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During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, lawmakers from both parties questioned Kristi Noem about an ad campaign that featured her, for which the government paid $220 million. President Trump fired Ms. Noem on Thursday.
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As the U.S. and Israel continue their bombardment of Iran and the conflict spreads throughout the region, we speak with two former U.S. government officials with experience in Middle East policy. Hala Rharrit is a career diplomat who resigned from the State Department in 2024 to protest the Biden administration's Gaza policy, and Jasmine El-Gamal served as a Middle East adviser at the Pentagon during the Obama administration.
"This is exactly what American diplomats have been trying to avoid for two decades. And before my resignation, it is exactly what I was warning against," says Rharrit, now in Oman after leaving Dubai with her family for safety.
El-Gamal casts doubt on the Trump administration's shifting reasons for the war, including President Trump's "feeling" that Iran was about to strike first. "It is ludicrous to expect the American people to believe that Iran would have attacked the U.S. preemptively in the middle of negotiations," she says, adding that the contradictory messages show "how little they were really thinking this through before they went to war."
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