Republican and Democrat politicians and officials in Washington have attacked one another in interviews and on social media, even as they attempt to cobble together a new multibillion-dollar package of military aid to Israel.
“It’s hard to take a look at what President Biden has done and say that we’ve somehow gone soft on Iran. It was the previous administration that decided to get us out of the Iran deal,” White House National Security communications advisor John Kirby told Fox News on Sunday, accusing Biden’s predecessor of getting the US into the current mess in the Middle East.
Trump expressed a different view during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania on Saturday, suggesting Iran decided to strike Israel because of the “great weakness” being shown by the current administration.
“The great weakness that we’ve shown is unbelievable, and it would not have happened if we were in office. You know that, they know that, everybody knows that,” Trump said.
On Friday, Trump accused America’s “incompetent” leaders of putting the world on the brink of a new world war in the Middle East. “What’s going on in Israel could end up in a world war,” Trump said, complaining that President Biden “doesn’t know what the hell he is doing” and noting that while there are about seven months left until the November elections, “that’s an eternity when people are incompetent.”
House and Senate Republicans joined the GOP frontrunner in attacking Biden over Iran’s strikes, with Tennessee Senator Bill Hagerty saying the “unprecedented attack against Israel shows that Biden’s Middle East policies have failed to achieve deterrence and instead enabled and emboldened Iran.”
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who has been campaigning to launch aggression against Iran since at least the mid-2000s, said that Biden “telling bad guys ‘don’t’” hasn’t worked. “I hope the American people are closely following just how dangerous the world has become in the last three years.”
GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson promised to “continue to engage with the White House to insist upon a proper response” to Iran’s counterstrike, while alleging that Biden’s “undermining of Israel and appeasement of Iran has contributed to these terrible developments.”
Congressional Republicans and Democrats are seeking to set aside their differences to urgently pass more aid to Israel, either in a standalone package as part of Biden’s $105 billion request for combined Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan assistance.
“The details of that package are being put together right now. We’re looking at the options on all these supplemental issues,” Johnson said in a television interview Sunday, hinting that the proposal may include aid for Israel and a loan for Kiev. “I think these are ideas that I think can get consensus,” he said.
But some MAGA Republicans, including firebrand House lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene, have blasted Johnson’s plans to connect the two issues.
“How much money do the US taxpayers have to pay now after this weekend’s Iranian activities? How much money will Zelensky get because obviously Ukraine first?” Greene asked in an X post Sunday. “Why do I feel like this week is going to be another week of America last?” the lawmaker, who has threatened repeatedly to vote to oust Johnson over his stance on Ukraine funding, asked.
Iran Doesn’t Seem to Care
Iranian officials have demonstrated repeatedly that they don’t seem to care which party is in power in the US when it comes to ensuring Iran’s security interests. In 2019, while Trump was in office, Iran and the US wrangled in a series of ship seizures and drone shootdowns in the Persian Gulf, and in January 2020, after the US assassinated Iranian military commander Qasem Soleimani, Tehran responded by firing ballistic missiles at US bases in Iraq, leaving over 100 troops with traumatic brain injuries.