Hamas fighters flooded into Israel over the weekend and set the country alight, decimating civilian areas with rockets and gunfire while raiding military bases and taking both civilians and military personnel hostage. As Israel struck back and the fighting intensified, many members of the GOP took the opportunity to use the attack to show the importance of a strong border.
The comments on the matter are generally two-fold, with the GOP focusing both on the raid across the Israel-Gaza border as being an example of why strong border defenses are necessary and also warning that many Hamas terrorists likely snuck across the border before the attacks and so could launch terror attacks on American soil if America gets involved in the war.
Such is what former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy took to Twitter to say, posting, as a caption on a video, “Now is the time for bold action. Here’s how America must meet the moment: 1. Rescue all American hostages 2. Provide full support for our ally Israel 3. Confront Iran and the new Axis of Evil 4. Focus on securing our own open border 5. Condemn antisemitism in the United States.”
In the attached video, Rep. McCarthy warned that many terrorists are already over the border and could begin launching attacks at any time, saying, “We should wake up ourselves. We could have the same thing happen next week to us. We caught more people on the terrorist watchlist in February than we caught in the entire administration. We could have cells sitting inside of America right now.”
McCarthy added that America’s security posture could be far more precarious than Israel’s as they have a strong border at Gaza and competent intelligence services, whereas we have a seemingly open border: “We should take a step back and look at ourselves. Your intel is never perfect and we’ve got a wide-open border. They’re coming from 160 different countries.
Watch him here:
Now is the time for bold action. Here's how America must meet the moment:
1. Rescue all American hostages
2. Provide full support for our ally Israel
3. Confront Iran and the new Axis of Evil
4. Focus on securing our own open border
5. Condemn antisemitism in the United States pic.twitter.com/D7IP8XJMnn— Kevin McCarthy (@SpeakerMcCarthy) October 9, 2023
Former President Donald Trump also spoke about the matter, taking to Truth Social to warn, “The same people that raided Israel are pouring into our once beautiful USA, through our TOTALLY OPEN SOUTHERN BORDER, at Record Numbers. Are they planning an attack within our Country? Crooked Joe Biden and his BOSS, Barack Hussein Obama, did this to us!”
President Trump responds to Hamas attacks. Says "the same people" are being let into the country via Biden's open border. pic.twitter.com/Jokg15B75Y
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) October 9, 2023
Florida Governor and floundering 2024 contender Ron DeSantis chimed in as well, writing on Twitter that Israel must take prompt and firm action against Hamas and that America needs to seal its southern border to stave off terroristic threats. He wrote, in part, “And right now, America must immediately do three things: (i) freeze any money Joe Biden has made available to Iran; (ii) cut off any and all types of foreign aid flowing to Hamas; and (iii) immediately shut down America’s wide-open southern border to ensure we are in a position to better protect Americans here at home from these real threats. These are incredibly dangerous times – but I have confidence that both the Israeli and American spirit can and will prevail over evil.“
