Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth doubled down on President Donald Trump’s proposal for the United States to “take over” the Gaza Strip, saying “all options” are on the table.
Hegseth declined to get ahead of the commander-in-chief about what the United States would or wouldn’t do, instead telling Fox News host Laura Ingraham in an interview on Wednesday that Trump is an “outside-the-box thinker” who is willing to “overturn the apple cart.”
Trump made shockwaves on Tuesday when he said the United States could potentially “take over” the Gaza Strip, level it and rebuild it at some point in the future. The 47th president told reporters he sees a “long-term ownership position” of the enclave and believes it could be the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
Hegseth, a former “Fox & Friends Weekend” co-host, said it’s Israel’s job to eradicate Hamas and once that happens, the status of Gaza is a conversation Trump is willing to have.
“You bring peace by eradicating terrorists who seek the destruction of Israel. That’s how you bring peace, and so I support that,” he said. “What happens after that is a longer conversation, and hopefully in every case, the president would acknowledge this — you don’t want to have to use American boots at all if you don’t have to. That’s my preference.”
Trump told reporters at the White House that the United States would “own” the Gaza Strip and “be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous, unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site.” When asked whether U.S. troops would be sent to Gaza, the president said, “As far as Gaza is concerned, we’ll do what is necessary. If it’s necessary, we’ll do that.”
Joey Jones, a Fox News contributor and retired Marine bomb tech who lost his legs in an IED explosion in Afghanistan, said he’s “not for” Trump’s proposal of American troops being responsible for unexploded ordinances.
“My intuition, my belief, is that this is a part of his chess, and this is his way of getting places like maybe Saudi Arabia or Jordan to say, ‘No, no, no, you can’t have this. Let us do it.’ Maybe it is that simple. But you know, I’m a hypocrite if I don’t stand up and say, ‘Hey, wait just a minute,’ I just voted for you because you said we wouldn’t get involved with more wars,” Jones explained on “The Will Cain Show.”
Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have rejected Trump’s calls to relocate Palestinians as the enclave is being rebuilt. Hegseth told “The Ingraham Angle” that the president has talked about other countries potentially being willing to take in refugees.
“We need new ideas in a place where it hasn’t been disrupted for a long time, so there are people that would be caught off-guard. That’s something the president’s willing to manage,” he said. “But those of us that were there at the press conference were not surprised that he’d think differently, because that’s what he got elected to do.”
Marco Rubio refuses to visit South Africa for G-20 summit, accuses government of ‘doing very bad things’
Trump previously said South Africa is committing a ‘massive Human Rights VIOLATION’
By Andrea Margolis Fox News
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is refusing to attend the Group of 20 (G-20) summit in Johannesburg this year, in protest of the South African government’s controversial land seizure bill.
The bill, which was signed last week, permits South African authorities to expropriate land “for a public purpose or in the public interest,” promising “just and equitable compensation” to those impacted by the bill. Although the majority of South African citizens are Black, most landowners are White — and this disparity has been a topic in South Africa for years.
The law also allows expropriation of land without compensation, but only in circumstances where it is “just and equitable and in the public interest.”
The G-20 summit is scheduled to kick off on Nov. 22 — but in a social media post on Wednesday, Rubio wrote definitively that he “will NOT” be there.
“South Africa is doing very bad things,” Rubio’s X post read. “Expropriating private property. Using G20 to promote ‘solidarity, equality, & sustainability.'”
“In other words: DEI and climate change,” the Republican added. “My job is to advance America’s national interests, not waste taxpayer money or coddle anti-Americanism.”
President Donald Trump’s administration has been vocally critical of the land seizure bill. In a Truth Social post, Trump called the situation a “massive Human Rights VIOLATION, at a minimum.”
“It is a bad situation that the Radical Left Media doesn’t want to so much as mention,” Trump wrote in a post. “The United States won’t stand for it, we will act. Also, I will be cutting off all future funding to South Africa until a full investigation of this situation has been completed!”
The South African government has coolly responded to the Trump administration’s accusations, denying that any unjust confiscation has occurred.
“We look forward to engaging with the Trump administration over our land reform policy and issues of bilateral interest,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in a statement. “We are certain that out of those engagements, we will share a better and common understanding over these matters”.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, South African analyst Frans Cronje proposed that Trump alluded to the ongoing killing of farmers in South Africa when he talked about certain classes of people being treated “very badly.” The attacks have been perpetuated against both White and Black farmers.
“President Trump’s recent comments on land seizures in South Africa cannot be divorced from his past comments on violent attacks directed at the country’s farmers,” Cronje said. “Whilst these comments have often been dismissed as false, the latest South African data suggests that the country’s commercial farmers are six times more likely to be violently attacked in their homes than is the case for the general population.”
Fox News Digital’s Paul Tisley contributed to this report.
