A reporter asked U.S. President Donald Trump during a press conference as the president signed executive orders about Trump’s plan to send Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan.
Trump called on Arab nations last week, specifically Egypt and Jordan, to take in more Palestinians to “clean out” the Gaza Strip. Both King Abdullah II of Jordan and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi have rejected that plan.
The reporter asked Trump on Thursday what he planned to do to make the countries take Palestinians in. “Is there anything you can do to make them do that, I mean tariffs against those countries for example?” the reporter asked.
“They will do it. They will do it. They’re gonna do it, OK?” Trump said. “We do a lot for them, and they’re gonna do it.”
“What’s amazing about this is that Gaza was Egyptian prior to 1967 and Jordan is majority Palestinian,” wrote the conservative commentator Dave Rubin. “Why wouldn’t they want to save their own people from those very mean Jews?”