During an appearance on Fox News on Sunday, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) argued there was an Iranian connection to the terror attacks that unfolded over several hours in southern Israel on Saturday.
McCarthy was critical of his Democrat counterparts, noting the lack of rhetoric condemning the Hamas attack.
“I want to get your reaction when you first heard that Israel had been attacked and invaded,” FNC host Trey Gowdy said. “You are such a staunch supporter of that country. And as I noted, I mean that was the very first place you went, the very first trip abroad when you became the speaker. What was your reaction?”
“Well, it’s horrific because we’re used to seeing rockets come from Gaza, but this was much different,” McCarthy said. “This was from land, sea, and air. This had to be planned for quite some time. And anyone who tells you that Iran is not involved they are lying to you. We’ve never seen anything like this in 50 years. It’s very concerning to me because of the attack on civilians, on children, four Americans, as we know now, had been killed. Others have been kidnapped. But you’ve got to put this in perspective: for those who have not been to Israel, it is not a big country. And the population is about nine million.”
“So more than 700 Israelis have been murdered,” he continued. “That would be the equivalent of about 25,000 Americans getting murdered. And this is my concern. We have to destroy Hamas. This is a terrorist organization. This is not something that you have to go in and try to beat back. It has to be destroyed. And the concern here is the build-up to allow this to happen, the appeasement from this administration. But the shockingness of those on the other side of the aisle. Congresswoman Tlaib in May — she tried to have an antisemitic event. I shut down the room that she wanted to hold it. She called Israel from a terrorist state. Then the other thing that she recently did, she put out a press release today, literally saying part of this is caused because Americans provide resources to Israel.”
“And you know what?” McCarthy added. “The leader, Hakeem Jeffries, his comment was ‘no comment.’ Biden, the president of the United States, has not even condemned this. Neither of them have. This is an atrocity that’s happening in America itself, that they’ve watched a shared relationship, the only country in what we find the Middle East that has democracy, that’s been our greatest supporter, sitting and being silent about this.”
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor