Israel has declared a state of war and called up 360,000 reservists after a surprise attack by Hamas militants on Saturday killed at least 1,200 people and wounded more than 2,700.
Later on Wednesday, Trump, the clear polling leader in the Republican presidential race, complimented the intelligence of Hezbollah, which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States. The Iran-aligned group, based in Lebanon, exchanged fire with Israeli forces on the country’s northern border Wednesday.
“You know, Hezbollah is very smart,” Trump said. “They’re all very smart.”
Trump’s remarks drew condemnations both domestically and abroad on Wednesday and Thursday, including from his Republican presidential rivals.
“It is absurd that anyone, much less someone running for President, would choose now to attack our friend and ally, Israel, much less praise Hezbollah terrorists as ‘very smart,’” said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) took issue with Trump’s comments on Hezbollah and Netanyahu. “He’s wrong,” Scott told reporters Thursday.
In a New Hampshire town hall hosted by Gannett on Thursday, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley called Trump comments “dangerous,” saying that this is what she refers to when she says her party needs to chart a new path forward.
Trump’s comments reflected his long-established pattern of slighting U.S. allies while complimenting adversaries such as Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung defended the former president’s comments as meant to criticize unspecified U.S. officials for giving Hezbollah the idea to attack from the north. He said Trump was referring to a briefing by a senior U.S. defense official on Monday that expressed concern about Hezbollah opening a second front.
“President Trump was clearly pointing out how incompetent Biden and his administration were by telegraphing to the terrorists an area that is susceptible to an attack,” Cheung said. “Smart does not equal good.”
In response, the White House called Trump’s statements “dangerous and unhinged.”
“It’s completely lost on us why any American would ever praise an Iran-backed terrorist organization as ‘smart.’ Or have any objection to the United States warning terrorists not to attack Israel,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said. “This is a time for all of us to stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel against ‘unadulterated evil.’”
Mort Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America, which has honored Trump in the past, joined in the criticism in an interview on Thursday.
“It is reckless and irresponsible for Trump to have made negative comments about Israel — this is a time for unified support, not irrelevant comments that could give succor to Israel’s enemies,” Klein said. “I’m so ashamed of what he said. How does he expect support from people who care about Israel after making statements like this?”
Trump also disparaged Israel’s defense minister for calling attention to Hezbollah. “If you listen to this jerk, you would attack from the north,” Trump said.
His remarks also drew a rebuke on Thursday from the Israeli government’s communications minister, Shlomo Karhi. “Shameful that a man like that, a former U.S. president, abets propaganda and disseminates things that wound the spirit of Israel’s fighters and its citizens,” Karhi told the country’s Channel 13. “We don’t have to bother with him and the nonsense he spouts.”
Even as he said it, Trump acknowledged that his remark about Hezbollah could be controversial, immediately adding, “The press doesn’t like when they say it.” He went on to repeat that he views Xi as a “very smart man” because “1.4 billion people, he controls it with an iron fist.”
“They kill me the next day — ‘I said he was smart,’” Trump mocked. “What am I going to say? But Hezbollah, they’re very smart.”
He added, speaking again of Israel’s enemies, “They’re vicious and they’re smart and boy, are they vicious.”
Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison on Thursday called Trump’s remarks “disgusting, depraved, and dangerous.”
Former vice president Mike Pence, who is also running against Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination, compared the remarks to Trump’s past comments about Putin.
“This is no time for the former president or any other American leader to be sending any message other than America stands with Israel,” Pence said Thursday in a New Hampshire radio interview.
Elsewhere in Wednesday’s speech, delivered to an auditorium of supporters in West Palm Beach, Fla., Trump elaborated that he had “a bad experience with Israel as president,” telling a story about the U.S. operation to assassinate Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani. In Trump’s account, Israeli intelligence helped the U.S. locate Soleimani and plan the drone strike that killed him, but on the eve of the operation withdrew its participation.
The accuracy of Trump’s account could not immediately be confirmed. At the time of the assassination, the Israeli government reacted with restraint to avoid fanning tensions with Iran. In 2021, a retired Israeli military officer acknowledged that his country’s intelligence contributed to the U.S. airstrike.
“I’ll never forget that Bibi Netanyahu let us down. That was a very terrible thing,” Trump said in Wednesday’s speech. “So we were disappointed by that. Very disappointed. But we did the job ourself. It was absolute precision, magnificent, beautiful job. And then Bibi tried to take credit for it. That didn’t make me feel too good. But that’s all right.”
As Trump told the story, he suggested he was recounting it publicly for the first time, and that it possibly included classified information. He was indicted in June by special counsel Jack Smith on 40 counts arising from allegedly mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House.
“I don’t think this has ever been told,” Trump said in the speech. “They’ll say, ‘Oh, it’s classified information.’ Well, maybe it is, but I don’t think so.”
In his speech on Wednesday, Trump did not mention the contest for speaker of the House, in which his endorsed candidate, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), lost a conference vote earlier Wednesday to Steve Scalise (R-La.).
