Category: Demand

French Politician Demands The U.S. To Return Statue Of Liberty, Press Secretary Leavitt Unleashes ‘Historical’ Comeback

(L) The Statue of Liberty is lit up at night on Liberty Island in New York Harbor on August 17, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images) / (R) French MEP and co-president of the “Place Publique” political party Raphael Glucksmann delivers a speech. (Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP via Getty Images)

OAN Staff Blake Wolf
4:10 PM – Monday, March 17, 2025

A Socialist member of the European Parliament is reportedly demanding that the U.S. return the famous Statue of Liberty, back to France — arguing that the United States has “chosen to side with the tyrants.”

 

“Give us back the Statue of Liberty,” demanded Raphaël Glucksmann, the French Socialist member of the European Parliament.

“We’re going to say to the Americans who have chosen to side with the tyrants, to the Americans who fired researchers demanding scientific freedom: ‘Give us back the Statue of Liberty,’” Glucksmann stated at a convention held by his political party, Place Publique.

“We gave it to you as a gift, but apparently, you despise it. So, it will be just fine here at home,” he continued.

The Statue of Liberty was first unveiled in the New York Harbor on October 28th, 1886, as a gift from France to commemorate the centennial of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Known as the “Father of the Statue of Liberty,” a French man named Édouard de Laboulaye first proposed the idea of having a sculptor design and build a monument that represents freedom as a gift for the United States.

As an “ardent supporter of America, Laboulaye wished to commemorate the centennial of the Declaration of Independence as well as celebrate the close relationship between France and America. He was equally moved by the recent abolition of slavery in the U.S., which furthered America’s ideals of liberty and freedom,” according to the Ellis Island Foundation.

The statue weighs around 450,000 pounds, standing at 305-feet-tall, and it was designed and built by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi.

Glucksmann, the French Socialist politician, has also previously criticized President Donald Trump for temporarily pulling military support for Ukraine and for cutting federal funding to certain colleges and research institutions.

“The second thing we’re going to say to the Americans is: if you want to fire your best researchers, if you want to fire all the people who, through their freedom and their sense of innovation, their taste for doubt and research. Have made your country the world’s leading power, then we’re going to welcome them,” Glucksmann continued.

A day later, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to Glucksmann, characterizing him as an “unnamed low-level French politician,” while informing reporters that the U.S. will be keeping the statue.

“My advice to that unnamed low-level French politician would be to remind them that It’s only because of America that the French are not speaking German right now,” in reference to Nazi Germany’s incursion into France. She also noted that France “should be very grateful to our great country.”

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Trump Demands Apology From ‘Radical Left’ Bishop Who Urged Him To ‘Have Mercy’ On ‘Transgender Children’

(L) (L-R) U.S. President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and second lady Usha Vance attend the National Prayer Service. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) / (R) Bishop Rt. Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde speaks during the National Prayer Service at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, DC, on January 21, 2025. (Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

OAN Staff Blake Wolf
12:29 PM – Wednesday, January 22, 2025

President Donald Trump shamed and denounced the Episcopal bishop who politicized the long-held tradition of the National Cathedral Prayer Service after her forced political remarks regarding “transgender children” and illegal immigrants.

On Tuesday, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde spoke to a large crowd during a traditional inauguration prayer service attended by President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and their family members.

Then, out of nowhere, the female bishop randomly urges Trump to “have mercy” on “gay, lesbian, and transgender children,” prompting confusion — with attendees rolling their eyes and smirking during the unbiblical, politicized message.

“I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families, some who fear for their lives,” she stated.

Throughout the unprompted speech, Vance could be seen slightly laughing and turning to his wife in disbelief as Budde continued to speak.

Soon after, President Trump responded to the “nasty” speech in a Truth Social post, demanding an apology.

“The so-called Bishop who spoke at the National Prayer Service on Tuesday morning was a Radical Left hard line Trump hater. She brought her church into the world of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart. She failed to mention the large number of illegal migrants that came into our Country and killed people,” Trump wrote.

“Many were deposited from jails and mental institutions. There is a giant crime wave taking place in the USA. Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one. She is not very good at her job! She and her church owe the public an apology!”

The service featured Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu speakers. But, oddly enough, conservative evangelical speakers were not given a speaking slot at the inauguration service.

In addition to Trump, Congressman Mike Collins (R-Ga.) spoke out against Budde’s comments, stating “the person giving this sermon should be added to the deportation list.”

Trump recently signed an executive order to rid the country of illegal aliens accused of violent crimes following former President Joe Biden’s loose “catch and release” border policies — which resulted in millions of illegals flooding in through the Southern border.

Trump also signed an order directing federal agencies to only recognize two genders, male and female, as well as expelling woke DEI initiatives in order to return to meritocracy as the sole factor in the federal hiring process.

“As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female,” Trump stated in his inaugural address on Monday.

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Hamas Top Dog Antony Blinken Sends a Stern Demand to Israel

Will anyone ask Blinken to explain himself?

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SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/hamas-top-dog-antony-blinken-sends-a-stern-demand-to-israel; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

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I hate to say “I told you so” — well, no, actually I don’t mind saying it at all. On May 8, I wrote:

“Yes, we’re on Hamas’s side now. It’s as official as it can get without Old Joe Biden asking Congress for a declaration of war against Israel: the Biden regime has thrown the weight of the United States government behind the effort to save Hamas.”

If you thought that was hyperbole or hysteria, consider the fact that on Sunday, senior Biden regime apparatchik Antony Blinken made it unmistakable, issuing a demand to Israel that could have been spoken by Hamas top dog Ismail Haniyeh: “Get out of Gaza.”

The Washington Free Beacon reported that Blinken was not content to slam Israel’s defensive war against Hamas and demand that the Israelis “get out of Gaza”; he also accused the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) of “violating international humanitarian law.” If you think that this isn’t the kind of language that the U.S. government has used with allies in the past, you’re right.

Blinken did couch his investigation of Israel in terms that made it seem as if it was just a bit of friendly advice about how best to conduct the war effort as if the secretary of state during the U.S.’s catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 would know anything about it, but it was an investigation nevertheless.

Blinken warned that “an Israeli military operation in Rafah” might have some “initial success,” but he said that the Israelis would not be able to sustain that success and would end up “holding the bag on an enduring insurgency.” The secretary of state in this era of America’s national humiliation explained that this was “because a lot of armed Hamas will be left, no matter what [the Israelis] do in Rafah, or if they leave and get out of Gaza, as we believe they need to do. Then you’re going to have a vacuum and a vacuum that’s likely to be filled by chaos, by anarchy, and ultimately by Hamas again.”

And so the alternative that the State Department is offering to Israel is to refrain from entering Rafah. This would allow Hamas to regroup there and strike Israeli civilians again, as its leaders have vowed to do. The Israelis reject this because they have declared that their goal is the complete destruction of Hamas. All Blinken is offering in response is defeatism, a claim that the Israelis won’t be able to destroy Hamas completely, so they shouldn’t even try.

There is no reason why this must be so. There were numerous predictions in 1945 that National Socialism (that’s what “Nazism” means, folks) would continue as an insurgency in the ashes of Germany, but no one was saying that the Allies shouldn’t enter Berlin and end the war anyway. There was indeed a small-scale insurgency after the fall of Berlin and the end of the war, but it was overcome. As long as there are believers in Islam in Gaza, there will be jihadis, but the organized and persistent jihad force the Israelis have faced in Gaza since 2005 hasn’t always existed and need not exist forever.

Blinken’s warning is of a kind that is usually issued by one’s foes in a war, not by one’s friends. And the hard-left apparatchik made it even worse: Blinken added that “it was reasonable to assess that, in certain instances, Israel acted in ways that are not consistent with international humanitarian law.”

Blinken’s timing couldn’t have been worse. The UN cut in half the number of women and children it claims that the Israelis have killed in Gaza — figures that anyone could have seen were unreliable in the first place, since they came from the Gaza Health Ministry, which Hamas runs. There is no serious case that Israel has violated international law; if there were, it would already have been made in the International Criminal Court when Israel had to defend itself against bogus charges of “genocide.”

So why is the Biden regime so anxious to prevent Israeli forces from going into Rafah? Are you afraid of what the IDF might find there? Has the U.S. support for Hamas not been confined solely to “humanitarian aid” to Gaza? The immense anxiety in the White House over this military operation is, to use a word that the media likes to use of Israel, “disproportionate.”

It’s too bad we only have leftist propagandists and not journalists in this country anymore. Someone should ask Blinken to explain himself. But no one will.

World Health Organization top dog demands that Israel stop pursuing Hamas

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SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2024/05/world-health-organization-top-dog-demands-that-israel-stop-pursuing-hamas; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

The entire international left is united against Israel, while Jew-haters persist in thinking that the international left is a tool of the Jews and is controlled by Israel.

Imagine Tedros demanding that the allies do not enter Berlin in 1945 because it would supposedly cause a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

“W.H.O. Chief Tedros Demands Israel Stop Pursuing Hamas,” by John Hayward, Breitbart, May 1, 2024:

The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Tuesday that Israel’s proposed “full-scale invasion on Rafah” would be a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

“We appeal to Israel not to proceed. "We urge all parties to work for a ceasefire and lasting peace,” Tedros said in a statement on Twitter.

In another post on Tuesday, Tedros said he and Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the W.H.O. Health Emergencies Program, met with Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) to “discuss the dire and extremely worrisome health and humanitarian situation in Gaza.”

The U.S. and many of its allies suspended funding to UNRWA, the U.N.’s Palestinian relief organization, in January after Israeli intelligence revealed that UNRWA employees actively participated in the Hamas atrocities of October 7. Several of those allies have since resumed funding, citing the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, even though the U.N. has not completed its investigation of how Hamas operatives came to be employed by the relief agency.

“The ongoing man-made starvation and blockade of humanitarian aid and basic services is increasing the risk of epidemics that can be deadly,” Tedros said, once again demanding an immediate ceasefire on humanitarian grounds.

Like many other international officials who have called for a humanitarian ceasefire, Tedros did not address the fact that Hamas is the party that keeps walking away from negotiations, essentially scuttling every round of ceasefire talks when the smallest compromise to its maximalist demands is proposed.

Hamas is, of course, also the party that started the war in Gaza, and one of the positions it refuses to compromise on is releasing the hostages it took during the outrageous crime against humanity it perpetrated against Israeli civilians on October 7.

It should be noted that Tedros did criticize Hamas for taking hostages in October and called for their “immediate release, on health and humanitarian grounds.” Hamas did not respond to this demand….

Hamas rejects key elements of truce offer, demands release of jihad mass murderer Barghouti

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SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2024/02/hamas-rejects-key-elements-of-truce-offer-demands-release-of-jihad-mass-murderer-barghouti#; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

Islamic law stipulates that “if Muslims are weak, a truce may be made for ten years if necessary, for the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) made a truce with the Quraysh for that long, as is related by Abu Dawud” (‘Umdat as-Salik, o9.16).

Note that this can only be done if “Muslims are weak.” The same legal manual also quotes this verse of the Qur’an: “So do not be fainthearted and call for peace, when it is you who are the uppermost” (47:35). So Hamas would not want a truce at all if it believed that it was in a position of strength. “Interests that justify making a truce are such things as Muslim weakness because of lack of numbers or materiel, or the hope of an enemy becoming Muslim…” (‘Umdat as-Salik, o9.16).

The bottom line: Hamas is feeling the heat and wants a truce in order to regroup and emerge in a stronger position. But Western analysts do not know or care about what Islamic law says, and so Hamas feels free to issue demands even from its position of weakness, aware of how much pressure Israel is under from the Biden regime and others who desperately want it to allow Hamas to live and kill Israeli civilians on another day.

“Hamas seems to rule out key points of truce offer, wants release of Marwan Barghouti,” Times of Israel, February 2, 2024:

Hamas officials said Friday that the group is studying a proposed ceasefire deal that would include prolonged pauses in fighting in Gaza and swaps of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, but at the same time appeared to rule out some of its key components.

Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh held a phone call with Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Ziad Nakhaleh to discuss the deal, the Gaza-ruling terror group announced. According to a statement from Haniyeh’s office, the two agreed any deal with Israel for the release of hostages must be accompanied by a complete halt to the fighting, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, ending the blockade, reconstruction of the Strip and the freeing of Palestinian security prisoners.

Such steep demands would seem to be non-starters for Israel.

Meanwhile Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official in Beirut, also said the group remains committed to its initial demands for a permanent ceasefire that would end the war. Hamdan also said the group seeks the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners being held for acts related to the conflict with Israel, including those serving life sentences.

He mentioned two by name, including Marwan Barghouti, a popular Palestinian leader seen as a unifying figure. Barghouti was arrested by Israel in 2002 and is serving five life terms for planning three terror attacks that killed five Israelis during the Second Intifada….