Former RNC Chair Says Trump’s Gaza Ethnic Cleansing Idea Won’t Get off the Ground: Not ‘Something We’re Gonna Hear Again’
Former Republican National Committee (RNC) chairwoman Ronna McDaniel shot down President Donald Trump’s plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza and turn it into a “riviera” on Tuesday, suggesting that the idea would not be able to get off the ground.
Reacting on NewsNation’s Cuomo to Trump’s remarks, McDaniel said:
Listen, I don’t think that this is something we’re gonna hear again. You saw Netanyahu kind of say, “Well we’ll look at it, review it.” Obviously, this is President Trump always thinking outside the box, always looking at different things, but it’s gonna have to have input from Arab partners, it’s gonna have to have input from Israel. I don’t know if this is gonna be something that’s gonna be a long-term strategy.
Host Chris Cuomo noted, “It requires something that nobody in America wants. You would have to have, what, a hundred thousand troops on the ground?”
“He would have to have support from Israel and Arab partners,” replied McDaniel:
I mean, look at what he’s done with the Abraham Accords, look what he did with moving the embassy. I mean, Trump has thought outside the box and I remember, I remember sitting with him when he moved the embassy and everybody was, “Oh this is gonna cause so much unrest in the Middle East, and we can’t move the embassy to Jerusalem.” And I remember him saying this in a meeting, he said, “We’ll never find peace in the Middle East with this still on the table, so once we take this off the table, we can negotiate,”and that’s how he thinks. He thinks differently.
She concluded, “So I do think he’s right that the same old, same old isn’t working and we do have to think differently when it comes to Gaza.”
During a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, Trump said, “Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land [Gaza], developing and creating thousands of jobs with something that will be magnificent in a really magnificent area.”
“We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal, and I don’t wanna be cute, I don’t wanna be a wise guy, but the Riviera of the Middle East,” he continued. “This could be so magnificent.”
In March 2024, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner made similar remarks about the value of Gaza’s “waterfront property.”
“Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable,” he said. “It’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but from Israel’s perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up.”
Kushner was reportedly involved in writing Trump’s remarks on Tuesday.
Watch above via NewsNation.
