Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz pulled no punches while questioning Secretary of State Antony Blinken during a heated Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Tuesday.
The tense clash between the two began with Cruz blasting the Biden administration’s “worst foreign policy disaster of modern times,” referencing its handling of Iran and the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, and culminated with the senator accusing the White House of indirectly funding the attack.
“Mr. Secretary, you have presided over the worst foreign policy disaster of modern times,” Cruz began. “When Joe Biden became president, he inherited peace and prosperity in the world. We now have two simultaneous wars waging: the worst war in Europe since World War II, and the worst war in the Middle East in 50 years. Both, I believe, were caused by this administration’s consistent weakness.”
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“Your foreign policy is precisely backwards from what a rational American foreign policy should be to our friends and allies. This administration has consistently undermined, weakened and attacked them,” he added. “And to our enemies, this administration has shown constant appeasement and indeed has flowed billions of dollars to the enemies of America who want to kill us.”
The two clashed over the Biden administration’s effort to prevent Israel from attacking Rafah, a city in the Gaza Strip, as part of its efforts to root out Hamas terrorists from among the Palestinians, with Cruz demanding to know whether they offered Israel intelligence on the terrorists if they would hold off attacking.
Blinken denied any such action was taken and attempted to expand on what he said was President Biden’s support for Israel, but Cruz stopped him, saying he wasn’t interested in a “campaign speech.”
Cruz continued to press him, but Blinken called the notion “misleading and wrong,” and said the U.S. government shares intelligence if it’s available.
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. (Getty Images)
Cruz then accused Blinken and the State Department of repeatedly telling Israel “not to kill” Hamas terrorists, citing a tweet he said the department later deleted immediately after the Oct. 7 attack, calling on Israel “not to engage in military retaliation.”
“Senator, I was in Israel five days after Oct. 7. I’ve been there seven times since. No one, starting with President Biden, has done more to make sure they have what they need to defend themselves from Hamas, to deal with the threat,” Blinken said, as Cruz pushed back.
“That is simply wrong. … That is ludicrous,” Cruz said, asking if the administration had cut off sending weapons to Israel.
Blinken denied the administration had cut off any weapons supplies, but Cruz began to press him on funding for Iran.
Cruz noted that Iran’s oil production had increased since Biden had taken office, and that the nation had developed more “ghost” ships to circumvent the sanctions against it and ship the oil.
In this photo released by the Iranian Presidency Office, President Ebrahim Raisi attends a meeting with his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev during the inauguration ceremony of dam of Qiz Qalasi, or Castel of Girl in Azeri, at the border of Iran and Azerbaijan, Sunday, May 19, 2024. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)
“This administration desperately wants a new Iran deal. You have been showering cash on Iran from day one,” Cruz said, referencing what he said was the administration’s “refusal to enforce oil sanctions.”
“In a very real sense, this administration, you and President Biden funded the Oct. 7 attacks by flowing $100 billion to a homicidal, genocidal regime that funded those attacks,” he added.
Blinken quickly hit back, calling Cruz’s statement “profoundly wrong” and “disgraceful,” to which the latter responded, “Why?”
“We have gone at Iran repeatedly with more than 600 sanctions applied against them,” Blinken said.
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“Why are they selling 10 million barrels a day compared to 300,000?” Cruz responded.
Blinken argued Iran was working hard to get around the sanctions, and that the administration was continuing to “go at them” every day despite the country being “determined” to sell more oil.
“They weren’t determined when Trump was president,” Cruz said.