Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday continued to hammer on GOP presidential rival Nikki Haley, whose popularity may have crested after she flip-flopped on dealing with the Hamas terrorist attacks.
On X (formerly Twitter), DeSantis and his campaign criticized Haley for being weak on President Joe Biden’s proposal to send $100 million to the Gaza Strip for “humanitarian” aid. Biden warned Hamas against diverting or stealing the proposed aid, though it was unclear how he could prevent that.
DeSantis called the proposal a “$100 million gift to Hamas.” “How are you funding them when they’re holding Americans?” he said in a post on X. He then challenged each Republican presidential candidate to denounce Biden’s idea.
In the news: Florida Gov. DeSantis Slams Nikki Haley For Flip-Flop On Accepting Gaza Refugees
Yet he directed most of that criticism at Haley, who has crept into third place in the GOP polls.
Haley responded on X by saying, “We did this in 2018 when we eliminated U.S. aid to UNRWA. Welcome to the fight. Actions > Talk.”
UNRWA stands for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which was the UN agency primarily responsible for providing aid to the Palestinians. Haley served as America’s ambassador to the UN in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump.
DeSantis War Room, the governor’s rapid-response team, noted on X that a year earlier, in 2017, Haley had defended funding the Palestinians through UNRWA.
She told a House committee at the time that funding the program was in America’s interest. “I will say there’s also good that comes out of UNRWA: what they do with the schools and healthcare. You do see value in it,” Haley told the House Foreign Affairs Committee, according to Jewish Insider. “The schooling and the health care for those groups in there (Palestinians), I mean, there’s no other place for them to get it. There’s a population there that does need to have that.”
In a second X post, DeSantis War Room argued, “Still no clear position from Haley on Biden’s aid to Gaza. That’s probably because she used to support it.” The account noted that in 2017 she had said there was “good that comes out of UNRWA.”
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As the Tampa Free Press reported on Wednesday, DeSantis slammed Haley for reversing her stance on accepting alleged refugees from Gaza.
Last week DeSantis was a hard no on the idea of importing any refugees from the war-torn Gaza Strip. Haley replied on Sunday that accepting refugees from Gaza may be possible because we could “separate civilians from terrorists.”
By Tuesday, though, she had changed her tune. She told an interviewer that she “always” had agreed with DeSantis’ point about taking in Palestinians, adding “That’s the last thing we want, because we don’t know who they are.”
DeSantis answered that flip-flop by lumping Haley in with the “corporate Republicans” and “open borders types” who “think that anyone should just be able to come in.”
DeSantis’ pivot to Haley may be driven in part by her recent rise in the polls.
Before the second GOP debate last month, DeSantis led Haley by between seven and 10 points in most polls, according to Real Clear Politics.
After the debate, Haley had shaved his lead over her to one or two points in some polls. In some individual state polls, she actually led DeSantis, including one New Hampshire poll where she led the governor by nine points.
Yet in polls on Tuesday and Wednesday, after DeSantis criticized Haley for comments on importing and aiding Gaza, his lead in national polls was up to seven points.
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