{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.marshall.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/senator-marshall-america-is-not-the-worlds-babysitter-europe-needs-to-step-up/", "Senator Marshall: America is Not the World\u2019s Babysitter: Europe Needs to Step Up", "2026-07-08", "2026", "2026-07", "Republican", "Senate", "KS", "Roger Marshall", "M001198", "www.marshall.senate.gov", "marshall", "https://www.marshall.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/", "scraper", "Senator Marshall Joins Pete Mundo on KCMO Radio\n\nSalina \u2013 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.\n\nClick HERE to download the full video.\n\nOn increased tensions with Iran:\n\n\u201cHey, Pete. Yeah, good morning \u2014 I\u2019m catching my breath here. I still think that\u2019s Trump negotiating. I had a saying that started nine years ago: \u2018Take everything he says seriously, but not literally.\u2019 I\u2019m 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. \u2018I hate war as only a soldier who lived it can,\u2019 that\u2019s 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\u2019re impossible to deal with, but we cannot let them have nukes. So, we\u2019ll see what the next chapter is \u2014 and it\u2019s just literally day by day. Hope that makes sense.\u201d\n\nOn the future of the war:\n\n\u201cWell, certainly I think that the midterms will be decided by the price of gasoline in October. So, I think if we\u2019re going to do something, we got to rip the bandage off and just go in there. And again, I\u2019m not the warmonger \u2014 I wish people could get to know me for 20 minutes here. But, if they don\u2019t come back to the table here, there\u2019s going to be an extreme bombing. But I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to take a week \u2014 maybe two weeks \u2014 for that to happen, and then we\u2019ll be done with it and go from there. But we don\u2019t want to do that, you know \u2014 we don\u2019t want to destroy their infrastructure, and then there\u2019ll be civilians killed as well. I still think that this is negotiating, the president saying, \u2018Look, Iran, I\u2019m not sure how many times we\u2019ve got to play this game with you.\u2019 But these are religious fanatics, and they\u2019re impossible to deal with. You know, these other countries here \u2014 we\u2019ve defanged Iran \u2014 these other Gulf countries need to step up and figure out what they\u2019re going to do to manage Iran. It should not be the United States\u2019 responsibility.\u201d\n\nOn whether the U.S. underestimated Iran:\n\n\u201cYeah, and that\u2019s a really hard question for me to answer, because you know I wasn\u2019t \u2018inside, inside\u2019 the White House. I think that we maybe underestimated their resolve, if that would be an accurate way to say this. They\u2019re just so irrational that they\u2019re willing to have their country totally destroyed, and they haven\u2019t given up yet \u2014 it doesn\u2019t make any sense. Anybody with any common sense would have said, \u2018Okay, we give up, we yield, and what\u2019s next in life?\u2019 So, if we underestimated something, it was how fanatical these people are \u2014 it\u2019s so hard for Americans to appreciate how crazy these people are.\u201d\n\nOn the rise of socialism in the Democrat party:\n\n\u201cYeah Pete, I think it\u2019s just shocking to see the people that are in the Democrat party that are the voice now of the Democrat party \u2014 these are radical Marxists and they\u2019re certainly left of socialism. I\u2019m not going to call them communists today, but they\u2019re 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 \u2014 higher taxes, and more social programs \u2014 but these people want to abolish capitalism, they want to abolish ICE, they want open borders, those types of things. And they\u2019re the tail wagging the dog at the Democrat party \u2014 this is who Chuck Schumer is kowtowing to right now is his far-left people in his party. So, I think it\u2019s pretty concerning.\u201d\n\nOn moderate Democrats in the Senate:\n\n\u201cWell, they\u2019ll talk to us privately. I mean, I\u2019ve been part of this bipartisan prayer breakfast now for, gosh, three years \u2014 there\u2019s 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\u2019re afraid to be photographed with us, they\u2019re afraid to let people even know that they\u2019re communicating with us, that they\u2019ll be excised from the Democrat party. So yeah, in private it scares them to death, but you know, they\u2019re just afraid to say that publicly, because they\u2019ll be excommunicated from the party.\u201d\n\nOn Adam Hamilton performance in the Democrat Primary:\n\n\u201cWell, it\u2019s not surprising \u2014 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\u2019re actually rooting for Adam Hamilton to win that primary. We think he is going to be a horrible general candidate for them \u2014 I think he\u2019s 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 \u2014 I just don\u2019t 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\u2019re kind of quietly rooting for him, and we\u2019ll see what happens. I think he\u2019s going to have a harder time getting out of that primary, though, than he ever imagined.\u201d\n\nOn what America needs from the NATO Summit:\n\n\u201cI 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\u2019re all talk. I would be embarrassed if I was a Frenchman and would talk to my wife and daughter and say, \u2018Hey, honey, we\u2019re going to depend on America to protect us.\u2019 So, I think that this is tough love from the President \u2014 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\u2019ve got plenty of problems, we\u2019ve got plenty of challenges \u2014 we\u2019ve got China to babysit, Russia to babysit from a nuclear standpoint, we have our own borders to protect. So, I\u2019m 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.\u201d\n\n###", 1, "2026-07-09T08:24:13Z", "2026-07-09T08:26:05Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.marshall.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/senator-marshall-america-is-not-the-worlds-babysitter-europe-needs-to-step-up/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.3819360174238682, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}