ICYMI: Chairman McCaul on ABC’s “This Week”
Washington, D.C. – House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul joined Jonathan Karl on ABC News’ “This Week” to discuss Hamas’ unprovoked war against Israel and the impact of the House Speaker election on support to Israel and U.S. national security.
On the risk of Hezbollah and Iran-backed proxies escalating:
“Hamas and Hezbollah only see one thing, and that’s power. If we project power and deterrence, they will back down. If they see weakness, they will fire. And what I worry about [with] Hezbollah, Jon, is that they have 100,000 rockets and precision-guided weapons that can overload the Iron Dome.”
On the White House’s supplemental package:
“I’m in favor of the concept of linking the biggest threats to the free world, and that is, you know, since the fall of Afghanistan, Putin invaded, you know, Ukraine. That’s a threat to Europe. Chairman Xi is threatening Taiwan, the Pacific, and now, we have a war in the Middle East. So it links all that, including the southwest border that I think is also a threat [to U.S. national security].”
On replenishing and modernizing U.S. stockpiles:
“We’re going to — we’re looking at the numbers. The House, you know, we have the power of the purse, and we appropriate the money. The Ukraine piece is a little deceptive because only half of that really goes to Ukraine. The other half, the $30 billion of the $60 billion really goes to replenishing and modernizing our stockpiles, our military stockpiles.”
On the speaker race stalemate in the House:
“This is probably one of the most embarrassing things I’ve seen because if we don’t have a Speaker of the House, we can’t govern. And every day that goes by, we’re essentially shut down as a government. We have very important issues right now, [matters of] war and peace, and we cannot [pass] an aid package, or my resolution condemning Hamas and supporting Israel… it empowers and emboldens our adversaries like Chairman Xi who says, you know, democracy doesn’t work.”
###