Strikes against Yemen's Houthis weren't carried out to free the Suez Canal shipping lanes only for American ships. They also cleared the way for the world's traffic, Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to President Donald Trump and senior director for counterterrorism, said on Newsmax, Sunday.
"The fact is that in the last year and a half, our military vessels have been fired at more than 100 times," Gorka told Newsmax's "Sunday Agenda." "A U.S. vessel hasn't been permitted to traverse that waterway for more than a year."
Trump, he added, "not only loves America in terms of national security and peace through strength, he is committed to the American economy and to global free trade, and that's why our daring war fighters did what they did yesterday, to make sure that that seminal shipping lane is open to the world's traffic, not just American shipping."
Gorka said he was in the Situation Room Saturday with his counterterrorism team and colleagues from the National Security Council when the strikes were being carried out on the Houthi targets.
"National security advisor Mike Waltz was with President Trump, who also was watching and listening to our brave war fighters," said Gorka. "There you go, dealing death to these pirates, these thugs who have held international trade and maritime freedom on the seas hostage for years now."
Meanwhile, former President Joe Biden removed the Houthis from the foreign terrorist list, and Gorka said he doesn't know why.
"It's a very interesting question," he said. "We're going to get to the bottom of that. But President Trump isn't having it."
Iranian Gen. Hossein Salami, meanwhile, has denied that the Houthis are being backed by Iran, and Gorka said he should "take up stand-up comedy as his next passion after his regime collapses."
The Houthis are "former charcoal smugglers," but now, the United States is expected to believe that "somehow they got their hands on air defense missile systems, with which they're shooting down unmanned U.S. vehicles that are taking out terrorists."
Trump has warned that there will be "hell to pay" if Iran doesn't quit supporting terrorism, said Gorka.
"They're fish food now," he said. "President Trump is not a man to be trifled with."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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