ICYMI: Ricketts Discusses Terror Attacks on Israel with Hugh Hewitt & Newsmax

October 10, 2023

OMAHA, NE – U.S. Senator Pete Ricketts (R-NE), a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, called for America to stand with Israel and condemned the terror attacks on Israel by Iran-backed Hamas.

In a national radio interview with Hugh Hewitt this morning, Ricketts described the barbarism of the Hamas terrorists and called on the Biden administration to respond with full support.

“The only thing that should be coming out of the (Biden) administration right now is ’Israel, what do you need? We stand with you,’” Ricketts said. “And if the Biden administration won’t act, I can tell you the U.S. Congress will. I’ve already got my team working on an amendment to defund the Palestinian Authority.”

Ricketts also touched on concerns about terrorists and enemies of America taking advantage or the situation on our southern border.

“Our adversaries, again, know that the Biden administration is not defending our southern border, and my worry is they’re taking advantage of it,” Ricketts continued. “We could be open to the same sort of attacks that Hamas has just perpetrated on Israel. They infiltrated Israel’s border and were able to carry out these heinous crimes and kidnappings. And we’re opening ourselves up to the same things by allowing our southern border to be open where people can infiltrate and potentially do us harm down the road.”

Listen to the full radio interview HERE.

In a television interview with Newsmax’s Greg Kelly last night, Ricketts described how the terror attacks directly involve the United States.

“We know there’s families out there who have their children, their brothers, their sisters, their aunts, uncles, moms, dads, grandparents that are being held captive right now in Gaza,” Ricketts said. “And of course, Americans have been killed. And we believe Americans are also being held captive. So this directly involves our country, and we want them to know that we stand with them in solidarity. We must make sure that Israel is supported. They are the strongest ally in the region. They’re the only democracy in the region. It’s a tough, tough neighborhood. And we can see that from this barbarous and savage attack that Hamas is a terrorist organization and they’re being funded by a terrorist state, Iran. So this is something that involves us directly.”

Ricketts condemned the “incompetence” of the Biden administration on foreign policy issues, calling for the Palestinian Authority to be defunded and money to Iran to be blocked.

“Now we know the Wall Street Journal broke the story over the weekend that Iran and the Revolutionary Guards were helping to plot this attack,” said Ricketts. “They’re helping to fund it. And at the same time while the Biden administration is in secret negotiations to give Iran $6 billion. This is just unconscionable. It just shows how incompetent the Biden administration is, how foolish they are. We in Congress will step up if the Biden administration will not. I’m working with my team to introduce an amendment to defund the Palestinian Authority. Either they’re a real government, that needs to be held accountable, or they’re not a real government, and they shouldn’t get our taxpayer dollars. Either way, we shouldn’t be funding an enemy of one of our allies right now at this time. And then we also need to be stopping the $6 billion that’s in Qatar that the president allowed to leave South Korea and Marsha Blackburn is leading the charge on that. We’ll try to undo some of the damage the by administration has done. But frankly, this all started with their just disastrous pull out of Afghanistan and the message of weakness, this has sent.”

Watch the full TV interview HERE.