House Republican Says He Doesn’t Actually Want to Nuke Gaza Because the ‘Fallout Would Drift Into Israel’
Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) joined CNN’s Sara Sidner on Monday morning to discuss the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas. Sidner pressed Fine on some of the controversial statements he’s made since recently winning his House seat in a special election, including calling Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) a “terrorist” and arguing for nuking Gaza.
“Last month, you said this when asked about how to treat Gaza,” Sidner began before playing a clip of Fine on Fox News saying:
In World War II, we did not negotiate a surrender with the Nazis, we didn’t negotiate a surrender with Japanese. We nuked the Japanese twice in order to get unconditional surrender. That needs to be the same here. There is something deeply, deeply wrong with this culture and it needs to be defeated.
“Did you really mean to say that the U.S. should use nuclear weapons against a people because there’s something wrong with their culture?” Sidner asked.
Fine replied, “Of course not. What I was saying is that we didn’t negotiate with evil in World War II. We defeated the Germans, we defeated the Japanese using any means that were necessary. And the same needs to be done in Gaza. Nuking Gaza would be a terrible idea. The fallout would drift into Israel. It would kill the hostages. The point that I was making was—”
Sidner cut in, “But you’re not worried about it killing, for example, women and children in Gaza who, you know, the innocents?”
Fine responded, “I think war is a messy thing. And I think that when you defeat evil, you have to do what is necessary to do it. Israel cannot live next to a country that a huge percentage of the people wish to destroy it all of the time. They need to do whatever is necessary, and I don’t know what those things are, in order to get unconditional surrender in Gaza. And that’s what they’re doing right now.”
Sidner hit back, “Yeah, I mean you brought up nuking them, though, so?”
Fine insisted, “No, I didn’t bring up, I did not bring up nuking them.”
Sidner interjected as he continued, “You literally said, the same thing should be done.”
Fine replied, “No, that’s not what I said, no.”
Sidner clarified, “You said the same thing should be done.”
Fine added, “That is taking me out of context. In the same way we did what was necessary to get Japan to unconditionally surrender, they need to do the same thing over there, no matter what that is. I don’t know what those tools are, but it took us nuking Japan not once, but twice, in order to get them to unconditionally surrender. And it’s estimated that saved a million American lives in the process.”
“My point is we didn’t sit down and go, ‘oh no, civilians might die, let’s not get Japan to surrender.’ I believe the Palestinians in Gaza are on a level of evil that we saw in Japan and we saw in Germany back in World War II, and I believe Israel needs to do what’s necessary to defeat it. And I won’t apologize for that,” Fine concluded.
Sidner replied, “Congressman, a lot of people do not agree with that word evil for all Palestinians, but I should point that out. Congressman Randy Fine, thank you so much.”
Watch the clip above via CNN.
