Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Monday came to the defense of fellow White House hopeful Mike Huckabee, who set off a firestorm by saying President Barack Obama's support of the Iran deal will doom the Israelis and "march them to the door of the oven."
"Frankly, I'm a little shocked that this is getting the kind of pushback that it is. It is clear that this is Iran's intent," Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, said Monday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
"Iran is very clear that they want to destroy the state of Israel, wipe out the Jews in Israel. They have conferences in Tehran and have for years for Holocaust deniers."
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Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, made the explosive Holocaust reference
during an appearance on Breitbart News Saturday.
"This president’s foreign policy is the most feckless in American history. It is so naive that he would trust the Iranians.... By doing so, he will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven. This is the most idiotic thing, this Iran deal. It should be rejected by both Democrats and Republicans in Congress and by the American people," Huckabee said.
Democratic National Committee head Rep. Deborah Wasserman-Schultz of Florida demanded an apology for what she said was a "grossly irresponsible statement." And the National Jewish Democratic Council, a Democratic group, said the remark "smears the memory of Holocaust victims."
Huckabee has not apologized.
Santorum said lawmakers on Capitol Hill must reject the Iran nuclear deal or face being responsible for the potential consequences of the Middle East nation successfully developing a nuclear bomb.
"Any United States senator or congressman, if you vote for this agreement, here's what you've done … you, a member of Congress, you have allied yourself [with] and now you own Iran," he told Steve Malzberg.
"Everything Iran does from this point forward is now on your plate because you have now enabled them to go ahead and pursue their vision of a Shiite-dominated world and you have given them all the tools to do it.... You are complicit with them."
Santorum said he is also disturbed by a side deal that was made in which the U.S. would have to defend Iran against Israel if the Jewish state were to launch a cyberattack on Iran.
"The idea that we're going to protect them against any type of military or cyberattacks," Santorum said.
"We're going to put them on a path to nuclear weapons, we're going to restore the conventional weapons to them, we're going to give them the money so they can promote terrorism and then we're going to protect them as they go about trying to systematically destroy all of our allies."
Santorum said the deal is getting approval from around the world because President Barack Obama is "still the leader of the free world and the world is going to follow him."
"There is no other leader out there. There's no country that can lead and none of them want to lead so they're all going along simply because it's the United States of America. The fact that everyone is following is because we are who we are," he said.
"And, by the way, this president didn't build this great country, didn't make it the strongest military power in the world, didn't make it the strongest economic power in the world.
"In fact, he's doing everything he can to reduce our economic and military strength and at the same time giving away power and influence to other countries around the world."
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