybe we were wrong, maybe we didn't hear this right and sure enough the anchor of that show Soon as she tossed to the correspondent at the White House She tossed to her asking one question and the reporter ignored it She was like actually can we go back to what Marco Rubio just said? And so we were both like thank you because our jaws were dropped Wait, this is the first time we are hearing that the Secretary of State is telling reporters that our decision to attack Iran was influenced by Israel

18:54That's a massive headline that we had not heard, certainly we're not told that before just now That is a different justification and reasoning for this war and for why those stories I mean those that back and forth will continue but right now folks we are at war And there are six American servicemen who have been killed at least 18 injured seriously And this continues, we appreciate you spending some time with us, we'll always hop on and update you when those updates come not So we appreciate you as always I'm TJ Holmes on behalf of Amy Robot Group This is Julian Edelman from Games with Names I want to take a second to talk about something that's personal to me I've had the privilege of working closely with Robert Kraft for a long time And one thing I've always respected is how seriously he takes up standing up to hate

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