OAN’s Daniel Baldwin
2:12 PM – Saturday, October 7, 2023
Former President Donald Trump issued a strong statement in support of Israel after Hamas launched the largest attack in decades into the southern parts of 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 told Iowa caucus-goers in Waterloo Saturday afternoon.
Trump was speaking at a Commit to Caucus event in Black Hawk County, a major Democrat stronghold in Iowa, when he made the remarks.
“It has to be dealt with very powerfully,” Trump said. “This is a time where the United States needs leadership. We don’t have leadership, but Israel is at war. And the United States obviously is going to stick with Israel, and strongly.”
Hamas militants had launched thousands of rockets into Israeli towns near the Gaza Strip in a surprise assault Saturday morning. They also sent in soldiers who slaughtered dozens. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country was “at war.”
Trump took aim at the Biden administration for unfreezing $6 billion in Iranian assets before Hamas attacked Israel.
“I would not be at all surprised if part of that tremendous wealth that they just accumulated went into, all of a sudden, watching this level of aggression,” Trump said. “They didn’t have that level of aggression with me.”
This move came as part of a prisoner swap deal which permitted the transfer of money held in a South Korean bank to accounts in Qatar. The Biden administration has claimed that the money will only be allowed to be used for humanitarian purposes, but national security expert Clare Lopez, founder of Lopez Liberty LLC, explained why that may not be true.
“Money’s fungible and were that money to be used for let’s say humanitarian purposes,” Lopez told One America News. “That frees up another $6 billion some other place that will unmistakably, unarguably go to nuclear weapons production. It will go to terror support Islamic jihad groups in the Middle East and, and further abroad.”
Trump emphasized what he believed to be a key point.
“This would have never happened with me there,” Trump said.
Trump is leading his primary competitors by more than 30 percent in Iowa, according to RealClearPolitics polling Average.
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