Former President Donald Trump blamed “Comrade Kamala Harris” for what he called the “Hostage Crisis in Israel” on Sunday, in the wake of the murder of American-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin by Hamas.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote:
The Hostage Crisis in Israel is only taking place because Comrade Kamala Harris is weak and ineffective, and has no idea what she’s doing. I look forward to seeing her at the Debate! Biden failed, and now he spends his day on the beach, plotting and scheming how to take out his once Political Opponent, ME, who took him out both at the Debate, and otherwise. THE OCTOBER 7th ISRAELI CRISIS WOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED IF I WERE PRESIDENT
Notably, Trump did not blame Harris specifically for the deaths of the hostages, but for the overall crisis.
Harris (like President Joe Biden) had tried to discourage Israel from entering Rafah, the town in Gaza where Goldberg-Polin and five other hostages were found dead in a Hamas tunnel on Saturday.
Biden issued a statement while on vacation in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, saying he had worked “tirelessly” for Hersh’s release and would continue to work “around the clock” for a hostage deal.
Critics speculated online that Israel might have rescued them if it had entered Rafah sooner.
Autopsies revealed that the hostages had been alive until very recently and had been shot in the head at some point in the previous 48 hours, likely to prevent Israeli soldiers from rescuing them.
Trump has long maintained that the October 7 attack and the war that followed would not have happened if he had still been president. There were no wars between Israel and its neighbors during his term from 2017 to 2021, and he negotiated the Abraham Accords peace agreement between Israel and several Arab states.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.