It's 'simply impossible' to eliminate all 20,000-30,000 Hamas fighters: Rep. Ro Khanna

President Biden says his commitment to Israel’s security is ironclad, even when the two allies disagree. He spoke at the US Holocaust Museum’s annual Days of Remembrance ceremony. He said Hamas is to blame for the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. 7 1/2 months later and people are already forgetting. They’re already forgetting that Hamas unleashed this terror. There was Hamas that brutalized Israelis. There was Hamas who took and continues to hold hostages. I have not forgotten. Nor have you. And we will not forget. Let’s bring in Congressman Ro Khanna, a California Democrat on the Oversight, Armed Services and China Committees and a Biden 2024 campaign surrogate. Sir, good to have you with us today. Thank you for for joining us. Thank you for having me. So you heard the President just this afternoon and there a lot of people were asking for this kind of very strong statement on anti-Semitism and he blamed it on Hamas squarely what happened on October 7th and yet he’s pushing Israel for a ceasefire. What does he think will happen to the remaining battalions of Hamas? I mean won’t they just rise up and do October 7th all over again if they follow his his desires? Well, the President was very clear to condemn unequivocally the Hamas October 7th attacks to talk about the sexual violence, and I appreciate that he did that. The reality is that Netanyahu has already destroyed a lot of the Hamas battalions. They are incapable, according to the military that I get briefed on, to do October 7th again and there are 20 to 30,000 Hamas fighters still there. Even if Netanyahu gets his way of going into Rafa, it’s simply impossible to be able to eliminate all 20 to 30,000 of those fighters. So what the president is saying is what’s going to work now is a diplomatic solution with new governance and that involves our Gulf allies. It involves Egypt, Jordan and a solution. Not just going to be able to bomb your way into that solution. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah, Sinwar is still alive by all intelligence accounts and you know, would work to reconstitute. That’s a lot of remaining Hamas members to carry out another attack. So I guess that remains to be seen. The president also said that hate has no safe harbor, and yet he did not call out the safe harbor that’s been created by university presidents across the country and has really denied Jewish students their right to go to class and their right to graduate. What do you say to that? I think the president laid out a balanced perspective. In this country. We have free speech. We have free expression and if students are engaged in non disruptive protest, then that is protected speech in public universities by our First Amendment and in other places by our principles of free expression. But what students cannot do is deny access to classrooms, deny Jewish students or any student access to a particular part of the university or to engage in a violent toxic threats based on a religious or cultural identity. And I think the President clearly, unequivocally condemned that. Does that include, I’m just bringing this up because we’re looking at it on the screen at George Washington University, the founding president of our country covered in stickers and pro Palestinian garb, right. Is that included in that kind of freedom? Well, I don’t think they should be defacing the founder of this country, George Washington. I I would reject the defacing of that statue, whoever did it. And I don’t think it helps their ’cause. I mean, Martin Luther King never did that. John Lewis never did that. There are other ways to March with conviction and passion without desecrating our our heroes. In fact, Doctor King explicitly invoked our founding principles for his calling. Yeah. Very different situation that we’re seeing. Congressman Ro Khanna, thank you so much. I hope you’ll join us again. It’s great to have you with us today. Thank you. Thank you, Sir.