Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) ripped into President Biden, calling him part of the “pro-Hamas group” of the Democratic Party, after he threatened to withhold weapons from Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proceeds with a full-scale invasion of Rafah in southern Gaza.
Asked on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends” for his reaction to Biden’s latest threat, Scott called it “disgusting.”
“All he cares about is his election. So he is, we’ve got a pro-Hamas group of the Democrat Party, and he’s part of it now,” he added later.
Biden, in a CNN interview released Wednesday, warned he would stop supplying Israel with offensive weapons, including bombs and artillery shells, should Israeli forces lunch an invasion of Rafah. The White House has repeatedly urged Netanyahu against sending forces into Rafah, where more than 1 million Palestinians are seeking refuge amid the violence.
Netanyahu has maintained that moving into Rafah is necessary to go after the leaders of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that has run the Gaza Strip since 2007 and carried out the Oct. 7 surprise assault against Israel that killed about 1,200 people.
Scott suggested Biden’s support for humanitarian aid for Gaza continues to enable the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), a key U.N. agency that provides food, water and shelter to Palestinians in Gaza.
Several Republicans in Congress have pushed for UNRWA funding to be halted in the wake of allegations that a dozen of its staffers took part in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack.
“[Biden’s] clearly on Hamas’s side,” Scott continued. “I mean, look, what he wanted, right? He wanted the aid so he could give it to Gaza, which goes to Hamas, and then we saw yesterday, UNRWA is stealing the aid and selling it. I mean, you knew this was going to happen, we knew this was going to happen.”
A senior Biden administration official called Scott’s accusation “ridiculous.”
“President Biden shares Israel’s goal of dismantling Hamas and he has done more than any world leader to support Israel as it has defended itself since October 7th. The President surged emergency military aid following the horrific terrorist attack on October 7th,” the official told The Hill.
“The President was very clear last night [last Wednesday], as he has always been: while the United States will continue ensure that Israel has all of the military means it needs to defend itself against all of its enemies, including Hamas, he does not want to provide material support to an operation we oppose – especially since we believe there are alternate ways that Israel can accomplish its objectives,” the official continued.
Scott reflected on his recent trip to Israel, where he met with Netanyahu in Gal On, a kibbutz in the southern part of the country.
“Would we leave [Osama] bin Laden in a corner and just pull back because the world didn’t like the way we’re fighting a war? And they’re [Israel] all committed to making sure they give the civilians plenty of time to get out of Rafah,” Scott said, adding later, “Think about it, I mean, if they attacked America, if somebody attacked America, we’re going to say, ‘Oh no, we’re not going to go after the people that killed our women and children?'”
Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.), in an interview with Politico on Wednesday, said he hopes Biden was having a “senior moment” when he made the threat. He suggested Biden’s comments violated what the Speaker thought were promises to guarantee Johnson’s support for the $95 billion emergency foreign aid package.
“I hope — I believe he’s off-script,” Johnson said. “I don’t think that’s something that staff told him to say. I hope it’s a senior moment, because that would be a great deviation in what is said to be the policy there.”
Scott alleged Biden was mostly interested in aid for Ukraine and Gaza when pushing for the emergency supplemental but did not provide any evidence to back these claims up.
“I knew this was going to happen. I said this was going to happen with that, with the supplemental, because here’s what he wanted. All he wanted was Ukraine aid. That’s all he cared about, and humanitarian. He got it. He didn’t believe in Israel aid,” Scott said.
This story was updated 5/12/2024 at 5:09 p.m.