‘On Their Own’: GOP Rep On Ground In Israel Says Stranded Americans Are ‘Getting Nowhere’ With Biden State Dept

Republican Rep. Cory Mills of Florida blasted the Biden administration while on the ground in Israel, saying U.S. citizens looking to leave the country are “getting nowhere” with the State Department.

Hamas attacked multiple locations in southern Israel Saturday, killing over 1,000 people including 22 Americans. Multiple airlines cancelled flights to and from Israel following that country’s commencement of military operations against Hamas, The Associated Press reported.

“It’s about 2:30 in the morning here, but bottom line is that we were getting a ton of requests from Americans who were stranded who had tried to reach out to the State Department and were getting nowhere, had flights canceled, no more hotel room availabilities and were really kind of off on their own,” Mills told Fox News host Laura Ingraham. “And I just kind of made the decision, you know, that I needed to step up and do something. We talk about the difference between statesmen and politicians. One acts and one talks.”

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“This isn’t my first time doing this because my team and I had conducted the first successful overland rescue out of Afghanistan that rescued a mother and three children,” Mills told Ingraham.

President Joe Biden told Americans in Israel to take commercial flights out of the country hours after the flight cancellations were announced. Biden also received criticism for hosting a barbeque for White House staff Sunday and for making concessions to Iran, including arranging for the release of $6 billion held by South Korea for humanitarian aid in exchange for Iran freeing five Americans it held prisoner.

While the Biden administration claimed Iran had not spent any of the funds, experts said that allowing those funds to be used for humanitarian aid freed up other funds for promoting terrorism.

“I put all this 100% on the Biden administration. Biden released $6 billion, it’s still a fungible and very easily movable income that they have,” Mills said. “[Iran’s] oil revenue has gone up to $30 billion and you know, back when Trump was in office, it was half that.”

“We’re literally funding the very terrorism that’s hitting our allies endangering Americans,” Mills added later.

The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.