FLASHBACK: Trump’s AG Pick Pam Bondi Calls For Pro-Hamas Protestors ‘To Be Taken Out of Our Country’

President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general, Pam Bondi, joined Newsmax in 2023, weeks after the devastating October 7th attack on Israel, and called for pro-Hamas protestors to be deported from the U.S.

“You look around. The thing that is really the most troubling to me, these students in universities in our country, whether they’re here as Americans or if they’re here on student visas and they’re out there saying, I support Hamas. You and I have seen that on all of these television shows, frankly. They need to be taken out of our country,” Bondi told Newsmax’s Chris Salcedo.

“Or the FBI needs to be interviewing them right away when they’re saying, ‘I support Hamas, I am Hamas,’” Bondi added, watering down the idea that American citizens would be deported.

“That’s not saying I support all these poor Palestinians who are trapped in Gaza. That’s not what they’re saying. So I think our student visas need to be revoked. I think we need to reinstate President Trump’s travel ban immediately. There’s a lot of things that can be done to stop this,” continued Bondi, concluding:

But you have the anti-Semitism that is rampant throughout this country now. And it’s truly, truly heartbreaking to see what’s happening to all of our Jewish friends in this country. But I really just I think a lot of ignorant kids and students and people who don’t understand that Hamas equals terrorism, even worse at its worst.

Bondi’s October 23rd interview came amid a growing pro-Palestinian protest movement on college campuses across the U.S. that grabbed headlines and stirred controversy as some protestors used anti-Semitic rhetoric favoring Hamas, which has long been labeled a terrorist organization by the U.S. The Israeli-Hamas war became a hot-button issue during the 2024 presidential campaign, in which Trump increased his vote share of Arab Americans and even beat Vice President Kamala Harris in Dearborn, Michigan.

Bondi formerly previously served as the attorney general of Florida and was a prominent supporter of Trump’s debunked claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

Watch the clip above via Newsmax.