In a shocking attempt to point fingers following the savage Hamas attacks on Israel over the weekend, former Vice President Mike Pence alleged that the sort of appeasement and isolationism he believes took root under the leadership of former President Donald Trump is a contributing factor to what occurred, as Politico reports.
Pence's remarks came during an appearance in Iowa in which he lamented what he views has been a “retreat on the world stage” spearheaded by certain factions within the Republican Party.
Commenting on the brutality unleashed by Hamas on Israeli civilians, Pence decried “voices of appeasement like Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis.”
The former VP accused the aforementioned GOP primary rivals of hewing to principles he said “have run contrary to the tradition in our party that America is the leader of the free world.”
Pence went on, blasting Republican presidential hopefuls and others within the party he says have “embraced the language of isolationism and appeasement.”
Though he made a point of criticizing current President Joe Biden for “projecting weakness on the world stage,” Pence added, “[t]his is also what happens when you have leaders in the Republican Party signaling retreat on the world stage.”
Despite Pence's harsh assessment of his approach to world affairs, Trump was resolute in defending his administration's stance on Israel while also rendering scathing judgment against the posture taken by the current occupant of the White House.
The Trump campaign released a statement saying, “These Hamas attacks are a disgrace and Israel has every right to defend itself with overwhelming force.”
“Sadly, American taxpayer dollars helped fund these attacks, which many reports are saying came from the Biden administration,” the campaign went on.
Trump's campaign added, “We brought so much peace to the Middle East through the Abraham Accords, only to see Biden whittle it away at a far more rapid pace than anyone thought possible.”
Trump was not the only GOP presidential hopeful to emphatically declare support for Israel in the wake of the weekend onslaught from Hamas.
As ABC News noted, much of the Republican field raised concerns over the Biden administration's September decision to unfreeze $6 billion in Iranian assets in exchange for the release of five U.S. citizen prisoners – a move critics say will help facilitate terrorism such as that which took place over the weekend.
DeSantis, for his part, suggested that Biden has implemented “polices that have gone easy on Iran” and “helped fill their coffers,” creating a scenario in which “Israel is now paying the price....”
In addition to his shots at Trump, Pence also went after Biden on the topic, saying that the president “projects weakness on the world stage” and also “kowtows to the mullahs in Iran,” but he appeared most eager to seize on the bloodshed in Israel as another opportunity to try to differentiate himself from a Republican rival whom he continues to trail in the polls by a massive margin.
