Rubio to Europe: We Hit You Because We Love You

Barack Obama kicked off a minor social media frenzy last week when he told the liberal podcaster Brian Tyler Cohen that aliens are real. “They’re real, but I haven’t seen them,” he said, adding that they’re certainly not “being kept” in “Area 51.”

On Sunday, Obama tried to clean his comments up: “Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there,” he wrote on Instagram. But “I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!” If you ask us, sounds someone’s alien handlers got to him. Happy Monday.

Trump Shits on Europe. Rubio Applies Perfume.

by Andrew Egger

At least one top Trump administration official isn’t anxious to see the U.S.-led international order crumble overnight, and on Saturday he got his chance to say so. Secretary of State Marco Rubio took the stage at the Munich Security Conference in an attempt to strike a reassuring tone toward America’s European allies.

“We want Europe to be strong. We believe that Europe must survive,” Rubio said. “Because the two great wars of the last century serve for us as history’s constant reminder that ultimately our destiny is, and will always be, intertwined with yours.”

Rubio wasn’t without his critiques of Europe. But unlike Vice President JD Vance, whose hectoring there’s-a-new-sheriff-in-town speech at the same conference last year scandalized European allies, Rubio couched his critiques as a shared challenge for Europe and America both to overcome. Europe, he said, had at times lost its way in the same manner and for the same reasons that America had: because of a shared “dangerous delusion” that the world had entered “the end of history,” in which the lure of open markets and prosperity would inevitably charm the world’s despotic regimes into embracing liberal democracy.

“We made these mistakes together, and now together we owe it to our people to face those facts and to move forward to rebuild,” Rubio said. “This is why we Americans may sometimes come off as a little direct and urgent in our counsel. This is why President Trump demands seriousness and reciprocity from our friends here in Europe. The reason why, my friends, is because we care deeply. We care deeply about your future and ours.”

Whatever else he is, Rubio remains a talented politician; the whole thing was artfully done. In the world in which he operates—a ...