Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that the US should stop sending money to the Iranian government after reports indicated that Tehran played a key role in planning and approving this past weekend’s savage Hamas terror attack against Israel.
“The United States should turn every screw so that Iran is not getting money flowing into its coffers — particularly with their oil,” the 2024 Republican candidate told MSBNC’s “Morning Joe.”
“I think Biden’s administration thought there could be a rapprochement here, they eased off on some of the sanctions. There’s been a lot of discussion on the $6 billion, I think that was a mistake, but they’ve been getting a lot of money leading up to this,” added DeSantis, 45.
The Biden administration allowed $6 billion in frozen assets to be transferred to Iran via Qatar last month in exchange for the release of five American detainees.
The White House maintained that Iran could only use the funds for “food, medicine, medical equipment that would not have a dual military use” — but Iran ignored the stipulations and claimed it would use the money “wherever we need it.”
On Saturday, Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip, killing at least 1,000 people, the Israeli embassy in the US said Tuesday.
“The Iranian regime, when they’re funding terrorism, it’s not necessarily a practical consideration,” DeSantis said. “This is their religious and ideological worldview. This is why they exist as a government and you’re just not going to have a peaceful situation with a government like that, so turn the screws on them financially, dry up their ability to fund terrorism. That’s something that we should all be able to agree on.”
DeSantis also decried President Biden’s foreign policy toward Iran hours after Israel declared war on Saturday.
“Iran has helped fund this war against Israel, and Joe Biden’s policies that have gone easy on Iran has helped to fill their coffers,” he said at the time. “Israel is now paying the price for those policies. We’re going to stand with the State of Israel, they need to root out Hamas, and we need to stand up to Iran.”
Other Republican presidential candidates also criticized the Biden administration for the $6 billion release, including former Vice President Mike Pence, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.
In remarks from the White House Tuesday, Biden said that the US stands with Israel and called Hamas “sheer evil” but made no mention of Iran’s purported role in the attack.