Every time President Biden lectures Israel, he is signaling that Hamas’s propaganda is “working,” according to Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), who blamed Biden’s “failed Iran policy” for the current conflict as he called to “starve [Tehran] of the funds that it’s using to fund terrorism,” and warned that terrorism on American soil is “only a matter of time… as long as this border is wide open.”
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News on Tuesday, Waltz, a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, House Armed Services Committee, and House Foreign Affairs Committee, began by noting his “strong feelings” for the Biden administration, or President Biden himself, “lecturing the Israelis about human rights.”
Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) speaks during a press conference on Capitol Hill with members of the American Legion on June 16, 2021, in Washington, DC. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
“Every time he says things like ‘the Israelis have to protect hospitals,’ he sends a message to Hamas, to Iran, to China, and to Russia that the propaganda is working,” he said, adding that when the “400 ‘Deep State’ State Department civil servants just signed a letter objecting to their commander in chief — they’re buying into misinformation and propaganda.”
He also described as “astounding” that these same people are “losing their minds about Russian disinformation” when it comes to the 2016 election, despite the fact that “we know that Russia and China are pushing a lot of this Hamas propaganda.”
“Now suddenly we hear crickets,” he said. “In fact, they’re buying into it.”
According to Waltz, the Palestinian casualty figure in the current conflict, which has surpassed 11,000 according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, is “bogus” and “we know it,” noting that the Palestinian side is using human shields.
“It is not just Hamas, it’s the Taliban, it’s al Qaeda, it’s Hezbollah — all of these groups that have no regard for human rights and for human life use their own people for their own political propaganda agendas,” he said. “And that’s who we should be calling out.”
“But every time Biden equivocates, every time he talks out of both sides of his mouth, he’s sending the signal that their propaganda is working,” he added.
The Florida congressman, who served as a Special Forces commander in Afghanistan, contrasted the overwhelmingly hostile approach toward Israel with the more supportive one seen by Ukraine.
“In the wake of the fake report of Israel bombing a Gaza hospital, I said that if Russia and Putin had said Ukraine had just bombed a hospital, all of those media outlets would have paused, they would have fact-checked, and they would have gotten to the bottom of it because they inherently doubt anything that comes out of Putin’s mouth,” he stated.
“But when Hamas says Israel bombed a hospital — they’re running right off the cliff with it,” he added, “and I think that all these things show their true colors.”
How long has the Biden Administration known that Hamas had tunnels under the hospital before confirming it and allowing disinformation to run rampant?
— Rep. Mike Waltz (@michaelgwaltz) November 14, 2023
Regarding pressure on Israel from the Biden administration to install the Palestinian Authority (PA) headed by President Mahmoud Abbas in a post-Hamas Gaza , Waltz noted that the PA is “incredibly unpopular and incredibly corrupt.”
“Very little of the money from international aid that flows through their corrupt hands actually makes it to the people, much more of it goes to Swiss bank accounts overseas and I guess you could say a 16 year term is ‘elected,’ but I wouldn’t call it that,” he said in reference to the octogenarian leader who was last elected in 2005 to a four-year term but has remained in power since.
He then highlighted how the two-state paradigm has failed.
“One, the administration throws out the term two-state-solution but as we’ve seen for years now, who the heck are you gonna negotiate with there?” he said. “And secondly, Hamas doesn’t want a two-state solution — they want a one-state solution: Hamas.”
“Thirdly,” he added, “why aren’t we talking about liberating the Palestinian people from Hamas and from this terrorist dictatorship?”
Waltz suggested that the only “viable solution” is one where Gulf Arab states “lean in on a next generation of Palestinian leaders that one can hope aren’t as bad as the current generation, and certainly aren’t the terrorists that are Hamas.”
“I don’t like that solution either but that’s the least bad one I could point to,” he added.
But, behind the scenes, he explained, “all roads lead back to Iran.”
“Even if Israel was completely successful in eliminating Hamas, they’re mowing the grass and it will grow back as long as Iran has the money to fund it,” he said. “So what I keep wanting and waiting to hear is the administration to do a 180 on its failed Iran policy, period.”
“And they have to starve it of the funds that it’s using to fund terrorism,” he added.
As a result, congress is forced to pass laws circumventing the current administration’s policies toward Teharn.
“We the Congress, rather than pressuring the administration, we’re just going to put it in the law,” he said, “and we’ve done that with the SHIP act that we just passed that will put secondary sanctions on refiners, ports and shipping companies that move Iranian oil.”
The SHIP, or Stop Harboring Iranian Petroleum, Act of 2023 (H.R. 3774) imposes sanctions on foreign ports and refineries that process petroleum exported from Iran in violation of U.S. sanctions.
“The Senate, if they’re serious about supporting Israel, will take that up,” he added. “We are going to pass a bill that will put secondary sanctions on the $6 billion hostage money and shut that down.”
Calling for a “return to maximum pressure,” Waltz highlighted how under the Trump administration, “all of the Iranian militia groups from Yemen to Syria and everyone in between, complained that they were out of money.”
“They didn’t have enough money to pay their fighters. They didn’t have enough money to buy weapons and ammunition and supplies because we had dried up the mothership in Iran,” he said. “That’s it; that’s what we have to do. Otherwise Israel will perpetually be in this position. And once Iran gets a nuke, God help us if they do, the entire Middle East will explode in a nuclear arms race.”
“So, at the end of the day, the administration must do a full reversal on Iran,” he added.
Addressing threats of terrorism on American soil, Waltz noted that FBI Director Chris Wray had “briefed us that they are tracking nearly 200 leads of people on terrorist watch lists all over the United States,” calling the matter a “ticking time bomb.”
FBI Director Chris Wray admits they have no idea the whereabouts of some of the individuals on the terror watchlist who have illegally crossed into the United States pic.twitter.com/fKmk9QJVvb
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 15, 2023
“It is only a matter of time until we are attacked, much like we just saw the Israelis attacked,” he said. “Whether, God help us, if it’s a suicide bomber in a mall or another San Bernardino or Pulse nightclub.”
“But I fear it’s only a matter of time as long as this border is wide open,” Waltz added.
Waltz is a colonel in the National Guard as well as a former White House and Pentagon policy adviser and the first Green Beret to be elected to Congress.
Following Taliban mass celebrations marking the two-year anniversary of the U.S.’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in August, he accused the Biden administration of having caved to “terrorists” and taken no accountability for the ensuing disaster.
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at
