DeSantis Campaign, Biden Falsely Claim Trump ‘Praised’ Iran Terror Group Hezbollah Following Israel Attack

The flagging presidential campaign of prospective GOP nominee Ron DeSantis is being blamed for disseminating a lie claiming his opponent Donald Trump praised Iranian terror group Hezbollah following the recent Hamas attacks on Israel.

In a post that reeks of desperation, DeSantis’ failed campaign promoted an edited clip taken out of context from Trump’s Wednesday rally in West Palm Beach, in which Trump credited Hezbollah as “very smart” for exploiting known vulnerabilities in Israel’s defenses.

However, in full context, Trump was making a wider point criticizing Biden’s national security team for foolishly informing Hezbollah about Israel’s weak points.

Here’s Trump’s full remarks:

The $6 billion was a tremendous amount of money, but nothing compared to the hundreds of billions of dollars that Biden allowed them to make in oil and other things. Hundreds of billions. They became a rich nation in three years. That’s why they’re doing this. They have so much money, they don’t know what to do with it. They had no money. They were broke. And then there was the inevitable attack four days later, which I predicted. And then two nights ago, I read all of Biden’s security people. Can you imagine? National defense people, and they said, ‘Gee, I hope Hezbollah doesn’t attack from the north, because that’s the most vulnerable spot.’ I said, ‘Wait a minute. You know, Hezbollah is very smart. They’re all very smart.’ The press doesn’t like when they say, you know, I said that President Xi of China, 1 .4 billion people, he controls it with an iron fist. I said, ‘He’s a very smart man.’ They killed me the next day. ‘I said he was smart.’ What am I going to say? But Hezbollah, they’re very smart.

And they [Biden] have a national defense minister or somebody saying, ‘I hope Hezbollah doesn’t attack us from the north.’ So the following morning, they attacked. They might not have been doing it, but if you listen to this jerk, you would attack from the north. Because he said, that’s our weak spot. Whoever heard of officials saying on television that they hope the enemy doesn’t attack in a certain area? Now, unless it’s a con job. But you know what a con job is? You’re waiting there ready. You want them…But they weren’t ready. They weren’t ready. You know, say what you want. Israel was not ready. This was a big surprise. This was a terrible thing that happened. They weren’t ready. But if you wanted them to attack because you’ve got a million people there with guns and you’re going to blast the hell, then you do exactly…But they didn’t have that. They didn’t have that. Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, even bragged just days before the attack that the Middle East seems to be quite quiet.

While it was blatantly false, the DeSantis campaign’s disingenuous lie that Trump was heaping praise on Hezbollah was echoed by several politicians including Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) and former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.).