BOONE, Iowa — Asserting the U.S. must do all it can to help Israel “eliminate” the Hamas-driven terrorism that rocked Israel over the weekend, GOP presidential candidate and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley is striking an even more hawkish tone for U.S. involvement in two major theaters of war — Europe and the Middle East.
“I would tell Israel that whatever it is you need to, not just get your country back but to eliminate the terrorists, we should do because Hamas is saying, ‘Death to America,” and it is in our best interest to make sure that they are not doing anything that would harm Americans or harm our friends,” Haley told a smallish gathering of some 75 people Monday afternoon at a town hall event in Central Iowa.
“We are going to have to deal with terrorists the way it it needs to be dealt with, and that means you eliminate them.”
Haley echoed the same sentiments she expressed on Fox News over the weekend, when she advised Israel to, “Finish them. They should have hell to pay for what they’ve done.”
Harm has come by the hundreds in the wake of Saturday’s unprecedented attack by Hamas terrorists on Israeli citizens as they observed the solemn holiday of Yom Kippur. Gunmen slaughtered civilians in the streets and in homes, taking women, children and the elderly among their kidnapping victims. More than 100 Israelis were reportedly taken hostage.
Israel struck back, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling the region and the world that his nation expects to be engaged in a “long, difficult war.” As of Monday afternoon, an estimated 1,500 people had been killed in the conflict, at least 900 of them Israelis. Another 2,100 had been wounded, CBS News reported. Eleven Americans were reportedly among the dead.
A world away at rural Boone’s bucolic 1868 Farmhouse Wedding and Event Venue, Haley defended her vociferous support for continued U.S. military aid to Ukraine while backing Israel’s war against Hamas, Hezbollah and other enemies of democracy.
She defended the nearly $50 billion U.S. taxpayers have spent in direct military aid to Ukraine since shortly before Russia invaded its neighbor in late winter 2022. In total, the U.S. has pumped approximately $110 billion in military and economic aid for Ukraine to date.
Haley, who served as U.N. ambassador under Trump reiterated that 3.5 percent or the U.S. national defense budget feeding Ukraine’s military needs is a “small price to pay to prevent” the spread of Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II. If the battles in Ukraine spill into fellow NATO countries, like Poland, the U.S. will be directly pulled into the conflagration.
“So I would continue to do what we’re doing with Ukraine and let them finish this,” Haley said. “We want to finish this quickly, we need to make sure this stops.”
But the war has been dragging on for nearly two years with no end of the bloodshed in sight. Voter support for more weapon support continues to fall, according to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll. The two-day survey last week found 41 percent of respondents believe the federal government should continue to equip Ukraine with weapons of war.
More so, Haley’s position is not particularly popular among members of her party. The poll showed just 35 percent of Republicans support U.S. military aid to Ukraine, down from 39 percent in May. A little over half of Democrats (52 percent) backed arming Ukraine, but support is down from 61 percent in May.
The Ukraine issue has created a rift in a party still dominated by former President Donald Trump, the far and away front-runner in the chase for the GOP nomination. Haley and former Vice President Mike Pence in particular have blasted Trump and fellow Republican candidates, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Ohio businessman Vivek Ramaswamy for opposing more aid and further U.S. involvement in Ukraine.
Without mentioning Trump, Haley took aim at the former president for the “chaos” he’s brought to the Republican Party and the country. She insists she’s the “generational leader” that can bring Americans together and move America beyond Trump and his “weak” Democrat successor, President Joe Biden.
“We’ve got to leave the negativity behind,” Haley said to applause. “Forget the headlines of the past. Forget the chaos of the past. Let’s move forward with strength and stability … Because if we do that, that’s when we’ll suddenly see America back on track. And when we see America’s back on track, we’ll see peace around the world.”
Haley, Trump, and their fellow Republican rivals blame Biden and his administration for, among other foreign policy failures, placating terror sponsor Iran. Biden quickly jumped back into the Iran nuclear deal pushed by his boss, President Barack Obama, after Trump withdrew the U.S. from the multi-national commitment.
Not long before Hamas’ attack on Israel, the Biden administration confirmed it had released $6 billion in frozen assets to Iran for “humanitarian purposes” in exchange for the release of five detained Americans.
Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad has told the BBC that Iran threw its support behind the Palestinian terror group to launch its surprise multi-front attack on Israel. Tehran is a primary supporter of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, as well as Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.
Trump said Biden is being “laughed at all over the world.”
Haley said Biden “owes everyone an apology” after falling all over himself to get back into the Iran deal.
“And because he was falling all over himself to get back into the Iran deal he loosened all the sanctions that allowed in floods of money to go to Iran to allow them to funnel money to Hamas, to Hezbollah and to the Houthis,” she said. “You should never try to negotiate with terrorists.”
While Haley has seen a bump in the polls following the first two Republican presidential primary debates, she’s still lagging far behind Trump in Iowa and nationally. The latest RealClearPolitics average of GOP presidential primary polls shows Haley in third place nationally, at 7.2 percent, but trailing Trump by more than 50 percentage points.
Haley fares a bit better in Iowa, where she also is running in third place (8.8%). She’s still more than 40 percentage points behind Trump, however, according to RealClearPolitics.
Haley’s smaller town hall Monday in central Iowa may be evidence that her post-debate bump may be levelling off.
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M.D. Kittle is the National Political Editor for The Star News Network.
