LAS VEGAS, Nevada — North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum told the annual summit of the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) that the U.S. should consider Hamas leaders living in exile in Doha, Qatar, to be “legitimate military targets.”
Burgum sought to prove his foreign policy credentials despite coming from a relatively small midwestern state.
He began by saying President Joe Biden was derelict in his duty to protect the U.S. and American allies because of his refusal to confront Iran.
Calling the October 7 terror attack by Palestinian Hamas against Israel an attack on America as well, Burgum noted that Biden had not even mentioned Iran in his response. Biden, he said, had turned “maximum pressure to maximum concessions.”
Burgum, who hails from one of the nation’s leading oil- and gas-producing states, slammed the Biden administration for letting China and Russia evade sanctions by purchasing Iranian oil, which allowed Iran to fund terror and China to fill its oil reserves.
He faulted universities for defending pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas activists on their campuses. “These same, so-called defenders of free speech have been happily silencing conservative voices on their campuses and their cable networks for years,” he said.
He also said that Biden needed to “get tougher with Doha” to pressure Qatar to force Hamas to release American hostages. Given the fact that Hamas leaders have taken refuge in luxurious exile in the Qatari capital of Doha, he said that as president, he would consider “designating Qatar as a state sponsor of terrorism.”
“You can’ be friends with the United States and Hamas at the same time,” Burgum said, to applause.
He added that “Hamas leaders in Doha should be considered legitimate military targets.”
Burgum called for a restoration of Trump-era policies, such as re-imposing sanctions on Iran and denying funding to Palestinian institutions that support terror.
Notably, Burgum linked the problem of terror to the problem of illegal border crossings at the U.S.-Mexico boundary, noting that he had sent the North Dakota National Guard to help provide assistance to U.S. Border Patrol.
He promised to restore border security if he became president saying that leadership from the White House was necessary to close the border.
Burgum spoke passionately about the scourge of fentanyl in the U.S. as a major threat. “We’re taking mass casualties,” he said.
He also emphasized that U.S. domestic energy production was essential to U.S. national security, and promised to support it.
It was time, he said, to understand that the U.S. was in a “Cold War” with China, and that energy and economic growth were key.
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 new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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