Nikki Haley: ‘Take out’ foreign leaders behind drone strike in Jordan

Iran has denied it was behind the deadly drone strike.

Haley brushed aside concerns that could lead to a “dramatic escalation” in the region.

“Iran knows that they can’t defeat America. They know that they don’t want to take that on. The problem is they smell blood in the water. They’ve smelled weakness from Biden since Afghanistan to Ukraine,” said Haley, a military spouse whose husband is deployed in Africa. “Until you take their money away, you are continuing to pay for them to injure and kill American soldiers. That’s the part that Biden needs to understand.”

Haley’s campaign posted a
portion of the interview on X, formerly Twitter, with the message: “Joe Biden has been appeasing Iran for too long. Dictators and thugs only respond to strength.”

A Haley campaign spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions from POLITICO about whether she was calling to assassinate foreign leaders and whether she was directly accusing Iran of being behind the drone attack.

Pressure is growing on the Biden administration to respond more forcefully to the more than 160 attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, Syria and now Jordan. Biden said on Sunday that the
U.S. “shall respond” to the attack that his administration has blamed on Iranian-backed militias.
Iran has denied it was behind the deadly drone strike.

The Pentagon on Monday
identified the three soldiers who were killed as Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders, and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, all assigned to the 718th Engineer Company at Fort Moore, Georgia.