US President-elect Donald Trump announced Pam Bondi, former Florida Attorney-General and longtime Trump supporter as his updated choice for US Attorney-General on Thursday night.
In an interview this year with news host Chris Salcedo, Bondi addressed the pro-Palestinian protests on US college campuses, saying, "The students who protest against our Jewish friends and support Hamas - they should be deported from our country, they are ignorant children."
This isn't the first time Bondi has so vocally supported Israel. In 2018, while serving as Florida’s Attorney-General, she was interviewed by Fox News, where she was asked about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and expressed clear pro-Israel views.
"Israel is one of our greatest allies in the world, if not the greatest," Bondi said as part of an interview about concerns of escalation in the Middle East. "I visited Israel twice as Attorney-General, and Jerusalem is Israel's capital."
"One of the concerns is that Palestinians, of course, expect their own homeland. Whether that will ever happen, the key would be making East Jerusalem its capital," said program host Neil Cavuto.
"President Trump has always said Jerusalem is the capital. And now it's officially the capital. And we didn't wait years. We didn't spend a billion dollars to do it. The President said it would happen, and it happened. So he's not giving up on other things. We're saying it will be negotiated. Nothing else has been finalized regarding borders or other issues. But this is a very important step for the Israeli people," Bondi declared.
Iran nuclear deal
When asked about canceling the nuclear deal with Iran, she answered, "We're alone, but we're brave. And this shows strength. And leaving the nuclear deal was probably one of the smartest things we could do. Iran lied to us for years about their nuclear weapons. There were no inspections. And this must stop. And the United States, President Trump knows how to hit them. We saw it with China. He knows what to do, how to hit them in trade, in the financial market, in the economy, everything he can do to influence them to stop producing these nuclear weapons and providing tools to Hamas and Hezbollah."
Bondi joins a line of pro-Israel appointments by President Trump, including his nominee for CIA Director, John Ratcliffe; his pick for National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz; and Elise Stefanik, who is expected to serve as US Ambassador to the UN.