Ron DeSantis booked an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” before Hamas attacked Israel, and the hostilities in the Middle East turned expected fireworks into a friendly give-and-take between the Governor and Joe Scarborough.
“This is perhaps Israel’s darkest hour,” DeSantis said, asserting the country’s “right to defend itself.”
“And that means do that to the hilt. You have to uproot the terrorist infrastructure, these networks and Hamas needs to be no more,” DeSantis added.
The Governor opined that Hamas’ moves last weekend looked like an “orchestrated attack” against the country, noting that for him, there was a “personal” connection given that Iran also has “American blood on its hands.”
“Look, this is personal for me, in the sense of, I served in Iraq back in 2007, 2008. We were in places like Fallujah and Ramadi,” DeSantis said.
While the opposition was “mostly Sunni Arab al-Qaida fighters at the time,” DeSantis said that “most of the casualties that U.S. troops were suffering were at the hands of Iranian-backed Shia militias.”
DeSantis also expressed disappointment in modern-day Iraq.
“As a veteran of that conflict, it definitely leaves a bad taste in my mouth to see that that country is basically a satellite of the Iranians and you have the Shia dominant, and they’ve not been the type of partner that people envisioned back in the day.”
Additionally, DeSantis defended his old political ally, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying that he didn’t “buy” attacks that his preoccupation with other issues left Israel vulnerable to the attack.
“With respect to Prime Minister Netanyahu, I was just out there in April and I found him, I met with him, I found him to be very engaged,” DeSantis said. He credited the Likud leader with an “amazing … knowledge of everything going on in the region.”
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