Former President Donald Trump and other GOP contenders tried to lay blame on the Biden administration after Hamas militants launched the deadliest attack on Israel in decades, prompting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare the country a.
Former President Donald Trump and other GOP contenders tried to lay blame on the Biden administration after Hamas militants launched the deadliest attack on Israel in decades, citing a $6 billion transfer to Iran that administration officials insisted Saturday had yet to be spent.
Hamas’ surprise early morning attack during a major Jewish holiday Saturday marks a new foreign policy front in a presidential election that has already been unusually dominated by foreign affairs. Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine has divided the Republican field, with some like Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis questioning the U.S.’s continued involvement, while others like former Vice President Mike Pence insist that supporting the Ukrainian military is vital to U.S. national security interests.
On Saturday, the candidates appeared united, standing with Israel.
“The Hamas terrorist invasion of Israeli territory and the murder of Israeli soldiers today and the brutal murder of citizens is an act of savagery that must and will be crushed,» Trump said at an appearance in Waterloo, Iowa.
Trump, like others, directly blamed the $6 billion — “American taxpayer dollars helped fund these attacks,” he said in an earlier statement — and argued that, under Biden, the U.S. is perceived as being “weak and ineffective” on the global stage, opening the door to hostility.
“They didn’t have that level of aggression with me. They didn’t have it. This would have never happened with me either,” Trump claimed, adding later in Cedar Rapids that Biden had “betrayed Israel» with the deal.
