LESTER HOLT: As president of the United States, what would you be urging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do at this moment? Governor DeSantis?
GOV. RON DESANTIS: I would be telling Bibi, “Finish the job, once and for all, with these butchers, Hamas.” They’re terrorists. They’re massacring innocent people. They would wipe every Jew off the globe if they could. He cannot live with that threat right by his country. The Hamas should release every hostage, and they should unconditionally surrender. I’m sick of hearing the media, I’m sick of hearing other people blame Israel just for defending itself. We will stand with Israel in word and in deed, in public and in private.
Supposedly, there’s a strict line between “NeoCons,” like Haley, and "NatCons/Traditional Conservatives,” represented by DeSantis and Ramaswamy. But I sure can’t see any difference, with my admittedly limited intellect.
LESTER HOLT: Ambassador Haley, what would you do? What would you be urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to do? Would you consider a humanitarian pause, for example?
NIKKI HALEY: The first thing I said to him when it happened was I said, “Finish them. Finish them.” And the reason is, I worked on this every day when I was at the United Nations. And we have to remember that they have to, one, eliminate Hamas; two, support Israel with whatever they need, whenever they need it; and, three, make sure we bring our hostages home.
We need to be very clear-eyed to know there would be no Hamas without Iran, there would be no Hezbollah without Iran, there would not be the Houthis without Iran, and there wouldn’t be the Iranian militias in Syria and Iraq that are trying to hit our military men and women, if it hadn’t been for Iran. And who is funding Iran right now? China is buying oil from Iran. Russia is getting drones and missiles from Iran. And there is an unholy alliance. We need to be clear-eyed.
The last thing we need to do is to tell Israel what to do. The only thing we should be doing is supporting them and eliminating Hamas. It is not that Israel needs America. America needs Israel. They are the tip of the spear when it comes to this Islamic terrorism, and we need to make sure that we have their backs in that process.
LESTER HOLT: Thank you. Mr. Ramaswamy, Mr. Ramaswamy, any daylight between you and the candidates we just heard on this issue on what you would tell the prime minister?
VIVEK RAMASWAMY: Not in terms of what I would tell the prime minister, no. In fact, I would go one step further. The founding vision of Israel was based on the idea that they don’t want to depend on anybody else’s sympathy or direction in defending themselves. So, what I would tell Bibi is that Israel has the right and the responsibility to defend itself. I would tell him to smoke those terrorists on his southern border. And then I’ll tell him as president of the United States, I’ll be smoking the terrorists on our southern border.