America's Talking - Biden Says at Least 14 Americans Killed in Hamas Terror Attack

Episode Date: October 14, 2023

President Joe Biden addressed the Hamas terror attacks in Israel during a speech from the White House Tuesday, pledging the support of the U.S. and saying that at least 14 American citizens had been killed and that some were being held hostage. Biden condemned the "brutality of Hamas" calling it "abhorrent" and comparing it to ISIS terrorism. "Women raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies, families hid their fear for hours and hours desperately trying to keep their children quiet to avoid drawing attention," Biden said during the speech, flanked by Vice President Kamala Harris on one side and Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the other. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me again today is the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief Casey, Casey, how are you, Casey? Doing well, Dan. How are you? Doing fine, Casey. Lots to talk about. We are recording this on Friday, October 13th. And as you and I are talking here, Israeli ground troops are amassing at the border with Gaza, prepared for a full ground invasion in retaliation for last weekend's brutal surprise terrorist attack by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas. More than a thousand innocent Israeli civilians were senselessly killed, including young children, some in very brutal fashion. More than 20 American citizens also were killed, and hundreds were kidnapped and taken back to Gaza by Hamas. Back home in America, there have been raucous protests both in support of the terrorist group, but also in support

of Israel. Casey, please summarize the situation in what this imminent war is going to mean for Americans. I mean, what we're seeing is what years and years of bubbling under the surface has finally erupted and poured over the sides. I mean, Hamas and Israel have been exchanging blows back and forth for years. Now, Hamas does everything from taking water pipes to, that given to them by Israel, to fire rockets into Israel, to, you know, they infamously hide in hospitals and schools behind civilians. And so, of course, Gaza's complaint is that Israel mistreats them and that they're trapped in

in Gaza. Israel provides, you know, the food and water and everything for Gaza. And now they actually have cut that off now. So this is a longstanding enmity between these two. And then Gaza, Hamas, which is the group in Gaza, came across the sides and really took this to a new level. Then Yahoo, the leader of Israel, declared a war. said this is basically not another conflict. This is not another time where we shoot some missiles back and forth for a couple weeks. This is a war. As you said, the likely ground invasion. So this is this is a new territory. This isn't, oh, just Israel and Hamas for doing this again. So this is probably going to be prolonged. It's going to take while. It's going to be high

casualty, honestly high civilian casualty. And there's a couple things to look out for. One is our other Middle Eastern nations. going to get involved. I mean, Iran is constantly hinting that they're going to do something, so it's hard to know what they really mean. But they're still talking about how they might have to do something if, quote, unquote, the war crimes continue. And there's, you know, questions about other Arab nations. There's questions about Hezbollah, which is if they're going to get involved. So right now it's just Israel Hamas. But if others get involved, there could be pressure for the United States to get involved. We've sent, I believe, two aircraft carriers and the, you know,

strike squads with them. Excuse me. We've sent those to the regions who really is a show of force that has a message probably to groups like Iran to, hey, don't get involved. President Biden has been very explicit in his speeches from the White House that this is not the time for other groups, other nations to try to take advantage of the situation. And everyone else needs to stay out of it and let basically Israel and Hamas settle this. So I think that for the United States, for Biden's point of view, he wants to keep this. contained as an Israel-Hamas issue and not a regional conflict where the United States is pressured to get involved. That's number one. And then number two is, you know, we're probably going to start

sending a lot more money in munitions to Israel to help them with this fight similar to what we've been doing for Ukraine. Now, the United States has been supporting Israel in this fashion for a long time, but at a much lower level. I mean, we supply, you know, ammunition for their Iron Dome, which is the missile defense system, which is the best in the world. So we have been helping them for a while, but that's probably going to really kick into gear. For now, it doesn't seem like, you know, actual troops on the ground or that hard, you know, that hard support, that hard power is going to be coming into play. But of course, that's always something to watch for. Yeah. And you mentioned Iran, Casey, another terrorist sponsoring organization, an enemy of the United States. There's

evidence that they helped Tamas plan and gave permission for them to execute the sneak attack. Iran and the entire region is a big oil producing part of the world. Gas prices already elevated in the U.S. not to belittle what's going on with the war and the tragedy and all the deaths, but one thing that could happen here in the United States and maybe across the world is that gas prices will skyrocket. Of course, as you mentioned, you know, Almost two years, about closer to a year and a half, after Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States has sent billions of taxpayer dollars to help defend, to help Ukraine defend itself. Now, President Biden is rightfully, I think, personally, sworn entire U.S. support for Israel

on this, so that probably means more taxpayer dollars or go overseas. So American taxpayers, you know, we're half a world away. We're all stunned by the violence that we've seen. heard about over there. But, you know, American taxpayers, you know, are, are in this thing because it's likely, one, it's going to cost, it's going to drive up costs. Inflation is probably going to increase, particularly when it comes to gas prices. But two, we're probably going to be sending billions more overseas. Yeah, you're right. And we're going to be stretched pretty thin. I mean, on the first point, I talked to some experts about the gas prices issue. And, you know, gas prices

immediately, they spiked, or oil, crude oil prices, rather, spiked immediately after the conflict began, but kind of level off. I think the world markets are kind of going to wait and see situation. And what would really change things is like what you said, if you were on or someone else gets involved in this conflict. But the experts I talked to said that conflicts like this will almost certainly increase U.S. domestic gas prices. The question is just how much and for how long. And that's probably going to be determined by what other world powers get involved in the Middle East and the conflict. So that's the first thing. The second thing is we're going to be, increasingly stretched thin on our support and our military backing and where the carriers are,

because you can see a situation where this escalates into a regional conflict. Someone like Iran or other in Hezbollah, you know, they do get involved. And so we're sending more and more support. We are maybe blockading ports. We are sending different kind of ammunition. And Dan, we actually took ammunition from Israel to support Ukraine. So this isn't just like a theoretical idea. This is really a practical problem.

We took some of the things that we. we usually give to Israel the munitions and we sent them to Ukraine for their fight. So we're going to be engaged against Russia and Ukraine. We're in this maybe a potential proxy worth Iran via Gaza and Israel. And then you could imagine that China says, hey, this is the perfect time to invade Taiwan. United States seems pretty busy. And the experts I've talked to said that winning the war for Taiwan is probably not possible, actually, because it's so close to China and so far across the ocean for us that we probably

could not win, um, when that war, it'd be very difficult. So, um, and you can imagine we're like in a three theater war, which is never good for any country. Um, and so I, I don't know, that's the thing to, uh, to think about, that's the thing they'll go out for. And honestly, to cross your finger and hope doesn't happen. Okay. See, as we said up top, this is a constantly developing story. Um, uh, listeners, um, can keep up to date on the story at the center square.com, but we are out of time. For Casey Harper, I'm Dan McAulip. Please subscribe and thank you for listening.