Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel took to Fox News on Saturday to explain how GOP presidential candidates could respond to Hamas militants’ unprecedented, surprise attack on Israel.
“I think this is a great opportunity for our candidates to contrast where Republicans have stood with Israel – time and time again – and Joe Biden has been weak,” McDaniel said.
“And when America is weak, the world is less safe. We’re seeing this not just with the war in Ukraine and with an emboldened China, but now with an attack on Israel.”
McDaniel’s comments arrive after Hamas launched a multi-front attack on Israel that involved the firing of thousands of rockets from Gaza in moves that left hundreds of people dead.
The RNC chair wrote on social media Saturday that her party stands with Israel and claimed that President Joe Biden “unfroze” $6 billion for Iran, adding that the president’s “weakness and appeasement has emboldened our enemies.”
Right-wing figures have also claimed this weekend that Iran used the money to aid Hamas in its attack on Israel, Mediaite noted.
Fox News national security correspondent Jennifer Griffin told the network that the $6 billion, linked to a prisoner exchange deal with Iran this year, is “still currently held in a Qatari bank account with U.S. Treasury oversight.”
White House National Security Spokesperson Adrienne Watson wrote in a social post that “not a single cent from these funds has been spent, and when it is spent, it can only be spent on things like food and medicine for the Iranian people.”
McDaniel, elsewhere in the interview, declared that the attack “is falling squarely on the shoulders of Joe Biden” and also referred to “unexpected events” that can have an impact on political campaigns.
“There is no question that Americans, who are feeling less safe at home economically — certainly on the streets with crime rising — but now are saying, ‘He’s not only a failure domestically, he’s a failure when it comes to foreign policy, and our country is less safe, because we have such a weak leader in Joe Biden,’” McDaniel said.