congresswomen. the president criticizing rashida tlaib of michigan for rejecting israel s offer to visit her grandmother in the west bank on humanitarian visa. that came after israel denied miss talib an congresswoman ilhan omar of minnesota normal entry due to their support of the boycott israel movement. garrett tenney has more now in washington. garrett? reporter: arthel, plenty of 2020 democrats are weighing in on this controversy as well. criticizing israeli government for blocking two congresswomen visiting and president trump encouraging israel to do it. here is kirsten gillibrand on abc s this week. the point is, congress has a duty to make decision whether we give aid, how we protect allies such as israel with qualitative military edge. unfortunately netanyahu allowed a very conservative government to have a law that says that if you support the bds movement they can prevent you.
joining us with expert insight is doctor rebecca grant. we appreciate when she joins us, thank you for joining us this morning. let s compare this with 2019 when the defense budget with the $16 billion. that is not set in stone. what do you think of that. it is a strong move. the first impact is donald trump signaling to xi jinping and iran and anybody else that the us is willing to repay us military leadership to do near-term ready ship. and to invest in modernization and by the new high-tech artificial intelligence and hypersonic s the we mean to maintain the look military edge. that is the first and strongest message. there could be an about-face, and at this is according to the
necessary. i know it is near and dear to you to your cart to my car. if i may ask at this moment in time, we re waiting to get feedback from the white house press briefing that was off-camera today. just a status of things come up morale in the military, how are things going in your opinion right now as far as progress of this president is making? the funding for the military really hasn t hit the military edge, and i think many of us are disappointed by the presidents fiscal year 18 budget because it doesn t have nearly enough money in it. to be frank about it, it s just 3% above what president obama had forecasted for fiscal year 18. john mccain and the house organizes community by max thornburgh, both of them together are going to try and add about $40 billion to that fy 18 budget. if that happens in a gets approved, then we are going to
think more journalists would. paul: what you think about the arms sales to the saudis? we are selling a lot of arms.man do you worry that that could potentially be a threat to israeli security? i do worry about that. the israelis have been promised by the u.s. that they willll maintain a qualitative military edge. it s important that they do. the israelis worry about it but they are not protesting it because they know the saudis are very much on the front lines. the islamic republic of iran represents the next essential threat, not just israel but also to the saudis in the gulf, and most of the gulf sunni states. in fact, it s more imminent threat represented by iran. they understand why the saudis are going to have that. israel needs to stay ahead ofstm the game. this is a tricky maneuver. everyone is walking on a tight rope.
what do you think about the arms sales to the saudis? we re selling a lot of arms, and do you worry that that could potentially be a threat to israeli security? i do worry about that. the israelis have been promised by the u.s. that they will maintain a qualitative military edge, and it s important that they do. i think the israelis worry about it, but they re also not protesting it because they do know that the saudis are very much on the front lines, that the islamic republic of iran represents an existential threat not just to israel are, but also to the saudis and the gulf and most of the gulf sunni states. and, in fact, it s a more imminent threat represented by iran. so they understand why the saudis are going to have that. israel needs to stay ahead of the game. this is a tricky maneuver, everybody s walking on a tight rope. but at the end of the day, i think it is necessary. and by the way, from a trumpian perspective, selling lots of arms to the saudis so they can help def