WASHINGTON – Presidential hopeful Tim Scott criticized the foreign policy platforms of 2024 rivals Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy Tuesday, saying the pair make up the “Joe Biden wing of the Republican Party.”
The South Carolina senator also criticized the incumbent president during a speech on Israel’s war against Hamas at the Hudson Institute in the nation’s capitol, accusing Biden of “weakness” and arguing his policies toward Iran were partly responsible for Saturday’s savage terror attack that killed more than 1,000 people in the Jewish state.
The 58-year-old then accused certain conservatives of “weakness” and “confusion” in foreign affairs as well.
“Vivek Ramaswamy has said the definition of success is reducing America’s support for Israel,” Scott said. “And he’s proposed that we surrender Taiwan to the Chinese Communist Party as long as we’ve relocated some factories. Governor DeSantis once dismissed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as just some ‘territorial dispute'”.
“The last thing we need is a Joe Biden wing of the Republican Party on foreign policy,” he added.
Ramaswamy’s spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin fired back, telling The Post that Scott is “lying.”
“We understand Tim Scott is attempting to gain some semblance of relevance in this race, but lying in the face of these barbaric atrocities isn’t an effective way to do so,” she said.
McLaughlin added that Ramaswamy “has has offered a clear, rational response that supports Israel while avoiding another US-led disaster in the Middle East.”
The multimillionaire’s campaign website states he “won’t cut aid to Israel until Israel tells the U.S. that it no longer needs the aid.”
The Washington Free Beacon reported that Ramaswamy had told the outlet in August “the true mark of success for the US, and for Israel, will be to get to a 2028 where Israel is so strongly standing on its own two feet, integrated into the economic and security infrastructure of the rest of the Middle East, that it will not require and be dependent on that same level of historical aid or commitment from the US”
Ramaswamy has also said he would alter his position on China’s threat to Taiwan after he’d accomplish “semiconductor independence” for the US.
DeSantis has spoken openly about wanting to end the “black check” the US is giving Ukraine in its fight against Russia and has claimed Biden is funding “both sides” of the Ukraine-Russia war with his Green New Deal policy.
“If you want to put the clamp on Putin and Russia, open up America’s domestic energy production. We have the best reserves in the world,” the Florida governor told a New Hampshire radio station Tuesday. “That would be bad for Russia, bad for Iran, bad for China. He also gave Iran $6 billion and relieved sanctions on them. Iran is funding Russia and funding this conflict. So, I have the ability to come in. I think we need to end this. I don’t think it’s in our interest.”
DeSantis also said that as president, he would “do what’s in the best interest of the United States,” not Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Florida governor, like Scott, unleashed strong words against Biden’s policy toward Iran on Tuesday, calling for the US to stop funding the country that is funneling cash to Hamas.
“The United States should turn every screw so that Iran is not getting money flowing into its coffers,” DeSantis told MSBNC’s “Morning Joe,” “particularly with their oil.”