
The White House has confirmed that President Barack Obama may visit Cuba in 2016–and says it is looking for ways to let the Cuban “revolution” interpret human rights norms in ways that allow it to retain power.
by Joel B. Pollak3 Jan 2016, 12:16 AM PST0

CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer pressed White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes on President Obama wanting to train people in Syria and Iraq to fight ISIS even though “that’s been a total failure” on Monday’s “Situation Room.” Blitzer said,
by Ian Hanchett7 Dec 2015, 3:19 PM PST0

Obama is scheduled to tour the Dignity for Children Foundation on Saturday. In a press briefing with reporters, White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said that the visit reflected Obama’s desire to lead on the controversial issue, encouraging more countries to respond to the attacks in Paris by taking in more refugees.
by Charlie Spiering20 Nov 2015, 7:52 AM PST0

Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” the deputy national security adviser for strategic communication for President Barack Obama Ben Rhodes said the president is not worried about America taking Syrian refugees despite reports that at least one man linked to the
by Pam Key15 Nov 2015, 7:05 AM PST0

WASHINGTON – Top Obama administration and White House officials partied away on the night of the anniversary of 9-11 and the Benghazi terrorist attack.
by Patrick Howley11 Sep 2015, 9:33 PM PST0

There are, as Isaiah Berlin said, foxes who try to do many things, and hedgehogs who do only one. In foreign policy, Americans are hedgehogs: we win wars. The best foreign policy for the U.S. is an ever-stronger military. Beyond that, we are adrift.
by Joel B. Pollak14 Aug 2015, 6:18 AM PST0

President Barack Obama’s announcement that he will approach the UN Security Council to approve the nuclear deal with Iran, and rescind past resolutions and international sanctions, before Congress approves the agreement, came as something of a surprise to many. When Congress passed Sen. Bob Corker’s Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, and President Obama signed it into law in May, the public understanding was that Congress would have the final say.
by Joel B. Pollak17 Jul 2015, 7:50 AM PST0

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Western powers had “collapsed” to nearly every single Iranian demand so far in the nuclear talks.
by Joel B. Pollak5 Jul 2015, 5:44 AM PST0

Deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes–who lacks any prior qualifications for the post–has explained to the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg at the Aspen Ideas Festival on Monday that the administration believes that a bad Iran deal is worth doing because political reform inside the Iranian regime is more likely with the deal than without. Or, to use Rhodes’s own words: “We believe that the kiss of the nuke deal will turn the Iranian frog into a handsome prince.”
by Joel B. Pollak1 Jul 2015, 6:21 AM PST0

Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes said “an agreement is necessary, and has to be good enough to be worth doing, even if Iran doesn’t change” and that a deal is “more likely to produce an evolution in Iranian behavior”
by Ian Hanchett30 Jun 2015, 12:23 PM PST0

State Department spokesperson Marie Harf and White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes have launched an unprecedented effort to discredit, discount and deny the Times story that reports that “Tehran’s stockpile of nuclear fuel increased about 20 percent over the last 18 months of negotiations.”
by Joel B. Pollak3 Jun 2015, 6:23 PM PST0

The National Security Council (NSC) is meant to serve as “the President’s principal forum for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and cabinet officials. Increasingly, it is a repository for radicals whose ideas are too extreme for public scrutiny, and who would never pass congressional muster. The latest case is the NSC’s hosting last month of a Palestinian-American teenager, Tariq Khdeir, who was beaten by Israeli police in 2014.
by Joel B. Pollak13 May 2015, 6:11 AM PST0

White House Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes did not say if Cuba had many any concessions regarding fugitives currently hiding in the country when he was asked on Wednesday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” When “any give at all” from Cuba
by Ian Hanchett15 Apr 2015, 10:08 AM PST0

CNN’s “The Lead” anchor Jake Tapper pressed Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes on President Obama’s evolving stance on Iran on Monday. Tapper played clips of the president in 2012 saying that “the deal we’ll accept is they end their nuclear program.
by Ian Hanchett6 Apr 2015, 2:26 PM PST0

Israel’s Army Radio, via the Jerusalem Post, reports that local sources claim U.S. President Barack Obama arranged the leak of a Mossad report on the Iran nuclear talks as an act of revenge against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for agreeing to speak to Congress in February about radical Islam and the Iranian threat. The Mossad report allegedly suggests new sanctions would cause talks to collapse, and its release is calculated to suggest disagreement with Netanyahu.
by Joel B. Pollak22 Jan 2015, 5:34 AM PST0