Presidential candidate Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) in an exclusive interview with SiriusXM Breitbart News Daily blasted the Biden administration for paying $6 billion in ransom to Iran and enabling a main sponsor of Hamas, which launched a major terrorist attack against Israel on Saturday.
“When you see weakness in the Biden administration, you should expect aggression around the globe,” Scott told host and Washington Bureau chief Matthew Boyle.
“One of the things that we have been questioning about this administration is do they stand shoulder to shoulder, back to back with our allies, and the bottom line is when you pay $6 billion ransom to Iran, who funds Hamas, we should not be surprised,” he said.
President Joe Biden speaks in Philadelphia, July 20, 2023 (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File). // Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran, Iran (Sakineh Salimi/Borna News/Aksonline ATPImages/Getty Images).
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“The people that pay the most immediate price are our allies in Israel. Five thousand rockets. Five thousand rockets shot at a nation the size of New Jersey. Devastating. We should be strong in our reaction, strong with our support, and clear on the malignancy of the Biden administration that’s spreading even into our ally’s territory,” he added.
Scott said that while the $6 billion that the Biden administration unfroze for Iran in exchange for the release of five Americans who were detained in Iran is not yet available, it still sent a signal to Iran that they would have it available soon.
The United States and Iran reportedly exchanged prisoners on Monday, largely completing a deal that also included President Joe Biden unfreezing $6 billion in Iranian assets that have been held in South Korean banks since former President Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.
“The $6 billion has not been accessed completely by Iran yet, but the fact of the matter is if you have a credit on your account for $6 billion, typically, people count that as excess available today, tomorrow, whenever, so you start reworking your spending budget,” he said.
“And by doing so, you put yourself in a position to use that money even though you have not had access to it yet. So the $6 billion that they know they’re getting, they’re using already,” he said.
He said despite the Biden administration saying the ransom money could only be used towards humanitarian purposes, money is “fungible,” and Iran has already expressed it would use the money however it desired.
“That is clear. The way they want to is in funding terrorism against American allies,” Scott said.
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