In the GOP Extremist Hamas-Israel Rhetoric Sweepstakes, Marco Rubio Takes Early Lead

Senator Marco Rubio had a terrifying suggestion for how to resolve the war between Israel and Palestine: eradicating the Gaza Strip.

Fighting broke out on Saturday when Hamas launched a surprise airstrike attack on Israel. Israel has since responded in kind, imposing a total siege on the Gaza Strip, cutting off food, water, and electricity. At least 1,800 people have been killed on both sides—and the death toll is expected to keep rising.

During a Monday night interview on CNN, host Jake Tapper asked Rubio if there was a way to stop Hamas “without causing massive casualties against the innocent people” in Gaza.

“I don’t think there’s any way Israel can be expected to coexist or find some diplomatic off-ramp with these savages,” Rubio replied. “These are people, as you’ve been reporting and others have seen, that deliberately targeted teenage girls, women, and children, and the elderly.… Just horrifying things. And I don’t think we know the full extent of it yet. I mean, there’s more to come in the days and weeks ahead. You can’t coexist. They have to be eradicated.”

While Rubio was referring to Hamas, his unwillingness to differentiate between the militants and innocent Palestinian civilians is terrifying. Two million people live in Gaza, and more than half of them are children. Rather than give a nuanced response, Rubio instead seemed to be OK with wiping out an entire region.

“This is going to be incredibly painful. It’s going to be completely difficult. And it’s going to be horrifying, the price to pay.”

Rubio’s comments echo a statement earlier Monday from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The far-right leader swore to completely “change the Middle East” over Hamas’s attack.

House Republicans are calling for Matt Gaetz to face some form of consequences for kicking Kevin McCarthy out of the speakership and plunging the chamber into chaos.

Gaetz is bearing the brunt of his colleagues’ ire, after he introduced a motion to vacate the speaker last week and then led seven other Republicans to break ranks and vote to oust McCarthy. The House is now scrambling to find a new speaker, a situation made all the more urgent by the war between Israel and Palestine. Without a speaker, the House can’t pass aid packages or approve resolutions condemning the militants’ actions.

“Matt Gaetz is frankly a vile person,” Representative Mike Lawler told CNN’s Manu Raju late Monday. “He’s not somebody who’s willing to work as a team. He stands up there, he grandstands, he lies directly to folks.”

Lawler has been particularly outspoken about how much he dislikes Gaetz. He has previously called Gaetz “disgraceful” and called for him to be expelled from the Republican conference.

Representative Derrick Van Orden told Raju that he won’t support either of the new candidates for speaker “until we deal with the fact that we have people in our conference who could shut this House down on a whim again.”

Representative Don Bacon accused the eight anti-McCarthy voters of having “kicked us in the shins really bad.”

“They don’t support our party, and it’s all about media clicks,” he told CNN.

Representative Tom Cole, who chairs the House Rules Committee, suggested raising the threshold for the motion to vacate. “I think it’s time to take the sharp knives away from the children,” he told Axios.

One of the concessions McCarthy made to become speaker in January was to restore the motion to vacate, which would allow any single member of the House to call for a vote to remove him. Gaetz had repeatedly threatened to use that power against McCarthy, but finally made good on his promise last week.

Gaetz may be headed for some form of consequences for his actions. Some members of the GOP were already weighing whether to expel Gaetz from Congress should the Ethics Committee find him guilty of sexual misconduct, illegal drug use, and other wrongdoings.

The Biden administration has sparked backlash for posting and then deleting tweets that called for a ceasefire between Israel and Palestine.

Fighting broke out on Saturday when Hamas launched a surprise airstrike attack on Israel, killing about 900 people. Israel has since responded in kind, imposing a total siege on the Gaza Strip, cutting off food, water, and electricity. More than 680 Palestinians have been killed in the counteroffensive—and the death toll on both sides is expected to quickly rise.

On Saturday, before the conflict really escalated, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan to discuss a solution. Blinken then shared a statement on X, formerly Twitter, saying he “encouraged Turkey’s advocacy for a ceasefire and the release of all hostages by Hamas immediately.”

He quickly deleted the post and replaced it with a statement that said only, “Israel has the right to defend itself, rescue any hostages, and protect its citizens.”

Blinken’s fast 180 was the second time the State Department backtracked on a statement calling for Israeli restraint.

Hours after the initial attack, the State Department’s Office of Palestinian Affairs said on X that it “unequivocally condemned the attack of Hamas terrorists and the loss of life that has incurred. We urge all sides to refrain from violence and retaliatory attacks. Terror and violence solve nothing.”

The office soon deleted the post and shared a statement saying only that it “unequivocally” condemned the attack.

Hamas said Monday that it would be open to discussing a truce or “something of that sort” with Israeli officials. The group said it had “achieved its targets.”

The State Department flip-flopping on a ceasefire is confusing at best. The agency’s entire job is to promote diplomacy, so surely its ultimate goal should be an end to all fighting. Instead, it is letting right-wing backlash determine its next moves.

Robert Kennedy Jr. announced Monday that he is switching his presidential candidacy to run as an independent, confirming what everyone knew all along.

Kennedy Jr. raised eyebrows when he first announced in April that he would run as a Democrat. Since then, he has spent more time courting conspiracy theorists and far-right extremists than actual Democratic voters.

So when he told a press conference Monday that he is declaring himself “an independent candidate for president of the United States,” it didn’t come as much of a surprise.

Kennedy Jr., a prominent anti-vaxxer, has repeatedly pushed conspiracy theories such as that Covid-19 is the fault of Chinese people and Jewish people. Despite being a renowned environmental lawyer, Kennedy invited a climate change conspiracy theorist to one of his fundraising events.

The vast majority of his campaign donors are Republican, as are growing numbers of his campaign staff. Kennedy Jr. also initially agreed to speak at the far-right Moms for Liberty summit over the summer, although he ultimately backed out.

And the right wing has opened its arms to Kennedy Jr., drooling over his muscles and commiserating with him about supposedly being silenced on social media. One of Kennedy Jr.’s earliest campaign events was an audio space on X (then called Twitter) with platform owner Elon Musk. For nearly two hours, the two men just swapped compliments.

Independent candidates historically perform poorly in the general election. They are more often viewed as spoilers who strip just enough votes away from one major candidate to tip the election toward the other.

In the case of RFK Jr., his embrace of far-right talking points is expected to woo voters away from Donald Trump. Current polling indicates his favorability ratings are far higher among Republicans. It’s unlikely he’ll pull a lot of voters away from Trump, but he could pull just enough to turn the election decisively for Joe Biden.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s newest conspiracy theory about the ongoing war in Gaza is so outlandish that even Russian state media is fact-checking her.

Greene was expanding on a conspiracy theory floated by Donald Trump Jr., who suggested late Saturday that Palestinian militants were using guns supplied by the Taliban. But Greene took things a step further the next day by saying that the weapons may also have come from Ukraine.

“We need to work with Israel to track serial numbers on any U.S. weapons used by Hamas against Israel,” she tweeted Sunday. “Did they come from Afghanistan? Did they come from Ukraine?”

“Highly likely the answer is both.”

Hours later, Russian state news outlet RT had fact-checked her: “Thus far, no solid evidence has emerged to support these claims,” RT said.

Greene and Trump based their theory on the same video, which supposedly shows a Hamas militant thanking Ukraine for providing U.S.-made weapons. The video has not been verified and therefore cannot be cited as fact.

Fighting broke out on Saturday when Hamas launched a surprise airstrike attack on Israel, killing more than 700 people. Israel has responded in kind, imposing a total siege on the Gaza Strip. More than 550 Palestinians have been killed in the counteroffensive.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sworn to completely “change the Middle East” over Hamas’s attack.