Excuse

The results are somewhat inconsequential because I knew I wouldn’t need the bar in China.

— Katie Zacharia, in an interview with Jack Posobiec on Real America’s Voice, explaining why the bar exam results didn’t matter to her ability to practice in China.

If you want the low point of my career, it was that [...] Somebody's death by suicide, that eclipses everything. And the way in which that was, I thought, frankly, used as an excuse, I just thought was one of the sh***iest things I'd ever seen.

— Ben Affleck on Horowitz (Happy Sad Confused podcast), discussing Zack Snyder's Justice League firing and the fallout including Autumn Snyder's death and the reshoots

I don't speak politician.

— Darline Graham, on Fox News' Hannity, said she doesn't speak politician while discussing her debate performance and the Taiwan question.

Donald Trump dug up a zombie law to make things even more expensive for Americans

— Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., during a tariff-related hearing

All of this is a big escalation. And it comes as Trump says the U.S. is about to take over the Strait of Hormuz, which is another oddity, because if it were easy to do, obviously, given the disruption economically around the world, the U.S. would have done it a long time ago.

— Erin Burnett, CNN anchor, on air during a segment critiquing Trump’s statements and the escalation in the Iran conflict.

There’s much that I would have added to my bench statement had I known there would be a dissent read.

— Justice Samuel Alito; in response to the tense exchange with Justice Sotomayor after she read a dissent from the bench

I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool. I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM.

— Trump wrote on Truth Social disputing Pirro’s assessment of the Reflecting Pool and the DOJ finding.

We were unafraid to take on the government, and that’s what the First Amendment’s about.

— Steve Kroft, in an interview about the ‘60 Minutes’ overhaul for New York Magazine, reflecting on the show’s history of challenging power.

Administration officials, they are targets.

— From the suspect's manifesto, as quoted by Norah O'Donnell during the 60 Minutes interview.