Trump slams Biden and Obama in Knesset speech

President Donald Trump tore into his predecessors and former Democratic rival for their inability to bring stability to the Middle East while addressing the Israeli parliament in a blockbuster speech on Monday. The Republican was in Israel to address the nation’s main legislative body, the Knesset, and to be on the ground as Hamas turned over Israeli hostages it had held captive since the onset of the war two years ago.

Speaking for the better part of an hour, Trump declared a new dawn in the Middle East where countries that have been at odds can now come together to strike deals, negotiate better commerce agreements and rebuild Gaza . However, the pugilistic president did not let the conciliatory moment stop him from laying blame on former Democratic presidents for their failure to stabilize the region.

‘All of the countries in the Middle East that could have what we’re doing now, it could have happened a long time ago, but it was strangled and set back almost irretrievably by the administrations of Barack Obama and then Joe Biden ,’ Trump said. ‘There was a hatred towards Israel.’

‘Nobody asked Joe Biden to come up and speak, I guarantee you that,’ he added. Trump is just the fourth president to address the Knesset; former presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush were also given the honor. ‘We had a very weak administration. Worst president in the history of our country by far, and Barack Obama was not far behind, by the way,’ Trump said, referring to Biden.

He has said Biden was ‘incapable’ and ‘a corrupt grifter.’ Representatives for Biden and Obama did not immediately return the Daily Mail’s request for comment. The 79-year-old president also tore into Obama for striking the Iran nuclear deal that allowed the US adversary to expand its fledgling nuclear programs, which, according to US intelligence, was also attempting to make a nuclear bomb.

‘The setbacks really started when President Obama signed the Iran nuclear deal,’ Trump told the Knesset. ‘This was a disaster for Israel, and it was a disaster for everyone.’ The Republican also recounted prior conversations he had with world leaders that he said expressed concern about the direction of the US under Democratic administrations.

‘I heard it first from the King of Saudi Arabia. I then heard it from [the United Arab Emirates]. I heard it from Qatar. I heard it from many other countries. A year ago, the United States of America was a dead country. Now it’s the hottest country anywhere in the world. It is the hottest. There’s no question about it,’ Trump shared.

He also took aim at his former political rival and 2016 presidential opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who, during that campaign, attacked Trump as a president who would start conflicts. ‘Everyone thought I was going to be brutal. I remember Hillary Clinton during a debate, “Look at him, look at him. He’s going to go to war with everybody!”‘

‘But when you settle eight wars in eight months, that means you don’t like war!’ Trump said. He likened her warning to ‘just another example of the political scare tactics that failed.’ Over the weekend, Clinton poured praise onto the current president’s peace deal between Hamas and Israel. ‘It’s a really significant first step and I really commend Trump and his administration,’ Clinton said on CBS News.