Television personality Geraldo Rivera on Wednesday panned President Trump’s proposal for the U.S. to take over the Gaza Strip, calling the suggestion an “explosive musing.”
“President Trump’s explosive musing on the future of the Gaza Strip is a lot of things: dramatic, bold, historic. it is also breathtaking in its utter lack of common sense, and recognition of the human rights of the people who already live there, the Palestinian,” Rivera said on the social platform X.
Rivera questioned what other country take the Palestinians who had been forced from their lands, describing them as “1.5 million hungry, frustrated, angry, heavily armed refugees.” He ticked off a list of nations that were unlikely new homes: Egypt, Syria and, “of course,” Israel.
“I predict the United States will have a viable habitation on the planet Mars before Gaza is rebuilt as an inclusive, idyllic sea front New Vegas or Atlantic City of the eastern Mediterranean,” the NewsNation correspondent-at-large said.
On Tuesday, Trump floated the idea of the U.S. taking over the Gaza Strip during a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The president said the U.S. should have the responsibility of clearing the territory of rubble and unexploded bombs.
“I think you’ll make that into an international, unbelievable place… I don’t want to be cute, I don’t want to be a wise guy, but the Riviera of the Middle East… this could be so magnificent,” the president said.
When asked about the chance of sending U.S. troops to Gaza, Trump said his country will “do what is necessary” as he was laying out plans for the U.S. to take the area over.
Much of the Gaza Strip has been turned to rubble in the war between Hamas and Israel launched after the Palestinian militant group’s attacks of Oct. 7, 2023.
The Hill has reached out to the White House, the office of Netanyahu and the Egyptian Embassy for comment.
