If President Donald Trump was looking for buy-in from congressional Republicans on his call for the United States to “own” the war-torn Gaza Strip, he’s not been immediately getting it.
“The impracticality of it, I think, is hard to ignore,” said GOP Sen. Kevin Cramer on Wednesday. “Gaza is not ours. It does belong to another country, and they seem to have control of the situation. And if they ask for our help, we should provide it. But I don’t think occupying another sovereign country is realistic.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune didn’t signal much immediate backing for Trump’s Gaza pitch either, simply telling reporters on Wednesday that “ideas like that will be thoroughly examined and vetted to determine whether something like that would make sense.”
And his fellow South Dakota Republican, Sen. Mike Rounds, tried to spin Trump’s call to “take over the Gaza Strip” — as the president said Tuesday night — with a broader interpretation.
“When he talks about owning it, my first thought was, ‘Is he is saying we would take charge,” Rounds said. “He is simply saying, ‘Nobody else seems to be stepping up.’”
Trump’s drive to take the lead on rebuilding the Gaza Strip comes as his administration is slashing foreign assistance and government spending. The U.S. Agency for International Development is furloughing staff and shutting down operations. One of Trump’s first executive orders shut off almost all foreign aid (except to Israel and Egypt). And the “America First” prerogative — one of Trump’s campaign credos — is taking shape as the president shreds relationships with U.S.’s nearby allies.
But the push also comes as the D.C. political class grapples with how literally to take Trump’s often off-the-cuff remarks.
While Republican senators tried to downplay the remarks, their GOP counterparts in the House showed their own skepticism. Even some of the most Trump-friendly House Republicans didn’t think the president’s suggestion was such a great idea.
“No!” Rep. Tim Burchett said at the prospect of owning Gaza.
Rep. Doug LaMalfa said that, whatever the president’s plan ends up being in the area, it would ultimately be a tough sell in Congress.
“I don’t think we need to own it,” LaMalfa said of Gaza. “Obviously it’s going to be hard — whatever it is.”
He added that Trump’s plan would take “some convincing around here,” asking one of the most immediate questions: “How many millions is it going to cost?”
And even if Rep. Russell Fry wasn’t willing to outright dismiss an idea from Trump, he wasn’t jumping onboard.
“Certainly want to see the strategy around that,” Fry said.
But less Trump-supportive Republicans — like Rep. Dan Newhouse, one of two remaining House Republicans to vote for Trump’s impeachment — laughed at the suggestion.
“What can I say about that, they’re a sovereign nation, right?” Newhouse said. “Two million Palestinians. A lot of questions about the proposal.”
There was some support for Trump’s idea.
Rep. Derrick Van Orden, for one, told NOTUS that it was “insanity” to keep doing the same things in the Middle East and expect a different outcome.
“How that looks, how that pans out, as far as a direct U.S. role is yet to be determined,” Van Orden said. “But people better damn well pay attention and understand that Donald Trump means business.”
Still, most GOP lawmakers downplayed Trump’s suggestion, even if they saw some ways to make the plan more palatable, like using private money to take over the land. (There’s already an expectation that if the Trump administration gets involved in Gaza, it’d be privatized. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday said the costs of a potential “long-term ownership position” in Gaza would not fall on the American taxpayer.)
Sen. Tommy Tuberville agreed with that sentiment at least. He said he “wouldn’t think we would have skin in the game in terms of money.”
“We can’t afford to do it,” Tuberville said.
Tuberville, who speaks to Trump regularly, also said he hadn’t heard the idea before Trump publicly debuted it Tuesday night. But multiple lawmakers pointed to the president’s past work in real estate development as an explanation of Trump’s interest.
“He sees the value of beachfront property,” Sen. Rounds said. “He just says, ‘I want to see peace, and what better way to do it than to develop this place give people something to look forward to.’”
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Ursula Perano is a reporter at NOTUS.
Mark Alfred is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.