Learn English with the President of the United States, Donald Trump. President Trump meets with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv to discuss a range of topics including the crisis in Syria, the peace deal with Hamas, and much more.
00:06:13.820We got Kurt Mills going to join us, Dr. Thayer, trying to break this all down.
00:06:18.040So, Rabbi Willicki, you've been putting out these, I quite frankly think they're very helpful videos.
00:06:22.800And you've been making the case that in Syria, you've got a Turkish proxy, that's all Erdogan, in Gaza, that there's something really wrong there, that you're not going to be ahead.
00:06:36.320And you were the guy that went through the whole difference between the plan and the UN resolution, that we really haven't designated anybody to disarm Hamas.
00:06:46.880And you've been making a case that, hey, you've got Turkey in Syria, you've got Turkey that is supposedly going to be the security force coordinator for Gaza.
00:06:56.760You've also been warning about what's happening in Iran.
00:07:00.280Put in perspective, like, given the press conference that came afterwards and some of the leaks started coming out, what do you think happened?
00:07:16.880Well, Steve, the main items on the agenda were Gaza, Iran and Syria, as you just pointed out.
00:07:26.040And what I heard from the press conference today was that Trump is, I guess, returning to the doctrine that dominated his first term approach to the Middle East, which is peace through strength.
00:07:39.620And that means that if you really want peace, you need to either destroy the bad actors or have them recognize that there's a real credible threat of them losing their power.
00:07:52.540And that's the only way that they're going to come into line that I think I don't know what changed in the meeting with with Netanyahu or we simply hadn't heard Trump articulate it so clearly.
00:08:03.400But, you know, the whole discussion of Gaza, let's start there.
00:08:08.820In the press availed before the meeting, someone in the press pool asked about the issue of Turkish troops in Gaza.
00:08:18.260And Trump said that it's one of the issues they're going to talk about.
00:08:21.100And unfortunately, no one asked about it in the press conference afterwards.
00:08:25.080And I would have loved to hear that was that was what I was waiting for most, honestly, to see what he would say about that.
00:08:30.920Because as as you say, as I've been pointing out, the big problem facing the the Middle East, the big miss, I believe, that the Trump administration and again, I am at the front of the line saying that President Trump is the has been great on the Middle East.
00:08:49.860At the same time, this love affair with the Turks and the Qataris is causing some missteps, let's just say.
00:08:57.140And there's no way that Israel is going to allow Turkish troops on it.
00:09:00.780But you've been a lot of these a lot of these videos you've been putting out is saying, hey, now we got to think about the five billion dollars.
00:09:16.960But Erdogan, to me, hasn't been shy about saying I'm reestablishing the caliphate.
00:09:22.800He says the goal is to march on Jerusalem.
00:09:24.660He dreamed of expanding the – well, also the two holy sites.
00:09:29.560I mean he'd like to get Mecca and Medina back in the fall as they had before World War I.
00:09:34.280So what he did say that – I don't know if it's confusing because President Trump does a lot of this to make sure that nobody's – that he can always continue to negotiate and people can't get a steady grip.
00:09:45.660He made this comment about – and one of the things that I know you and others have been harping on is this whole issue of at the end of the day, who is going to actually go in and disarm Hamas, right?
00:10:26.720At the very beginning of this, after the 20-point plan was announced, and I pointed out at the time that, hey, wait a second, it doesn't say who's supposed to disarm Hamas.
00:10:35.180And then we had this circus act where Trump said maybe the Israelis would do it.
00:10:40.420Kushner and Witkoff said that it will be the international stabilization force.
00:10:44.080King Abdullah said, no, no, no, no, no, we're not doing that.
00:10:46.960And everyone was pointing fingers at each other about who's going to disarm Hamas.
00:10:50.360At the same time, Trump was adamant in this press conference that Hamas agreed to disarm.
00:10:56.620And, Steve, I could show you half a dozen interviews with Hamas spokespeople going all the way back to the day the 20-point plan was announced,
00:11:05.540adamantly insisting that they never agreed to disarm.
00:11:08.920Now, that either means that they're lying, which is a distinct possibility.
00:11:13.740Or it means that the Qataris and the Turks, who were the go-between between Hamas and the Americans, are, you know, basically said, yeah, yeah, yeah, they're going to disarm and they're not really going to.
00:11:23.980It's still unclear who's going to do it.
00:11:25.880And when Trump said that there's all these other countries who said that they're willing to go in there, I do not know what he means.
00:11:30.980I have yet to see a single country that has shown a willingness to actually militarily go into there.
00:11:36.780Because, again, disarming Hamas is not a negotiation.
00:12:02.380At the same time, Steve, in this press conference, when I say that I heard a return to peace through strength, I think the most important line in the entire press conference was when they were talking about Iran.
00:12:15.060And Trump said there can be no peace in the Middle East if Iran rearms.
00:12:21.200And what that really speaks to is, and you can say the same thing about Hamas, there can be no peace.
00:12:27.960The Gaza, a brighter future for Gaza, a more peaceful, more quiet southern border for Israel and the Israel-Egypt border, it can only happen if Hamas is removed.
00:12:41.300That's the only way these things can go forward.
00:12:43.500And let's remember, President Trump is not naive.
00:12:45.620He does not want his peace plans and his Middle East policy to fail.
00:12:51.740So he's not living in a world of wishful thinking.
00:12:55.820There are people around him who might be, but he does not live in a world of wishful thinking.
00:13:00.400And because of that, he doesn't—I think that maybe it happened in this meeting with Bibi, or maybe he already was on this thinking beforehand.
00:13:07.760But to understand that there simply won't be peace in the Middle East if the Iranians, who scream death to America and death to Israel, they spend all of their money.
00:13:17.560Their people are in the streets right now rioting, not because they're pro-Israel.
00:13:21.980They're rioting because their currency is collapsing.
00:13:27.700And all these billions of dollars that Iran is getting from selling oil to the Chinese is being used to rebuild their ballistic missile program.
00:13:37.560That's what they're spending their money on.
00:13:39.800So there will simply be no peace in the Middle East if Iran continues to arm.
00:13:45.240There will be no peace on Israel's southern border if Hamas is there.
00:13:48.320And this is what peace through strength is all about.
00:13:50.320You need to punish the bad actors or remove them or have a credible threat of their removal if you want to have peace in the Middle East.
00:13:59.560And I think that Trump is on the right track.
00:14:01.380I think that's what this is really about.
00:14:02.820I think that was the most important line in the entire press conference because it was more about strategy than about a specific tactic that's on the table.
00:14:10.420So still, the disarming of Hamas is, I think there's a little bit of a shell game going on, pretending that it's actually an achievable goal without Israel going in and fighting Hamas, which would look like the resumption of the war.
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00:29:08.900President Trump said he was going to knock the hell, quote, knock the hell out of the Persians, Iran, if they were going to rebuild their ballistic missile program.
00:29:19.520Is the way to see this, and I don't want to have too much of a jaundice eye here when we're talking about, which I think is a sideshow, which the Middle East and Israel sideshow to a sideshow.
00:29:28.940Was this just the kickoff to Netanyahu 2026, his campaign, sir?
00:29:34.660Well, I don't know if this is the kickoff.
00:29:38.160Things have been happening for a while.
00:29:39.620You know, these diplomatic deals and the gas deal with Egypt.
00:29:43.320Israel signed a $35 billion gas deal with Egypt that was announced a couple weeks ago and all sorts of big weapons deals.
00:29:49.340There's been a lot going on, a lot of PR, and it certainly is the beginning of campaign season here in Israel.
00:29:54.780Look, when it comes to elections and Bibi has, you know, there's, he's got, there's a lot of problems with Bibi Netanyahu, but the way the coalition politics works in Israel, and it's far beyond the scope of this discussion to get into the weeds on this.
00:30:10.040Maybe at some later point when it gets closer to the election, we can talk about it, but there's kind of no, he will be the next prime minister.
00:30:18.280I mean, it's just going to happen again because of the way things are and his Likud party being so popular, and he's still, he still laps the field.
00:30:27.420It's kind of similar to the, you know, to the, to the Republican primary in 2024, where there was just no, there's no real challenger when it comes to who people prefer as prime minister.
00:30:37.240The left in Israel has been decimated and destroyed, and Bibi's the, he heads up the largest right-wing party.
00:30:43.320So, yeah, it's kind of the campaign, but, you know, the truth is in the current, in the current makeup of the way our coalition politics works, he kind of doesn't need the help.
00:30:55.060And I'm not saying that as an endorsement, it's just a fact.
00:31:25.100Because there's other people saying that Times of Israel reports today, there's some factions in Bibi's coalition saying you've got to get the MOU.
00:31:33.400How serious is this effort for people to really say, hey, look, we shouldn't have to go begging the United States every time we want to take on a move in Syria against ISIS.
00:31:43.480Or if we see ballistic missile capabilities, we want to take them out.
00:31:47.020We shouldn't have to call Washington and get permission, sir.
00:32:10.820The way that Israel got the aid to begin with was always as a way of pressuring Israel or selling Israel on making security concessions.
00:32:21.400It all started when we gave up the Sinai Desert and the Camp David Accords with Jimmy Carter.
00:32:25.020So the aid to Israel has always been a strategic problem for Israel.
00:32:29.960And right now, in Bibi's inner circle, there are different factions.
00:32:35.280Netanyahu himself, finally, finally, over the course of the last six months or so, and ramping it up in the last couple of months, has been talking about the need to end the aid completely when this MOU ends.
00:34:17.760And hopefully, it's moving in that direction.
00:34:19.620I was informed, and it was spoken about here in Israel over the last few weeks, that this was going to be on the agenda of the meetings with Trump.
00:34:30.060They didn't talk about it in the press conference.
00:34:32.720But if Netanyahu stays in the prime minister's office, we will move in the direction of the aid being drawn down.
00:34:39.960If he's not prime minister, we might get someone who thinks more traditionally, who wants to keep the aid going.
00:34:45.780Where do people get these videos you're putting out in your columns?
00:34:50.300Where do they go for all your content?
00:35:35.100You were great this morning on Ukraine.
00:35:36.920Of course, since then, President Trump's actually had a conversation with Putin about – he's saying that Ukraine is coming after his personal lodge, his personal residence.
00:35:46.220But what was your assessment of Netanyahu's visit?
00:35:48.620Give me a couple of minutes on that, particularly the press conference after.
00:35:53.220Well, I thought it was very impressive.
00:35:56.460Trump's performance was very impressive, of course, in the conference and in the press conference.
00:36:01.360And I think, as the rabbi identified, that Netanyahu there has his demands and Trump is working out, obviously, a way to massage him and move him on to his re-election, which Trump sees, of course, is very important for the relationship with Israel.
00:36:25.080Yeah, so never a dull moment, of course, on that front, on Ukraine or, of course, on Taiwan.
00:36:35.280Tell me – Taiwan, you know, and President Trump was kind of – not flippant, but he says she's not going to move on Taiwan while I'm here.
00:36:52.900If it is true that Kiev went after Putin's private residence, how big a deal is that in this very delicate negotiation that we're trying to get to at least somewhere in this Ukraine situation?
00:37:06.740I mean, the facts are yet to come out, but it does seem like Kiev tried to decapitate Russia, right?
00:37:12.180It was a counter-leadership strike against Putin in an effort to kill him, and there's a logic there, and that is that Kiev wants the war to keep going, right?
00:37:22.700Zelensky wants the war to keep going as Xi Jinping wants the war to keep going.
00:37:28.720So decapitating Putin would, of course, throw a spanner in the works.
00:37:32.840That's really going to gum things up and delay –
00:37:37.180While you bring it up, while you bring it up, President Trump is like Prometheus trying to do this.
00:37:44.200Actually, Putin has no problem with the war going on.
00:37:55.080That's how he continues to win and get endorsements from President Trump.
00:37:58.400Plus, he'll face charges when it doesn't happen.
00:38:01.900The mullahs want the war to go on because the people on the street riding right now because they don't have any bread and food, so they need the war to go on.
00:38:09.260Xi particularly wants to keep the pressure on Taiwan.
00:38:12.360He keeps the military off him by having the war continue to go on.
00:38:17.480All of the bad – all the actors in this drama, except for President Trump, want these wars to go on.
00:38:22.560Therefore, how can one man try to solve these things with the opportunity costs it has to focus on it, right, when you've got so many other concerns here?
00:38:34.160Every major participant that's a decision maker – and let me throw Erdogan in there too – all want these wars to continue because it's in their benefit for them to continue, is it not?
00:38:43.140It is, I think, for most of those actors, but it is in the interest clearly of Russia at some point to end this war and to take the – not the olive branch,
00:38:57.980or to at least to take the entreaty that Trump is offering him of moving beyond this conflict and improving relations between Moscow and Washington,
00:39:07.420which is a very important step and helps us enormously in the relationship with dealing with, of course, the Chinese Communist Party.
00:39:17.080So, yeah, a lot of actors want the war to keep going.
00:39:20.820Zelensky and Xi Jinping, I think they are most important.
00:39:46.620I think it took quite a temerity for Netanyahu to come in here before the year closes and ask for a bill of goods
00:39:53.740and ask the president to expend more political capital on wars that he promised to end.
00:39:59.080And I think so far, you know, talk is cheap and maybe Trump is just trying to throw him a bone rhetorically by saying, you know, the relationship is as close as ever.
00:40:10.800Certainly that's what happened in the spring when he looked tight as a knot with Netanyahu and initiated negotiations with the Iranians.
00:40:19.220But so far, today's meeting was not positive for those who want to see the U.S. diversify from the Israeli relationship and extricate the country from these wars in the Middle East.
00:40:47.000He said there are many countries he essentially, I think maybe I misinterpreted the IDF wasn't on his top 10 list to disarm Hamas.
00:40:55.700He says there's many countries, including some of their former allies who will want to go in and destroy them right there.
00:41:02.740That's a totally different that's now you think that was just rhetoric as is President Trump talking or you actually think that that's a move that he's telling Netanyahu we're not going to have because the centerpiece of this meeting, I'm sure, was about who's going to disarm Hamas.
00:41:16.200That's the one that that in the end and hitting the Iranians again with another attack, hopefully leading to regime change for Jerusalem.
00:41:23.800Right. That's the two centerpieces of this meeting.
00:41:26.680Well, I think the most concerning part was the commitment.
00:41:28.880And I'm not sure he knew what he was doing there to the commitment.
00:41:31.400And unfortunately, people can construe it as a red line to bomb Iran for the ICBMs.
00:41:38.180So if that's the if that's the criterion, you could see bombing raids tonight.
00:41:43.260And I think that would be very concerning.
00:41:44.740I think, though, Trump threw a lot of rhetoric that was potentially intentionally self-contradictory.
00:41:51.100My previous guest, Rabbi Willoughke, kind of caught on to it, I think, in my opinion.
00:41:55.400He had a lot of positive words to say about Erdogan.
00:41:58.300Erdogan, Erdogan's interest in Turkey's interest, Turkey's interest in the Middle East are not the same as the rabbis or the Netanyahu faction or Israel.
00:42:06.980And so he's he's going to have to pick or, you know, this that these chairs going to keep spinning.
00:42:13.220That this this dynamic will will continue to be unsolved.
00:42:46.020But Kurt Mills, given opportunity costs, given all this, you know, revelations of what's happening in Minneapolis, you've seen the fight in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles about not not allowing ICE or not allowing federalized National Guard to come in and support ICE on mass deportations.
00:43:03.400The energy and focus and time it just takes for these endless wars, and particularly when it was the seven or nine guys you're across the table from, none of them want them to end.
00:43:13.400It's not that they're incentivized to keep them going because they stay in power this way and the money keeps flowing from the arms industry.
00:43:21.020So as President Trump, I mean, he saw Ukraine yesterday was three or five hours, you know, hours in preparation, hours afterwards for decision making.
00:43:35.280The question is about how to bring this home and how to score a touchdown on it.
00:43:39.340I think the Israelis really don't want the wars to end.
00:43:41.960So I think it's important to tear this.
00:43:43.660And I think among the Israelis, Netanyahu really doesn't want them to end.
00:43:46.940And I think you see this rhetorically, or perhaps I should say in Israeli propaganda, that they'll effectively operate and co-opt any talking point that they need to.
00:43:57.020So they've seen the writing on the wall on defense spending.
00:43:59.720The U.S. does not want to continue funding defense expenditures for the Israelis.
00:44:05.940It's not voguish on the right to advocate for it.
00:44:08.200And so they'll move the goalposts and say, oh, that's OK.
00:44:11.620We don't actually support defense spending.
00:44:13.480But then they'll lobby for all other types of military support and back channels.
00:44:18.620And I think that's what you saw today.
00:44:19.660I mean, if Israel really didn't need the United States, what is Netanyahu doing here days before the new year?
00:44:26.540What is Netanyahu in private briefings with the Secretary of War and the president of the United States demanding potential U.S. strikes on Iranian ICBM missiles, not nuclear weapons?
00:44:37.380The goalposts have already moved from that.
00:44:38.920That was the Israeli talking point since the 90s.
00:44:41.180And because they know they'll enrage President Trump by claiming that the Iranians maybe still have nukes, I think they probably do, then they're moving to these missiles, which is just, you know, if that's the criterion, as I said in the earlier segment, we're going to war tonight.
00:44:57.480And so I'm not sure if President Trump quite realized what he committed to there, but it's very dangerous stuff if the president wants to keep his pledge to keep us out of endless wars.
00:45:06.580That's what the man on the street understands.
00:45:11.020And if this pageantry, if this dealmaking results in accords, then I would be the first to celebrate it.
00:45:18.180And I think that, you know, the madman theory of diplomacy will have borne fruit.
00:45:22.340But if it results in the wars continue and that the average voter, the average MAGA voter is either demotivated for 2026 or outright hostile to the legacy of this administration on foreign policy, that's bad news for Trump's legacy.
00:45:36.340That's bad news for potential successors.
00:45:54.920The Russian-speaking eastern border of Ukraine is not in the vital – whatever happens between those two Slavic entities has nothing to do with the vital national security of the United States.
00:47:03.080We're not – we're not – it's – the Middle East is a sideshow.
00:47:06.720So Israel and the whole situation there is a sideshow to a sideshow and it's now time to cut bait and let them go, you know, give them a blessing and boom.
00:47:14.220If they want to go hammer and they know how to hammer, hammer away, particularly with the situation of Hamas and who's going to take the weapons away, et cetera, it shouldn't be our concern.
00:47:22.880We've got more than enough to do here.
00:47:53.000And they are turning up the heat on Taiwan.
00:47:55.320I actually had a chance over the weekend to meet with some Taiwanese folks.
00:48:01.000And I don't think people appreciate the sensitivity with the high-chip production manufacturing and what's going on.
00:48:09.480This naval exercise – and we're going to have Captain Fennell on tomorrow – this naval exercise in the last 24, 48 hours is nothing to joke around about.
00:48:18.220I mean, this is a whole envelopment, live fire exercise.
00:48:22.360Xi could not be, I think, singling more that – and he says this.
00:48:26.160They want us to back off that anybody that supports Taiwan independence is a problem and therefore an enemy, according to the CCP.
00:48:35.860Do you agree that this thing is – this is the – of everything that's happening, this is 10 times the most serious thing that's out there, correct?