Trump arrives in Israel, leading a high-stakes mission for peace and the long-awaited release of hostages. After months of war and heartbreak, a breakthrough, a ceasefire, and hostage releases, and the first steps towards a lasting Jerusalem accord, Steve Bannon leads RAV s live coverage, joined by powerful voices from Jerusalem as the world watches this historic moment unfold.
00:02:04.200We've got some amazing footage of Hostage Square in Tel Aviv.
00:02:09.580We've got footage of Ream Air Force Base, where the hostages are actually currently seven that have already been released.
00:02:14.860Also, other spots in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, we are, we have with us this morning, we're going to have Kurt Mills from the American Conservative, our own Ben Harnwell, international editor, live in Rome.
00:02:29.760The great Jack Pasovic pulling an overnight shift here with us.
00:02:33.480Joel Gilbert in Los Angeles, an expert filmmaker, an expert on the Middle East.
00:02:39.820But I want to start with Matt Faraci, who's actually live in Jerusalem.
00:02:45.040Matt, put in context, what this day, this is over a two-year war, coming off the most brutal slaughter the Jews have had since the Holocaust.
00:02:56.040Very contentious, this war in Jerusalem, in Israel, kind of torn about these, the nation's torn apart, really, about the hostages and how the situation was handled, how the war was prosecuted.
00:03:08.480But what does the today mean with the President of the United States about to arrive in Jerusalem on Air Force One to meet Netanyahu, welcome some hostages back, and then address the Israeli nation at the Knesset, sir?
00:03:24.420Good morning, Steve. Great to be with you.
00:03:26.600We are here in Jerusalem on Jaffa Street.
00:03:29.520This place is going to be banging here in a bit.
00:03:32.340This is one of the sort of most busy places in Jerusalem where Israelis come.
00:03:37.860I was reminded this morning, Steve, what a small country this is and how everybody has been impacted by this.
00:03:45.120The camera operator that I'm working with this morning, we were looking at some of the hostages being released, and two of the guys are called the Berman Twins, and he worked with them before.
00:03:57.180And he knows a lot of people in the company that they worked with, very respected guys.
00:04:02.920I've got family members who have said the same thing.
00:04:05.560They knew people that either got abducted on October 7th or got attacked or, you know, whatever happened.
00:04:11.280So it's really, if you want to think of it this way, Steve, it's a family rejoicing for what's happening today.
00:04:19.560To say they're excited to have President Trump is perhaps the understatement of the century.
00:04:23.960So I'm trying to find a word that encapsulates how thrilled people are that President Trump is here.
00:04:30.520The streets are all gated off with extra security for the motorcade to be able to come down to the Knesset.
00:04:37.660So there is a lot of anticipation this morning, Steve, as you noted, as the hostages are being released.
00:04:43.860On the downside, there's a lot of violence being reported and videos being uploaded in Gaza now that Hamas, you know, temporarily has the IDF stepping back.
00:04:55.780They're shooting a lot of people and shooting these rival clans, and there's a lot of brutality taking place in Gaza right now.
00:05:01.780Yeah, it seems to be like these open Klan wars and people were collaborating.
00:05:07.480We're going to get to that in a minute.
00:05:09.440I noticed even CNN and BBC, people, the news people, and even here at the war, a little bit overwhelming, the emotional reaction to this by the Israeli people.
00:05:20.640I mean, now it's like two or three days they've been in hostage square in Tel Aviv throughout the nation.
00:05:26.980You see at Ream Air Force Base, thousands of people there to greet them.
00:05:30.600Were you anticipating it would be this emotional for the Israeli people?
00:05:37.300Yeah, I was because, again, because everybody either knows a hostage or knows a soldier that died in Gaza or knows somebody that was impacted or has it in their family.
00:05:49.240I have friends that I've gone to synagogue with who, you know, a father who lost a son, a rabbi I know who thought his son was alive inside Gaza for 10 months and only to find out later he had been killed on October 7th.
00:06:04.380So because everybody has been so closely impacted by this, because so many have been called up into the army over the last two years and have had to leave their jobs, because so many families have been impacted, I think there's a collective family sigh of relief among the Jewish people today.
00:06:21.020And that's why you see the celebrating.
00:06:29.760Joel, you're as close as it comes to being an expert in the area.
00:06:34.400You're a filmmaker, made many films about this.
00:06:36.420You're very, you went to what, the London, to college in London, learned under some of the great scholars in the West, both Greek and Jewish, about Islam and political Islam.
00:06:50.380Your thoughts today, because President Trump's coming, he's going to meet the hostages.
00:06:54.280Obviously, this is very important for him.
00:06:57.660President Trump has got a big heart, as I think people realize, but he's also going to address the Israeli people at the Knesset.
00:07:03.340And then he's going to actually go to Egypt for this, I guess you'd call it a peace conference, which Netanyahu was not invited to, is what we understand.
00:07:21.880They get President Trump visiting Israel, which is a very emotionally reward for the Israeli people.
00:07:29.000But what's coming in Egypt, about four hours later this afternoon, we have an entire cabal of the Gulf Arabs, Turkey and Egypt, and even, I believe, the Prime Minister of England and Canada is coming.
00:07:43.360And their goal is to turn the end of this war into a political defeat for Israel, to make sure that Hamas and the Palestinian Arabs gain statehood, rebuilding of Gaza, and to put together a coalition that will demand that Israel withdraw from half of Jerusalem, the West Bank, and create a Palestinian state.
00:08:05.040So I think the forces are aligning politically in Sharm el-Sheikh to try to bring about an Israeli political defeat from the end of this conflict.
00:08:15.980And they're also going to try to have elections in Israel next year, and they're going to try to turn this entire episode against Israel politically.
00:09:18.960What Netanyahu is telling the people in Israel and Hebrew versus President Trump's mindset about this?
00:09:27.760Well, Netanyahu stated early on and has consistently said that there are dual goals.
00:09:32.800One is to release the hostages, and secondly is to disarm and dismantle Hamas and make sure that Gaza is no longer a threat to Israel.
00:09:40.700Now, this came about because Israel had the foolish idea that by turning over Gaza to the PLO, to terrorist groups, that peace would break out back in 2006, and they were woefully wrong.
00:09:53.820Now Israel has said, okay, we're getting the hostages back, but I think that Hamas has no intention of disarming.
00:10:01.020I think Hamas is looking to do the Hezbollah model in Lebanon.
00:10:06.940They don't want to be in charge of governing, but they would like to be a heavily armed group that really controls everything and can still threaten Israel.
00:10:14.900I don't see any mechanism whatsoever that any international body is going to want to go into Gaza and disarm Hamas.
00:10:22.420So Bibi has kind of been cornered a little bit from the situation.
00:10:27.060Trump is saying, no, the war is over, you can't continue, but Bibi is not giving up on one of his main goals, which is Hamas will be disarmed and dismantled.
00:10:36.280So that's one of the conflicts that we're going to see coming out of this celebration is Hamas not going anywhere
00:10:43.800and the world aligning politically in Sharm el-Sheikh to rebuild Gaza and demand a Palestinian state.
00:16:17.040This is really a Schumer shutdown because he's become sort of irrelevant and he wants to make himself relevant again.
00:16:25.380And in terms of the politics of this historic peace deal that we're on the way to go sign right now, you would think it's good for everybody.
00:16:33.020But at a rally this weekend, they were cheering for you and they were booing Netanyahu.
00:18:37.280And if this ceasefire does hold, how long until we get to the part of the 20-point peace plan where developers can go in and make Gaza the Riviera of the Middle East?
00:18:49.500Well, I don't know about the Riviera for a while because you take a look at what you have.
00:18:54.160You have to get people taken care of first.
00:18:56.000But it's going to start really essentially immediately.
00:18:59.020I mean, they're going to have to start by removing a lot of the structures that you see that are down to the ground.
00:21:45.780And the ones that are living right now were, in many cases, very young when this all started.
00:21:51.400And we are having them watch that there's not going to be big crime or some of the problems that you have when you have areas like this that have been literally demolished.
00:22:01.620You know, you have 2 million people, and probably it'll be less than that.
00:22:04.940But you have close to 2 million people going back to buildings that have been demolished.
00:30:50.580Your thoughts about some of his answers, though, Jack.
00:30:53.600Well, Steve, you know, as as the folks know, thanks to Real America's Voice and shout out to the support of Robin Parker Sigg for allowing me the opportunity to have traveled aboard Air Force One in the new media seat there and participated in those gaggles.
00:31:14.960He's talking about how these are conflicts that go back centuries and in some cases, thousands of years, depending on how you look at it.
00:31:25.300And I think he realizes as well the magnanimity of the situation, but also the fact that this.
00:31:34.120This is a real hornet's nest that he's getting himself involved into and he's reaffirming America's role, not just in the region, but in the entire world.
00:31:46.840He wants America to be the broker of the peace deal, but also the economic deals which will be coming on the heels of this.
00:31:54.800And so, yes, it's a crowded field and you've got the Arab nations there, Persia, not too far behind.
00:32:03.360And then back behind all of that, you've got, of course, Russia and China.
00:32:08.520And so for the president to come there in the Middle East to be seen as this, which is an unequivocal win for President Trump.
00:32:14.960There's no question this is President Trump's victory, that it really plants a flag for the United States being the first among nations, but not doing so in a way that with the neoconservatives, where it's through conquest or neoliberals, where it's through the increasing globalism, but through direct one-on-one diplomacy.
00:32:36.920This is exactly what President Trump campaigned on, and President Trump is absolutely delivering, and in this case, not just for the United States, but for the world.
00:32:47.220He is, though, and I thought, I think it was Dasha asked one of the best questions there.
00:32:55.100It's not the United States hasn't been in it, and obviously I've been a big proponent that Israel's a protectorate, not an ally.
00:33:01.620And now, quite frankly, in the way this deal is set up and the way he's treating Netanyahu, that, hey, here's what it's going to be, is as a protectorate, not an ally.
00:33:11.960But by taking the role of the chairman of the Board of Peace, I think he's doing something that hasn't been done in American history, except Woodward Wilson was obviously very involved in the treaty and the Versailles Treaty after, the Treaty of Paris after, in Paris to negotiate at the end of World War I.
00:33:34.660And really, he was one of the architects of the post-war League of Nations, which he then came back and could not sell to the American people.
00:33:43.380They never put into a vote in the Senate as a treaty.
00:33:46.100He had a massive stroke, and essentially his wife basically fulfilled his presidency at the end.
00:33:52.700But President Trump is stepping into a role, and he just said right there, he says, hey, I don't know if Tony Blair is going to be acceptable.
00:33:57.680Tony Blair's role in the Iraq War is left a sour taste in his mouth with many people in the region, not just the Arabs.
00:34:04.940And so we don't know if Blair is going to be able to take over as executive director.
00:34:09.240But President Trump has reaffirmed today that he's going to be the head of the Board of Peace.
00:34:14.140That means you're overseeing not just the redevelopment of Gaza, but also all the involvement and, quite frankly, thousands of years of hate and bloodshed and carnage that's going around Gaza.
00:34:32.420And, of course, President Trump putting his name on it is absolutely going to lead to a guarantee, but then also perhaps a check that will begin to see who is going to be wanting to cash that there in the region.
00:34:47.240Politically speaking, in Israel, there's obviously serious questions about whether or not Yetanyahu's coalition will be able to continue.
00:34:56.580Because as you can see here, peace is extremely popular in the area, and there's no question.
00:35:01.860You heard the boos a couple of days ago when Steve Witkoff was talking about the deal, and he mentions Netanyahu, and they immediately start booing.
00:35:10.720This is something where they view President Trump as the one who came in, worked with the Qataris, worked with regional partners, came in, put the leverage on Hamas, was able to get the deal done by having those direct negotiations, not going through, and having the IDF continue operations, which is what Netanyahu wanted to continue.
00:35:31.080So there's real questions as to what happens politically speaking there in the Knesset, and it's no coincidence that that's exactly where President Trump is going to be speaking very soon.
00:35:43.180So, yes, he is absolutely involving himself directly in this process, the same way, by the way, that he did in Ukraine-Russia.
00:35:56.080The president wasāPresident Trump's a master of messaging and a master of narrative warfare and of also branding.
00:36:05.440He referred to Netanyahu as a wartime president.
00:36:09.020Shortly thereafter, he said, they said, well, Netanyahu said last night in Hebrew in this video that the war continues on, although the Gaza part's down.
00:36:18.600There's one of the posters about President Trump.
00:36:20.660You're seeing these all over now, and particularly in areas of Israel that President Trump hasn't been particularly popular.
00:36:27.320So, Kurt, he basically said, hey, he's a wartime president, leaving open Netanyahu's futures in this entire thing.
00:36:37.780He also was adamant when told that Netanyahu had had this video address to the people in Israel about the war goes on, although the Gaza part of it is done.
00:36:49.860And this is part of the greater Israel project that has gotten so many people here in the United States, quite frankly, outraged about dragging us into it.
00:37:01.220What do you think the president is messaging right now to Netanyahu and to that kind of center-right and right-wing party in Israel?
00:37:10.420Yeah, I think he's absolutely messaging that he wants this to be finito, that he wants this to be the last word on the subject, potentially for his presidency.
00:37:22.300He doesn't want Benjamin Netanyahu coming back to Washington every other month, as it literally seems that he has to Washington.
00:37:31.940He doesn't want to be making a third trip to the region.
00:37:36.540This is, of course, the second trip after May, this October, this year to solve these problems.
00:37:43.240Trump thinks that this should be a justifiable and durable piece.
00:37:53.660You see a lot of you see the president's empathetic streak kind of coming through here, which I believe is an underrated part of his personality.
00:38:02.120You see Trump talking a lot more about history, which is not necessarily something that he does every day.
00:38:08.800And I think you have a general desire to be rid of the Israel issue for a while, that Netanyahu is on his own for elections in 2026,
00:38:21.120and that U.S. Republican-American support, Donald Trump's support, is at an end.
00:57:15.080So I'm seeing that there's kind of an influence struggle as to who will be able to sway Trump in their favor that's taking place right now.
00:57:25.320And I'm sure Bibi is trying hard to make sure that Trump understands his position and why Hamas has to be disarmed.
00:57:33.180But it sounds to me very clearly that Trump does not want the war to continue.
00:57:51.160Also, it's pretty amazing in Hostia Square in Tel Aviv.
00:57:54.920These folks who are not really Trump supporters are looking at him like he is Cyrus the Great on the big screen.
00:58:00.440Matt Faraci, President Trump has now landed in Tel Aviv at Ben-Gurion Airport.
00:58:09.420What does this mean for Israel right now?
00:58:15.420Steve, one thing I'd like to clarify for your viewers just a little bit so they can get a little bit of a political lexicon about the politics of Israel.
00:58:24.820So if I could use the analogy, Bibi Netanyahu is sort of a George W. Bush in terms of where he is on the political left, right, and center in the country.
00:59:11.920So Posobiec was talking about the prime minister's coalition earlier, and that's part of the issue is that more conservative members of the coalition had some real issues with the peace deal for national security reasons.
00:59:26.180So just to explain to your viewers how that's shaking out.
00:59:30.200And then also, if I may, Steve, to explain the prime minister's comments last night, I think it depends on your definition of war.
00:59:37.180If we're talking about ending the war with Gaza, I think the president is saying that's over.
00:59:43.240But you've still got, as far as Israel's concerned, you've got the Houthis.
00:59:46.460You've got some dangerous elements in Syria.
00:59:48.940It looks like Lebanon could go into civil war if they can't get Hezbollah disarmed.
00:59:54.140So there's a lot of other fronts happening at the same time.
00:59:57.720And I think that's what the prime minister was referring to last night.
01:00:01.880Yeah, but I think the president's referring to that, too.
01:00:04.700The president's going this afternoon to meet with the Arabs in the Muslim world, and he's calling it a Middle East peace.
01:00:55.440I said, it's Turkey and Qatar you've got to worry about, the money for the Muslim Brotherhood, and Erdogan's the muscle.
01:01:01.960And he's very focused on the reestablishment of the Ottoman Empire.
01:01:07.000The last time we had these type of seismic shifts in the Middle East was when the British, with Lawrence of Arabia, took Damascus and freed Jerusalem on the way up from, guess what, the Ottoman Empire.
01:01:20.800Anyway, we've got time to get all in this.
01:01:23.060We're going to take a break while we've got the Israeli IDF band.
01:01:29.140Very nice and appropriate, and I thought pretty low-key reception for the president, which I thought was great.
01:03:02.320His government's collapsing in France, but he's going to take time to go down to the Red Sea resort in Egypt to be part of it.
01:03:12.600You know, they've always had a big hand in the Levant.
01:03:15.540In fact, it was the French and the British that carved up the Middle East.
01:03:20.120As Joel Gilbert said, put these artificial nation, created these artificial nation states that have kind of been part of the problem ever since.
01:03:29.020Your thoughts through your beady eyes there in Rome.
01:04:39.660That said, there are things I'll want to dig into over the next three hours on this show to do with the costs that it has taken to get here.
01:05:00.740It's an extremely important earlier on today.
01:05:04.460And that is, the fact is, there seems to be a difference of opinion, even today when the crowds are gathering, as to what exactly is being celebrated here.
01:05:13.440It's clearly the release of the hostages.
01:05:15.320But also the fact, is this the end of the war?
01:05:18.520President Trump says definitively that it's over.
01:05:21.540Bibi himself is saying equally definitively that it's not.
01:05:24.660This is important for the United States because it would appear that President Trump, or let me say America, is now underwriting both sides of this war.
01:05:36.580Both the Israeli side and, of course, now the Gaza side with these security guarantees.
01:05:42.380This is a touch paper that could easily explode moving forward.
01:05:46.500And there are obviously interests, you know, the Haradim, the Orthodox Jews there.
01:05:51.240I think the government could easily fall at some point.
01:05:54.320Important to remember, Steve, that only the first phase of the Trump plan has actually been agreed to in the Knesset.
01:06:01.720The substantial long-term peace will hinge around the more substantial non-hostage issues.
01:06:10.440And that, I think, is where the difficulties Israel is going to face moving forward.
01:06:14.400Look, you mentioned in your question, of course, the Europeans, our beloved Europeans.
01:06:18.920Apart from Phony Maloney, who's also in Egypt now, the three primary countries you've mentioned, Britain, Germany, France,
01:06:28.260all of them, as you were indicating, all of them are suffering massive domestic turmoil right now.
01:06:34.880And I can't help but think that their eagerness to fly over to Cairo to be part of the peace negotiations
01:06:43.820is an attempt to distract from the failures of their own domestic agenda.
01:06:49.860And that is something, and I'll hand back to you on this point, Steve,
01:06:53.640this is something that I hope the hierarchy, the political MAGA hierarchy in the United States is attentive to.
01:08:24.220And then it turned into a hostage exchange deal with the other points to be negotiated and worked out later.
01:08:31.100The Egyptians, Turks, and Gulf Arabs jumped all over and said,
01:08:34.260OK, let's have our own little peace agreement and summit, and we're going to fund and create a Palestinian state in Gaza.
01:08:43.620I think they're putting together a political united movement to demand a Palestinian state not only in Gaza but in the West Bank and Jerusalem
01:08:52.920to help influence the Israeli election next year that will say, hey, we're going to give you peace.
01:09:28.780Imagine having a peace treaty with Egypt, and they allowed Hamas to be armed and wage war on Israel.
01:09:34.380So I think some of the peace movement in Israel has been shattered and gotten the reality that the Islamic world does not accept Israel in any size or circumstance.
01:09:44.720But it remains to be seen, because I think in Sharm el-Sheikh there is a new coalition coming together that will be proposing a peace deal for a new Israeli government.
01:09:55.260Oh, no, I agree that you've got Qatar, the Saudis, probably UAE, prepared to put in, I think, tens of billions of dollars, maybe even hundreds of billions of dollars.
01:10:08.700The Turks are sitting there saying, we'll take the security.
01:10:11.440We'll organize the Arabs and the Muslim nations on security.
01:10:15.660And Gaza, Kurt Mills, I mean, I think that's the deal, that however you want to cut it, Gaza becomes at least the beginning of a proto-Palestinian state, but two-state solution, right?
01:10:28.680I mean, it's obvious, to me, it's pretty obvious what's going to happen, sir.
01:10:34.280Yeah, I mean, look, the president is the driver on this, and the term in war is often that the enemy gets a vote, but the term in peace here should be that America gets a vote.
01:10:44.740And so I have to respectfully disagree with one of my co-panelists.
01:10:48.940I think that the president clearly sees this as an end to the greater Middle East war.
01:10:54.800I don't think he wants to use all his political capital to fly over to Israel and fly over to Egypt today to sign a Gaza-only deal only for new hostilities to break out of Yemen.
01:11:15.240I think that when Netanyahu addressed the nation last night in that video and said the larger war is over, and Trump infatically goes, the war is over, and I think he's meaning that, hey, America is not going to be there.
01:11:28.120Like I said, anything Israel wants to do on its own, go with it.
01:11:54.500Yeah, I think I could agree with that, just in terms of the sense that if Israel were to do something after this, that the president would not be there.
01:12:05.160I mean, look, you've got just north of Israel, of course, all of the real questions about what's going on in Syria with this new leader there, the Ottomans pushing down from the north across Aleppo, Idlib, these real questions about southern Syria.
01:12:22.480Who's really going to be the, you know, who's really going to be the guarantors there, these local militias, or are you going to have Damascus be able to exert any kind of control?
01:12:35.460Look, China is trying to look in that China wants Syria to be a Chinese highway for them to be able to push their new Silk Road for their products,
01:12:46.140both into and across the Mediterranean and then for oil flows back into the People's Republic.
01:12:54.020So there's a lot of questions about what goes on in Syria.
01:12:56.900I wouldn't ā I mean, look, it's the Middle East.
01:12:58.620I think we wouldn't be surprised if we do see some forms of regional conflict pop off.
01:13:03.480But at the same time, I do agree with Kurt that President Trump clearly is putting the squeeze on everyone to say, put the guns down.
01:14:34.280By the way, this shows you how small a country geographically Israel is and really how tiny Gaza is.
01:14:41.260But from the Ben-Gurion Airport, it's only a 45-minute drive to the Knesset in Jerusalem.
01:14:47.000The President en route now with the Prime Minister.
01:14:51.200What do you think that conversation inside the beast is right now, sir?
01:14:54.900Well, I think hopefully Bibi is giving Trump some perspective with something like this,
01:15:03.260is that the Arab and Muslim countries have been promoting for years and years that the only problem in the Middle East is the Palestinians don't have their own state.
01:15:11.860And they do that to avoid addressing the real problems that exist in the region.
01:15:17.380It's the divide between Shia Islam in Iran and the largest Sunni population.
01:15:22.560The Sunnis don't really consider the Shia Iranians to be real Muslims.
01:15:26.200There's a huge divide between rich elites and poor masses.
01:15:30.420The Gulf Arabs, the Saudis, the Qataris are hated by the masses of the people who are poor because they hoard the wealth.
01:15:38.300There is the Turks trying to reassert themselves.
01:15:42.400There are so many problems, persecutions of Christian minorities.
01:15:45.960There are so many problems in the Middle East.
01:15:47.680And these countries have sought to avoid addressing them by saying the only problem is the Palestinians.
01:15:53.980So these issues are huge in the Middle East.
01:15:58.880And they will exist whether or not the Palestinians put together a state in Gaza and elsewhere.
01:16:04.360And I think Bibi actually does a good job of trying to give history and perspective whenever he talks at the UN, when he talks to Trump.
01:16:12.620And, you know, the Qataris have been playing all sides.
01:16:16.940People don't understand who the Qataris really are.
01:16:19.320In Qatar, there's 300,000 Qataris and 3 million expatriates.
01:16:23.720It's a small group of this extended family that controls all the wealth.
01:16:55.380And they've had a tremendous, by putting investments and partnering with people, they are incredibly powerful, given that they were almost toppled by the UAE and the Saudis a week after President Trump, after we left in 2017, sir.
01:17:20.620And they think what they've done is they've overplayed their hand over the years by cutting deals with every single side of every conflict, paying everybody off, because they're always in survival mode.
01:17:33.100And you can't really trust them because they're always going to cut a deal with somebody else.
01:17:36.860So the very idea of even the Abraham Accords, the idea that the Israelis get an embassy in these, you know, Arab Gulf states that have these rich elites and poor masses, it doesn't have that much value.
01:17:51.580And I do believe the Abraham Accords are kind of overvalued.
01:17:55.840And the Israelis should be calling for free elections in Gulf states, in Egypt, in all these countries that if they want peace with Israel, they should hold free elections.
01:18:04.320And I think you'd see a whole different story in the Middle East.
01:18:06.860If the Abraham Accords, let's go there because that is the basic ā that's the predicate of this deal, which is more of a business relationship, commercial relationship, talking about capital markets and integration of logistics chains, the transportation, air flights from Tel Aviv to the Gulf Emirates particularly in Turkey.
01:18:32.360So if that's a shaky foundation, because I think what Jared and their concept, and even Trump, is that the politics here and the politicians are just too embedded in ancient vendettas.
01:18:44.540And if you want to try to move past it, you've got to look at the cash flow coming from the Gulf Emirates, and they're putting that in crypto, they're putting that in artificial intelligence.
01:18:56.860They're trying to ā they're trying to transform their economies in doing that, play to that, and see if that can't somehow change the Middle East.
01:19:05.420I mean, this day ā we're here today because of that, and because of the Qataris and the Saudis and UAE saying we will underwrite to the tune of tens of billions of dollars a massive redevelopment of Gaza.
01:19:18.140And President Trump said it's not going to happen overnight because, first off, you've got the things ā looks like the Western Front and World War I, but you're going to build essentially a Tel Aviv equivalent with 2 million Palestinians.
01:19:31.020And that is, to me, the proto-two-state solution that is pretty obvious is happening here, sir.
01:19:40.680One is that the vast majority of Muslims in the Islamic world hate the Gulf Arabs.
01:19:47.260They think that they're hoarding wealth and they're suppressing the masses.
01:19:52.240So these countries, you can try to cut deals with these royal families, but they are hated by the Islamists and by the vast majority of regular Muslim people.
01:20:01.900Any deal in Gaza is going to quickly ā the demand is going to expand.
01:20:20.300And the Israelis, hopefully, have learned their lesson that every time they cut a deal with these Arab countries, it never works out like they thought it would.
01:20:28.260It turns into kind of a hostile peace, and they make more demands.
01:20:33.840So I think developments are going to happen very quickly.
01:20:37.900Trump, I think, is going to try his best.
01:20:40.300But there is a large group of Muslim countries united with a plan, and I think that the details of that plan go far beyond Gaza.
01:21:08.140So, Kurt Mills, what would the president actually say in his address?
01:21:12.500Because as we've kind of detailed here, the president's idea is I'm laying out an architecture for peace in the Middle East.
01:21:19.800And the first step of this is return of hostages and Hamas laying down their arms and the IDF retreating and all these details of the Gaza part of it.
01:21:27.620But he's got a much broader agenda to kind of put this to bed, as he says, once and for all in 3,000 years, right?
01:21:36.240And the people are putting up signs in hostage square in Tel Aviv, which is not Trump-friendly country, calling Trump, as Jack Posovic says, Cyrus the Great.
01:21:49.140So, what is President Trump in a few minutes when he addresses the Israeli people from the Knesset?
01:21:56.900Yeah, I mean, I think he should basically, and I am cautiously optimistic that he will, give a sequel address to the one that he gave in the Gulf states in mid-May.
01:22:08.400When he explicitly denounced neoconservatism, he explicitly iterated that he was going to do a step change in U.S. foreign policy for a generation.
01:22:22.960And then, you know, this sort of Middle East theater went sideways in June when Israel attacked Iran.
01:22:28.660I think in October, there's an opportunity to turn the page on Hawke's summer and make it very clear that Trump is a friend of peace and also that he is a friend of the Israeli people.
01:22:41.960I think it was very revealing and it got a lot of attention over the weekend that Trump's name in the Israeli streets was cheered and that Prime Minister Netanyahu's name was booed.
01:22:53.540Prime Minister Netanyahu is a wily operator.
01:22:55.860He is welcome to run for re-election again next year.
01:22:59.960But Trump's fate need not be Netanyahu's fate.
01:23:03.940And I think he can deliver a durable peace agreement here and one that hopefully slightly or further decouples the relationship between the U.S. and Israel.
01:23:14.740Where else that Trump's entire final term in office, however long he is in the White House, will be dominated by this theater.
01:23:29.840I want to go back to that, what he said.
01:23:32.000President Trump was particularly critical of American foreign policy in the past of trying to put your own culture onto cultures that foreign like democracy in the Middle East.
01:23:44.800I mean, he's pretty adamant about that.
01:23:46.260I know Joel just talked about, hey, we ought to have direct elections and it would overthrow all these corrupt rural families.
01:23:53.320You won't have any argument there from me about the corruption of the Gulf Emirates.
01:23:58.300But President Trump was pretty adamant, kind of a break with traditional American foreign policy, that this was not he's not in the he's not in the business of rolling out democracy through the Middle East.
01:24:12.160And even said other things about, you know, people have their own cultures and those cultures have to develop over time with their economics.
01:24:19.700Yeah, I mean, I think Trump has the reasonable opinion here, not just the Middle East, but in the broader world theater, which is that he works with whoever leads the organization or the country.
01:24:30.040I think you have seen direct negotiations from Trump's emissaries with even Hamas.
01:24:37.020It's not that Trump is a fan of Hamas.
01:24:38.940It's not that Trump is going to invite Hamas to the White House anytime soon, but he'll deal with them.
01:24:43.560He represents he knows that they represent a perspective, that they have an armada of Palestinians underneath them and that they need to be brought to the table, too.
01:24:52.300And you see you see time and again a desire to just work pragmatically with who is there.
01:25:24.960Your thoughts sort of put this in perspective.
01:25:28.360Well, Steve, I think what what the panel is saying here is is right, that President Trump has come in and is repudiating both neoconservative and neoliberal camps here in terms of their schools of thought.
01:25:46.100But he he didn't notice he didn't do this using the infrastructure of the U.N.
01:25:51.780He didn't use the he didn't use the United States military to get involved in any of the operations in Hamas or in Gaza regarding them or perhaps some intel sharing.
01:26:03.700But this was direct diplomacy and using economic strength.
01:26:09.160And this is key because what do we see going on in the area is China is making a huge play for the newly reconstructed Syria to the north.
01:26:19.480China is getting back to Aleppo and Palmyra, these classic historic cities that were hubs along the ancient Silk Road.
01:26:28.320So China is building its new Silk Road across the new Syria.
01:26:32.360And so the United States is, of course, wanting to make sure they maintain relationships in the region as they look as those actors, Russia, China now coming in as well.
01:26:43.300So President Trump making a key point to understand that while the United States is putting its own interests first, it is not retreating from the rest of the world.
01:26:52.300And so it's shoring up those relationships in the Middle East.
01:26:55.580And in fact, I would even say strengthening relationships with new partners, because now you've got Qatar that is intrinsically they are dependent on the United States now for their diplomatic efforts and Israel as well, quite frankly.
01:41:44.160His arrival, the prime minister is already in.
01:41:49.940I think this, Kurt Mills, I think this speech to the Knesset is not going to be one of President Trump's one hour.
01:41:57.280I'm not so sure he's going to be going off the glass or off the prepared remarks.
01:42:01.700I think this will probably be 20 to 30 minutes.
01:42:04.420Your thoughts on that, what he's going to address to the Israeli people?
01:42:07.860Because there's still a lot of moving pieces to this deal.
01:42:10.220Yeah, I'm not sure how long it will be.
01:42:16.260I'm not sure he'll hold them captive, so to speak.
01:42:21.660But I think it's quite likely that he's going to make some pretty bold pronouncements here.
01:42:27.540Yes, the deal is, the plane is being built as it's being flown, so to speak.
01:42:33.360But that's sort of, I mean, as you know, how Trump does business and has done business throughout his career.
01:42:37.740So if there's any odds and ends on the debate around the deal, if he feels the deal could be undermined by any of the parties, I think you may see oblique references to parts of the agreement that he wants to see solidified.
01:42:55.520And I think that's why it's so notable that he's not just going to Israel, he's immediately going to Egypt.
01:43:02.380He's immediately going to the Muslim world because he wants to square a huge deal on this.
01:43:09.020And I underscore before, as I reiterated from before, he doesn't want to come back to the Middle East a third time in the calendar year.
01:43:18.420I don't think. I think he wants to put a bow on this for now and then send Netanyahu to his constituents for an up or down vote on his performance.
01:43:29.740It's not his affair, not his problem anymore.
01:43:32.400Whether or not the Israeli side is going to agree to that, I think, remains an open question.
01:43:38.360But I don't think he wants to see a war metastasized.
01:43:41.800I don't think he wants to see a war open up with Iran.
01:43:45.100There was a very, very, very interesting sub-element going on this weekend or early this week where the president actually invited the Iranians to his big party in Egypt.
01:43:56.460The Iranians, from my perspective, unfortunately declined because they were a bureaucratic and paranoid society, somewhat justifiably on the latter.
01:44:05.920But that shows you that the White House's mood right now is it might be autumn, but it's springtime for diplomacy by all appearances.
01:44:15.100By the way, I think, aren't the Persians sending their foreign minister?
01:44:20.640The president's not coming, but here comes the president of the United States.
01:44:24.960Mr. President, I'm your honor, speaking of the Knesset.
01:47:40.000That he's been there with a greeting and the signature of only President Trump.
01:47:44.500Ben Harnwell, as we move through here, I don't think I'm reading too much into it, but a little frosty between the Prime Minister and the President, or am I over-reading this situation?
01:48:02.020As enjoyable as it is to watch the line of ceremony and the vassals lining up, I think that was the Speaker of the Parliament, right, the Speaker of the Knesset, who tried to crack a joke saying, I believe you two guys know one another.
01:55:03.420Well, Steve, what's the underlying assumption here of what you're saying?
01:55:06.720Is it not the illustration of the fact that even though we're here today with all the crowds applauding the peace that is achieved so far, there is still the awareness that there is the potential that there will be agents who will try to frustrate this?
01:55:27.140And that's really the subtext of what you're saying, right?
01:55:30.820And that just illustrates, I think, how precarious the present position is.
01:55:36.180And when you say there's no one who can replace President Trump, that's absolutely right.
01:55:40.120And it goes back to what we were saying before, that the feat of today, the achievement of today is President Trump's success and his alone because of his force of will, his force of charisma.
01:55:53.340And as you say, his force of personality.
01:55:56.420And that, of course, that's why the precariousness of this situation is there, because if he weren't there, then the situation would rapidly dissolve once again.
01:56:10.020And that's the subtext of what you're saying.
01:56:11.980That's the importance of the security issue here, because we all know, we're all watching the feed here.
01:56:17.920We're all sort of applauding and watching.
01:56:20.560We know that there is probably going to be some pockets somewhere of people who will do what they can to frustrate this.
01:56:30.820And I think that's the confirmation of that, right?
01:56:32.920The fact of this uneasiness, the uneasiness as you see the chaos and the people milling out.
01:56:40.840In what, of course, the Israeli parliament is going to be a very highly secure zone anyway.
01:56:45.520So that the assumption is even within that environment, there could be malign forces waiting to strike.
01:56:55.300It illustrates how precarious this is.
01:56:59.180Just when he shows up, you know, it's not a photo op for the press.
01:57:04.000We're just taking the feed that they're providing.
01:57:05.960You saw the feed right there was it was pretty chaotic.
01:57:09.080I mean, just a grunch of people around the president walking down that red carpet, going to what I guess were microphones that were going to, I don't know, say a few words and and have a press gaggle.
01:57:19.740I just don't think it's just not the right time to do that.
01:57:22.760President ought to get into the like he goes to the Capitol of the United States.
01:57:27.680It ought to be a formal greeting for him, you know, sign the book.
01:57:31.400But then you're taken to the to the back room.
01:57:34.140There's no kind of milling around that hallway had the hallway had had, you know, a thousand people look like just kind of milling around, you know, wanting to see the president and the media right there.
01:57:47.680So it's very, you know, very, I think you can say confusing.
01:57:53.160And when the president of the United States goes to a place like Israel right now, and particularly to Jerusalem, given the you know, there's reports already in Gaza that, you know, some of the clans down there.
01:58:06.880They're having some payback already to people they say are clouded to collaborate with the Israelis.
01:58:13.080It's a it's a very volatile situation.
01:58:16.100You know, we're a long way from peace.
01:58:17.920President Trump has laid out the architecture and his force of will has brought us to this to get the 20 hostages released into into into, you know, start the process of peace.
01:58:31.120But with all the celebration you see, and this is why I think we've had Joe Gilbert on for the last couple of days.
01:58:35.760You've had these type of outpourings before where people in Israel thought there was going to be peace and it ended up not being peace.
01:58:42.620Now, I don't think there's ever been an outpouring around an individual like there is around President Trump.
01:58:47.920It's just extraordinary how they are relate.
01:58:51.220They're connecting President Trump to this day of getting the hostages back when even a couple of weeks ago when Netanyahu went to the United Nations looks like the farthest thing from the from what was going to happen.
01:59:03.660Kurt Mills, your thoughts on I'm pretty upset about this thing in the Knesset.
01:59:10.960And, you know, I put this on Bibi and his government and also the interaction with the U.S. government.
01:59:17.960But when the president of the United States comes into essentially a war zone and Israel is a war zone, you've had, as the president said, not Steve Bannon, president said 60,000 casualties in two years.
01:59:32.240Kurt Mills, you know, pretty extraordinary.
01:59:34.900Kurt Mills, your thoughts on what we just saw at the beginning of the Knesset, which I say was totally and completely unacceptable.
01:59:43.300Yeah, I don't deign to presume, but I would be a little surprised if the security was this self-evidently shoddy on the Arab side.
01:59:51.120So we'll see, hopefully, what that looks like in a few hours.
01:59:55.480I do think it's interesting that he is traveling with such a light and quick footprint, at least on the front line, as you observed earlier.
02:00:04.600Rubio, Hegseth, and if I may, Mossad's own John Ratcliffe are not in the picture, just Jared and Ivanka and Steve Wyckoff, his close friend.
02:00:16.240That indicates, in my view, that Trump has kept this pretty close ranks, this decision making, as you indicated before.
02:00:26.420This seemed extremely unlikely during the U.N. and New York in late September.
02:00:31.620And I think the reality is, and people like to talk about structural forces of history, I think this is a great man, so to speak, moment of history.
02:00:39.660Trump made this decision himself, and he's going with his family and close friends to try to get this across the finish line.
02:01:11.640And the production value on this is very fly by the seat of the pants, right?
02:01:18.840And, you know, especially with everything that's going on, that's less than adequate.
02:01:23.840And it implies, you know, I don't want to speak too soon, but it implies a lack of enthusiasm within the Israeli state itself for the end of this war,
02:01:33.580even though, I mean, look how desperate this population is for the return of the hostages and for the end of the war.
02:01:41.040It just speaks to the sort of schizoid nature of Israeli society where the government is so much more hard aligned than so many good people in that country.
02:01:48.980Well, you see the outpouring from the Israeli people in the square.
02:01:55.120Also, the rest of the people at the Knesset greeting him were all smiles.
02:02:00.660And I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, the president had just spent 45 minutes in the beast, in the car,
02:02:06.760from Ben-Gurion Airport to the Knesset with Netanyahu.
02:06:02.080People forget this is a country full of Jews.
02:06:07.000I think the prime minister said once many years ago, the problem with being prime minister is that you're prime minister of a nation of prime ministers.
02:06:15.040So it is a little bit, you know, when I take visitors to the Knesset, they're always surprised at the decorum.
02:06:27.020You know, it's not like the U.S. Congress where there's a lot of decorum.
02:06:30.800There is process, but there's people yelling at each other.
02:06:33.840It's like a big family Thanksgiving special all the time, but with politics thrown in.
02:06:39.240Another thing, fun thing I thought I'd share with your viewers today.
02:06:43.180So as the president was pulling up, we heard the sound of the shofar.
02:06:52.260It's been used for thousands of years for many purposes, including at the temple.
02:06:56.540It's used at this time of year during the Jewish high holidays for religious purposes.
02:07:01.580But I heard something I never thought I'd hear in my life, which was the ram's horn going dun-da-da-da-da-da, dun-da-da-da-da-da, and they were blowing them as the president was showing up, which was just an extraordinarily cool thing.
02:07:16.420You kind of got to be here to understand how significant that is, but everybody in Israel is celebrating.
02:07:24.700Tell me, what's the musical instrument, and what do they do?
02:07:28.240They play Hail to the Chief on what kind of musical instrument?
02:07:34.580So if you guys Google it, it's a big ā I wish I had one with me.
02:07:38.640They're about ā they're anywhere from this little to, you know, a foot or two long.
02:07:44.020And it only ā you know, to blow a note out of it, to blow a tune out of it's hard because it's not like a trumpet.
02:07:50.940It doesn't have ā it doesn't have ā you know, there's no way you can change the key.
02:07:55.580So whoever was doing that was exceptionally talented, but there was a couple of folks doing it.
02:08:00.920Just picture, Steve, almost like ā I hate to mention Disney since we both have a healthy disdain for that institution.
02:08:08.020But, you know, you picture the old Disney movies when the king is showing up and they would play the trumpets in like a, you know, kingly court situation.
02:12:14.360Back in the 60s, they might have exchanged one terrorist for each individual hostage, like 20, you know.
02:12:22.720It evolved over the years up to the point where Bibi Netanyahu released 1,000 prisoners back in 2011 for one Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, in Gaza, that was kidnapped.
02:12:34.600And one of them was Sinwar, who became the head of Hamas and perpetrated the war.
02:12:41.920So there's great concern when you release these 2,000 terrorists.
02:12:45.560It's pretty well known that Hamas believes that when they lost all their leadership to Israeli assassination,
02:12:51.380they felt, well, they'll just be replaced by these guys coming out of prison at some point.
02:12:55.760And that certainly is their intention, that they're going to draw their new leadership from these terrorists who have been in prison all these years.
02:13:03.600So, no, back in the 60s, maybe they would release one for one.
02:13:08.900And somehow, I think Bibi had a big part of it, was saying, well, okay, we'll give you one for 1,000.
02:13:15.340And that's part of what motivated, I think, Hamas even to embark on the October 7th attack in the first place,
02:13:21.500because they knew if they take hostages, they can hold the country of Israel hostage and ultimately release thousands of their prisoners.
02:13:29.700They don't care about losing 60,000 people.
02:13:33.900In Gaza, the average family has 10 children.
02:13:36.800That's just the average, 10 children, and it's paid for by the UN.
02:13:42.820They expect if they lose one or two kids per family, to them it's just part of the price of fighting Israel and their shahidim, their martyrs.
02:13:51.200So, it's a completely different mindset.
02:13:53.500It's Israel's strength and it's its weakness that it puts so much value in each individual person.
02:14:02.120Ben Harnwell, the president's been there now for a few minutes.
02:14:05.780He was supposed to spend a few minutes.
02:14:07.380I don't know if he's meeting with hostage families, but I believe the conversation with Netanyahu and the president is probably continuing on.
02:14:16.920Do you think that's going to have any impact on what the president says in his remarks?
02:14:20.480Kurt Mills, can I toss that question to you?
02:15:52.160Ismail Hania, the political leadership in Doha, which is unclear if they ever even knew about the October 7th attack, have been eliminated.
02:16:40.980Trump has done a lot for Benjamin Netanyahu, I think, more than he deserves.
02:16:44.440And I think this is he wants to call it.
02:16:46.600It's hard to imagine if they ink this deal and the Israelis try to start up a new war with Iran, I think they might find themselves in worse position than they might imagine.
02:16:57.760That ceasefire in June, a lot of murky stuff on that.
02:17:01.580I think it was, at the end of the day, brokered on behalf of the Israelis.
02:17:05.400They were running out of interceptors.
02:17:06.820And if Israel tries to broaden this war and stick the bill with Uncle Sucker, I think it's going to be cold.
02:17:23.980Joel, and by the way, I don't want to say the attitude, but one of the issues the world has, and I think the reason that President Trump continues to say that people are loving Israel now, and he told Netanyahu you can't take on the world, is the dehumanization of the Palestinian population.
02:17:45.960And we've got to remember, there's not an insignificant amount of Christians in Palestine, and I know this from Christians.
02:17:54.120I know they've done relief work there.
02:17:56.540They are absolutely 100% anti-IDF, anti-Israel.
02:18:00.840And they said Israel has been essentially, I'm not saying this, but they said it's been genocide what they've seen.
02:18:09.400Because clearly the world's, I mean, one of the reasons Netanyahu is up against the wall is he's lost tremendous political support here in the United States.
02:18:19.500Look, Hamas deliberately dragged out the war with the assist from the Biden administration, especially at the beginning, by dribbling out hostages, you know, 10 at a time or 20 at a time, and refused to end the war.
02:18:33.220So because they dragged it out for so long, one reason they did that, because they knew that they were winning the PR game over time.
02:18:40.920But I believe that Trump understands that the United States cannot exist as the lone democracy in the world between two oceans.
02:18:50.920The United States must have strong democratic allies around the world, including Australia, Japan, Western Europe, and Israel.
02:18:57.840And I think Trump understands, and people in the administration understand, that they need a strong democratic.
02:19:32.360The president is going to, momentarily, I think he actually may be meeting at least with some of the families of the hostages behind the scenes.
02:19:40.880We are running about on the program of what they led about an hour behind, and I think the president's remarks are going to be at least 30 minutes.
02:19:51.880And if the president, as he often does, freelances a little bit, it'll go longer.
02:20:48.460The number I have is 155 made it out alive.
02:20:52.140I also think about the mistake that the United States made after 9-11.
02:20:58.620We lost 3,000 people at the World Trade Center, and then we went and lost 7,000 soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
02:21:07.540Similarly, Israel was trying to save 250 hostages, and they lost about 800 soldiers fighting in Gaza, ostensibly, to get these hostages back.
02:21:16.860So there's some real tragic military calculations when it comes to trying to get these hostages back.
02:46:43.800Even that, that's kind of a breaking news piece psychologically, maybe, for a lot of Americans to see that and for the rest of the world to see that.
02:46:53.340And so on the Hamas side, we'll see they're going to interview people.
02:46:57.120And you've been seeing just the innocents interviewed running back to their homes and hoping there's something left.
02:47:01.700You know, a woman, you know, yesterday on the news clips wanting to see if there's a blanket or a pillow or anything left because the winter's coming.
02:47:08.660You know, and so those stories, as they come out, that's going to be full transparency, hopefully, you know, for 48 hours at least.
02:47:16.020And I think that's going to put a whole new level of introspection on both sides to say, we cannot go back to war.
02:47:25.880But, you know, a one false flag operation by either side, and that's what I'm worried about, right?
02:47:32.560Some bomb goes up by accident, somebody gets bombed, somebody, you know, some incident is planted.
02:47:39.800And I'm very, like you said, I'm very worried about President Trump's safety today.
02:48:18.780That's how ā this is why I continue to say he's like General Washington, President Lincoln, and Trump, and for all his flaws, okay?
02:48:27.500For ā add up all the flaws, and he's still what we have between ourselves and in the abyss.
02:48:33.840Joe Gilbert, Brad brings up a brilliant point.
02:48:37.280You're going to have all the stories of the 20 hostages, the folks that were kept to the end.
02:48:42.620You're going to have all the brutality of that.
02:48:44.400Plus, the media is now going to get into Gaza, which has been blocked, and you're going to see something that looks like Dresden in World War II.
02:48:51.440In addition, you're going to have some details leak out this afternoon, maybe even something signed in Egypt that I'm not quite sure the Israeli people in the euphoria about the hashes coming back have quite processed what's really going down here.
02:49:08.760Is that transparency going to throw this whole thing off the rails, sir?
02:49:12.680I think there's too many moving parts.
02:49:17.400You've got these terrorists being released in Gaza, West Bank, all over the world.
02:49:22.240People are going to be concerned about what they're doing.
02:49:24.000There's going to be this economic initiative coming out of Egypt that Trump's going to be a part of.
02:49:30.600There's going to be bulldozers all over, Gaza clearing rubble.
02:49:37.060I don't think it's going to get distracted with what's happened in the past.
02:49:40.660I wanted to mention this very interesting story.
02:49:44.100When Hamas kidnapped people and put them in these golf carts and were driving them into Gaza from the Israeli Kibbutzim, there was one girl.
02:49:53.960They showed the video about a teenage girl, and she said to her captor, she said, where are we going?
02:50:19.380And they thought they were creating a friendship.
02:50:21.900But from the Islamic and Gazan point of view, they really hated the Israelis all along, and they view them as inferior, not people that you can have equal relations with or recognize their state.
02:50:35.620So that gap remains, that the Muslim, Palestinian, Arabs don't hate Israel.
02:51:27.340Still no confirmation, to my knowledge, about Netanyahu's attendance in Egypt.
02:51:32.400Obviously, something has occurred that required Sisi and Netanyahu to get on the phone with each other right before the president's speech to the Knesset.
02:51:43.040So there could be some subterfuge or negotiations occurring that we're not currently aware of.
02:51:52.680Hamas has released all 20 of these remaining Israeli living hostages.
02:51:59.940So we would now move to phase two of the deal, the disarmament, et cetera.
02:52:06.000So it's not clear why the logistics of this have to be so painstakingly negotiated minute by minute.
02:52:13.260I mean, I know this is human affairs, but something definitely seems possible to be up.
02:52:20.280If I had to bet, it's probably a Netanyahu attendance in Egypt.
02:52:26.020But for some reason, that is seen as deeply controversial, either to the Palestinian side or the Arab side writ large.
02:52:33.280What about Dave Brat's point about transparency?
02:52:39.120Today, you're going to have all the stories of the hostages, and I'm sure the last 20 are going to be ā some stories are going to be quite brutal about their treatment.
02:52:48.760Also, you're going to have the media now in for the first time, I think, over the next couple of days to see the devastation in Gaza up close and personal, which they have been restricted.
02:52:58.780And you're going to have some elements of this deal, which I continue to say is ā it's definitely the proto-two-state solution, right, with Qatar and the Saudis' big financial sponsors and the Turks as a big security sponsor.
02:53:15.920As that gets absorbed to the Israeli people, where do you think we're going to ā or to the world, what's going to happen, do you think, in the next couple of days is the world is really going to have to confront the brutality of the war, but also the brutality of what happened to these individuals?
02:53:32.180Yeah, I think it's going to be a media cyclone.
02:53:34.000So it's going to be hard to say which way it breaks.
02:53:37.980The Israeli PR machine, and it is a machine, is going to kick into high gear.
02:53:43.700The reality, though, is that the testimonials of the hostages and the hostages' families themselves are a real mixed bag for the Israeli prime minister, to put it mildly.
02:53:54.040The hostages' families, I'd say broadly speaking, have been protesting and lobbying the government to end this war sooner.
02:54:01.580And the hostages themselves may be in no condition to give media testimonials, understandably.
02:54:09.040And if they do, they may bemoan the degree to which they were held in captivity.
02:54:14.720Why didn't their own government negotiate for the release sooner?
02:54:18.360And, of course, it's because the hostages' release was just one of a number of objectives pursued by Netanyahu, not the sole objective.
02:54:26.000As for the Palestinian side, look, there's already been reports of 200 bodies uncovered in the rubble.
02:54:34.720Obviously, that's just a fraction of the number that is due to be recovered and due to be, you know, sadly put into the tally of this war.
02:54:43.680And, you know, people I trust in the region have long said, look, reporters and documentarians basically can't get into Gaza.
02:54:53.300And as this is uncovered and as and it's already been horrifically covered, I mean, the stuff that has been smuggled out.
02:55:00.240But as this is uncovered, this could very well be the largest crime scene in the world.
02:55:05.860By the way, you talk about the Israeli machine, the Islamist in the Muslim Brotherhood got a pretty good machine, too.
02:55:18.040I mean, TikTok was a turned into a propaganda machine of showing this stuff.
02:55:24.180So, you know, they give as good as they get.
02:55:26.920We're going to take a short commercial break.
02:55:29.000We will pull out of the commercial break immediately if the president comes into the Knesset.
02:55:34.380I think there, besides maybe meeting with some of the families, there's definitely, I believe, some wheeling and dealing going on in the back.
02:55:42.760As I said, this, Kurt, I think, said it well.
02:55:46.240We're building the plane as we're flying the plane.
02:56:41.180Yeah, on social media, there's a number of photos.
02:56:43.280Trump is sitting with Netanyahu with a large group of hostage families.
02:56:46.860It appears the hostage families are passing the microphone around and Trump is very gracious.
02:56:52.720He does a lot of listening and it appears he's just listening.
02:56:56.180So I think that's the reason for the delay in the Knesset.
02:56:59.120He's trying to be respectful to these hostage families.
02:57:01.840It does appear in the photos there might even be one, one hostage that just got out.
02:57:07.500So this delay could last for a while because Trump is very gracious when it comes to, to meeting with people, especially those who have suffered.
02:58:19.420But it's about 100 people crowded around, seated, and they've got microphones in the crowd.
02:58:26.300So it looks like almost like some kind of therapeutic event where hostages get to talk to the president and tell them what they've been through.
02:58:36.120And he just seems like, looks like a very good listener.
02:58:38.640I would assume some of the comments and things are very private, and they absolutely don't have any cameras in there.
02:58:45.620There are still cameras, but no television cameras.
02:58:49.980Maybe we'll get a report about it later.
02:58:51.780But that's the reason for the delay, because Trump was supposed to be speaking to the Knesset already.
02:58:57.140Dave Brat, for an American audience, I mean, that's kind of what people have come for is Trump the peacemaker.
02:59:07.760Trump did something nobody else could do.
02:59:09.480Trump has changed the arc of history in the Middle East.
02:59:12.420Obviously, you know, we're of the belief the hostages are one thing, but there's a muchāthe geopolitical forces over there make this even more important.
02:59:22.620And what happens in Egypt today may be as important as the hostages being released, but there's no television cameras there.
02:59:30.860It's all print media or traditional photography.
03:00:12.480So when he's in there with the people, I think, you know, number one, he loves it.
03:00:18.140You know, he's always with the waiters and the waitresses behind the scenes at restaurants and the folks who work the golf courses and whatever.
03:00:26.120And I think he's doing the same thing here, and he's learning about people.
03:00:29.460And so it'll be fascinating to see him come out of there with new eyes, I think, too.
03:00:38.260And, you know, all this is going to bowl him over.
03:00:41.320And then what you're saying about the cameras and the newsprint, I think everyone's going to be very overly cautious there because, you know, we simplify this thing.
03:00:52.440And the mainstream media and, you know, you've got the warmongers here, the peaceniks here.
03:00:58.140In Israel, you've got many subgroups that want different outcomes.
03:01:04.500It's not the U.S. wants this and Israel wants this or whatever.
03:01:07.880There's subgroups all over, and it's a very, very delicate balance, as we all know today.
03:01:14.440But the huge forces are in play for peace here.
03:01:18.600Hamas is the one who their own logic doesn't really want this peace.
03:01:26.640So that's the one peace, you know, they have to have an offer.
03:01:32.540And I want to see what that ends up looking like, right?
03:01:35.240There's got to be some compelling interest.
03:01:38.500They've been getting money out of this deal.
03:01:40.580It's part of their reason for existence.
03:01:43.500And so I'm waiting to hear what all is involved there.
03:01:47.820Israel, I think the people want a peace.
03:01:49.820The polling has been pretty clear on that all across the map.
03:01:52.900In the U.S., we want peace on the polling.
03:01:56.000But then the political leaders, and as I said, you know, all it takes is one of these little teeny terrorist cells to plant a false flag operation,
03:02:05.960say, look what they just did, and boom, we're back at it.
03:02:09.420And hopefully, Colmer heads, more rational heads.
03:02:12.360And Trump, I think, is just sick of it, right?