President Donald Trump is returning to a deterrence-through-strength policy when it comes to the Houthi terrorists, Alex Wong told Newsmax on Monday, adding that Trump is going to end their "capability" and break their "will."
Wong, White House principal deputy national security adviser, joined "The Record With Greta Van Susteren" to speak to the Trump administration's order of strikes on Houthi positions over the weekend after the Iran-backed terrorists owned up to firing on the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier group.
"Look, the president is prosecuting, together with our brave men and women in uniform, an operation here to restore deterrence, restore freedom of navigation, and make it clear and restore the principle that if you shoot at Americans, if you shoot at American ships, if you shoot at American planes, you're dead," Wong said. "That was a principle that [former] President [Joe] Biden backed off on when the Houthis began these attacks after Oct. 7 in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
"President Biden, responded with weakness and ceded the strait to an Iran-backed terrorist group. President Trump looks at that situation he's not going to put up with it anymore," Wong added. "President Trump has launched this operation, he's going to restore freedom of navigation, he's going to take away the capability and the will of the Houthis."
Wong said it's a far cry from the Biden administration, which when it did launch strikes on the Houthis in Yemen, gave them notice and chose targets that were inconsequential.
"And again, we were targeting not just pinprick, one-time attacks in the style of President Biden. This will be a series of strikes, a more extended operation," Wong said. "And we're not just targeting some tents in a desert. These will be leadership; these will be weapon stores. This is an operation that where America and the president is serious about ending this threat to international navigation and to our men and women in uniform."
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Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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