Unlike the Biden administration, former President Donald Trump would not have tolerated "open attacks" by Iranian-backed Houthi terrorists on U.S. troops and American and global shipping in the Red Sea, Robert Wilkie told Newsmax on Thursday.
Wilkie, who led the Department of Veteran Affairs in the Trump administration, was asked on "National Report" how differently Trump would have handled Israel's war against Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip than the Biden administration.
"We wouldn't be doing things like the Vice President of the United States [Kamala Harris] … claiming that [Israel Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu has engaged in ethnic genocide," he said. "We would not have a president of the United States, every time Israel responds, calling on them to restrain after thousands of their people were massacred."
Wilkie said Trump and Netanyahu had a close personal relationship, close enough where one could "go through Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, as I did, and there were massive pictures of President Trump and the prime minister on the sides of buildings."
"The other thing that President Trump would not have tolerated, and this administration has tolerated, is just the open attacks on American troops and American shipping and global shipping by Iran proxies in the form of the Houthis," he said.
"This administration has not responded. When it did respond, it told them we were coming, and they attacked or responded in the middle of the morning when they were guaranteed not to have any casualties. That's the kind of lunatic incompetence that we have seen from the Biden national security team since Day 1. And remember, that as soon as President Trump left office, [Joe] Biden started transferring tens of billions of dollars to the Iranians at a time when President Trump had bankrupted the Iranian economy to the point where they had no less than $5 billion in reserves and he applied maximum sanctions to them, and he killed the No. 1 purveyor of international terrorism, [Qasem] Soleimani. It's quite a contrast to the weakness and the incompetence of the Biden team."
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Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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