5/18 - Robert Gates

Secretary of State Marco Rubio tells "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" that his talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov are "not a complete waste of time." "Are they tapping us along? Well, that's what we're trying to find out," Rubio said. Bridget Brink, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine until last month, tells "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" that the "first sign" that she should leave her post "was the Oval Office meeting in February, in February, President Trump and President Zelensky, where I saw that our approach is to put pressure on Ukraine and not pressure on Russia." Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" that "hindsight is 20/20" about the interview that Robert Hur did with former President Joe Biden, which highlighted Biden's memory lapses and Democrats lambasted at the time. Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who served in George W. Bush's administration tells "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" that Russian President Vladimir Putin "feels that he has a destiny to recreate the Russian Empire. And as my old mentor, Zbigniew Brzezinski once said, without Ukraine, there can be no Russian Empire." Ret. Gen. Stanley McChrystal tells "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's focus on DEI in the military is a "distraction" and "not helpful." "The idea that everybody's got to look a certain way, got to have biceps of a certain size, there's got to be a male, straight, all these things, is not my experience," McChrystal said.