Republicans split over the hunger crisis in Gaza as Trump says he’ll push for aid
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s call for additional aid to Gaza as children there starve has put him at odds with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and split the Republican Party on Capitol Hill.
One of Trump’s top allies in Congress, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who has been a big proponent of the “America First” agenda, has gone so far as to call the situation in Gaza a “genocide.” And she publicly slammed one of her GOP colleagues, Rep. Randy Fine, of Florida, for saying Gazans should “starve away” until the hostages held by Hamas are released.
Greene, who led a 2023 resolution to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., over tweets criticizing the Israeli government and supporting Palestinians, represents a small but growing faction of congressional Republicans who are expressing outrage at the starvation in Gaza.
Asked by NBC News on Tuesday about Trump’s rhetoric on Gaza and calls for food centers, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said, “I think that I share the president’s view.”
“When you see people hurting in a need like that, is to want to help meet that need and alleviate that pain,” Thune said at his weekly press conference. “I think all of us want to see, obviously, a peaceful solution there that gets the hostages freed and ends the reign and rule of Hamas in the region. But in the meantime, do everything we can to ease the pain and the hunger that’s afflicting so many of the people in that region.”
But other Republicans said they disagreed with Greene and suggested that additional aid, if it is given at all, should be conditioned on the release of hostages. Sen. Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, said “no,” he does not believe there is a genocide in Gaza and “no,” Congress shouldn’t be doing more to help provide relief. Sen. Ron Johnson, of Wisconsin, said it’s “between the other governments” to solve and doesn’t think Congress should provide additional aid.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville, of Alabama, said, “If they would let the hostages go, they’d get a lot more food.”
Regardless of whether they support aid for Gaza, many Republicans said that Hamas, not Israel, is to blame for the humanitarian crisis there.
Rep. Lance Gooden, of Texas, called for “rejecting the killing and starvation of children in Gaza,” in a post on Twitter, adding: “We must allow aid to enter Gaza. Ending this hunger crisis will not only spare the lives of children but will strip Hamas of its ability to use innocent children as pawns in their depraved acts of barbarism.”
Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, sounded cool to the idea of setting up food centers, as Trump has suggested, and said people are suffering there because of Hamas.
“You got to look at what, how this is all going to play out. We don’t want American soldiers in that war zone,” he said. “So the idea that we’d have American soldiers at risk, I’m not for that.”
Moreno said that what’s happening in Gaza is “sick” and “disturbing,” but when asked if he agreed with Greene that it’s a genocide, he said: “I think she should go there and be educated.”
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., said that it was flat out “wrong” to call it genocide, but that people are entitled to their opinion.
“You know, if it wasn’t for the First Amendment, how would we know who the fools are?” he said. “What I would respond is that they’re wrong. They’re just people that hate Israel. And one of the astounding things to me as a result of this war, I see it not just in the United States, but I see it worldwide, is how much antisemitism there is in the world.”
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., however, didn’t outright dismiss Greene’s remarks.
“I’ve not been to Gaza, so until you get there, I guess you don’t know exactly what’s going on, but you don’t want people at war. You don’t want people starving,” he said. “At the same time, I’ve been over to Kfar Aza. I’ve been in Israel, Kfar Aza, which is half a mile from Gaza. I watched what happened to people because of what Hamas did. It’s despicable. Hamas could end this today.”
Gaza was a major topic Tuesday on Capitol Hill, where Senate Republicans were working to confirm more of Trump’s nominees, while House members were at home in their districts. Several Republican senators declined to answer any questions about Gaza on Tuesday, including Sens. Jim Risch of Idaho, Todd Young of Indiana and Pete Ricketts of Nebraska.
Meanwhile, Democrats are mostly unified in expressing alarm over the growing crisis in Gaza. Forty of them sent a letter to the Trump administration Tuesday calling for a wide-scale expansion of humanitarian aid.
Sen. Jacky Rosen, of Nevada, who helped spearhead the letter, said that they want the hostages to be released but that the U.S. still needs to address the suffering in Gaza in the meantime.
“Well, what we’re asking for is for all of it. We need the hostages released. We need Hamas to grow up, be responsible, release those hostages. And at the same time, we have to be sure that we address the suffering in Gaza, that there are innocent people, again, being tortured by Hamas and used by Hamas,” she said.
Sen. Angus King, I-Vt., who caucuses with Democrats, said Monday that he is “through voting for support for Israel as long as there are starving children in Gaza that have been caused by Israel’s action or inaction with regard to humanitarian relief.”
King added that he wants to see Trump’s proposal, “but the real onus of this is on Israel.”
Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said that if Republicans are forcing senators to stay in Washington over the August recess to confirm more nominees, they should be holding hearings on the crisis in Gaza.
“If you’re going to spend August here, I’d rather be talking about inflation. I’d rather be talking about us ending the suffering in Gaza,” he said.
And Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., called current relief efforts insufficient, saying “the notion that you’re going to have just a handful, tiny handful of sites distributing food sufficient for this population is a complete and kind of brutal fantasy.”
He also criticized the Israeli government, saying, “It’s very disappointing that the Netanyahu government, not the Israeli people, but the Netanyahu government has choked off humanitarian aid since virtually the very beginning, but most brutally recently.”
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who has been an outspoken supporter of Israel, said on X that “the suffering in Gaza is crushing and real.” But he told NBC News that he places the blame squarely on Hamas for the crisis in Gaza.
“People that read your publication blame Israel, but I blame Hamas and Iran,” he said.