It's happening. Biden had plenty of leverage to use. Israel could not have pursued this genocide without the full support and backing of the United States of America. Biden was never willing to pull any aspect of that support. And so, yeah, lo and behold, ceasefire didn't happen. Now, I will say, I think, you know, BB wanted Trump to win. I think that there's long been a plan in place basically to give Trump his ceasefire deal before he takes office. It is very reminiscent of like the Iranian hostage deal and Reagan coming in and having bat channel with him, whatever. But that does not absolve Biden of culpability for having never been willing to put the screws to secure this outcome before this now very late day after so much devastation and destruction has occurred. So listen, there's a lot of questions still. It hasn't come to fruition yet. There's a lot of question marks. There's also a lot of question marks about what Trump is offering in return for securing the ceasefire deal. You know, the theories are probably he's going to allow them to annex settlements in the West Bank. Or there could be a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities or some other significant goody that he is trading in exchange for, you know, getting this ceasefire before he takes office. But again, the failures of Joe Biden here are so incredibly manifest and so incredibly disgusting. That's

what I would look at this as, is that actually Trump, ironically, Biden's bear hug strategy was what? By keeping him close, you can tell him what to do. I actually think Trump has successfully now pulled off the quote unquote bear hug by being more pro-Israel than Biden, but then behind the scenes being like, hey, listen, man, you got to wrap this shit up. He's like, I don't want to deal with this while I'm in office. And actually, this anecdote from the Israeli press is really interesting. It says, Steve Whitcoff called from Qatar to tell Netanyahu he was coming to Israel the next afternoon. The aides have been trying to delay this whole thing because they don't want to do it. We're like, oh, he's on the Sabbath. You can come later. Whitcoff's, quote, blunt reaction took them by surprise. He explained to them in salty English, Shabbat was of no interest to him. His message was loud and clear. Thus, in an unusual departure from official practice, the prime minister showed up at his office for an official meeting with Whitcoff, who then returned to Qatar to seal the deal. That is very reminiscent of the Clinton quote, like who's the effing superpower whenever he got off the phone with Israel. I mean, it just goes to show that when you do even put modest pressure here, was Trump ever really going to cut Netanyahu off from arms? I don't think so. I don't think it would have been politically tenable for him. But I mean, allegedly, that's what he was threatening behind the scenes. Or maybe they could screw with him a little bit. I was reading that they have a lot of problems with JDAM manufacturer and smart bombs and that they have all these things they need to import from the U.S. And he's like, well, maybe, you know, the export license takes three to six months instead of, you know, the immediate fast track authority. The point is, even the modest amount of pressure here from the Trump team does seem to have put them, you know, to much more closer to the finish line. I mean, two with Hamas. The crazy thing about this deal is that, you know, in a lot of ways, Trump is reaping these benefits because this deal has not changed. It's the same deal. It's been on the table for months and months and months. It's always been there. Trump just had to come in and use a little bit of coercion and force. And one of the ways that we know that to be true is that the Israeli right wing is freaking out about this and is pissed off at Trump for forcing Netanyahu to appear to take the deal.

It seems to be the best. Right. And I think the other piece of this is like, I mean, there isn't much more to destroy in Gaza. The idea that you were going to, quote unquote, you know, fully annihilate Hamas was always fanciful. So, you know, I think it's kind of run its course. And Bibi has other goals in mind. Like, for example, you know, it was reported that Miriam Adelson gave Trump $100 million for his campaign in order for him to exchange back annexation in the West Bank. So, you know, that may be the next the next move for the Israelis. So, again, there's a lot to, you know, let's not paint this like this is some world victory or like the pain for the Palestinians is ending here. There's still like a lot of question marks moving forward. But, you know, I think it's all obviously very clear that if Biden had taken a hard enough line and really been willing to put the screws to Netanyahu, this could have ended long ago. And that will be his legacy. Like he oversaw a genocide in the Middle East. He aided and abetted it. He shipped the weapons. He knew what was going on. They, you know, all this, all these lies coming from the state of power, we don't really know, and we're investigating. But you know better than we know how much devastation there's been, how many war crimes there have been, how just absolutely barbaric these atrocities have been. And you have not only stood by and let it happen, you armed it. You pushed it forward. And you lied to American people, effectively, when you said you were working hard to achieve

a C-fire. Right, because that's what the Trump thing really reveals. It's like, dude, the guy got elected, what, less than two months ago. Yeah, he's not even in office. It just does go to show with the pressure behind the scenes. I will say this is at least somewhat hopeful for makes me for Ukraine that you will put some pressure here and actually has

happened. That one's going in the opposite right. You had Mike Waltz come out and say, actually, we want the Ukrainians to draft. Do you know why I

think that's a good idea? Because it makes the Ukrainian population be like, hold on a second. Do we actually want to do that? Because now they have to decide. It's like, oh, you can keep the war going, but you're going to have to sacrifice all your war dead or all of your entire young generation who's not dead, or we can all make a deal and make this go away. These people can be alive. That's how I viewed it. I may be wrong. We'll see. We'll see on that one. Hey, listen, you got to give them credit for this. You have to give the Trump team credit for this. It's incredible because this just shows you it wasn't that hard the whole time. We're just people on YouTube, okay? But at the very beginning, it's about balance of power. There's a balance sheet about the amount of aid that's flowing in, how dependent the military is. Anybody can read this spreadsheet. It's published by the State Department. We've been talking about it now for almost 18 months. And the whole time, we're like, all you got to do is put a little bit of pressure on them, as we've seen in the past. In the past,

yeah. Wasn't hard. No, that's absolutely right. And it's less even like, I don't think this was, and I do think BB wanted to play ball more with Trump, wanted to give him this victory. There's no doubt about that. But the failure of the Biden administration here is absolutely undeniable and absolutely unforgivable as well in terms of the way that they've comported themselves. And, you know, like I said, we'll see how it comes together and we'll also see what was given in exchange because that's the other part that is going to be very important. But to your point, Sagar, you know, domestically, there's a lot of questions about what this is going to look like for Bibi Netanyahu. There was already kind of a freak out happening on Israeli television. We can put C2 up on the screen. I'll just read you a little bit of the translation of what is being said in this Hebrew language clip. If we can go ahead and play C2. They say this Netanyahu proxy laments, we're the first to pay a price for Trump's election. The deal is being forced upon us. We thought we'd take control of northern Gaza, that they'd let us impede humanitarian aid. That's part of what is being said here. So a lot of upset among right-wing Israelis, of which there are many, about this potential deal. Go to C5 now, and we can talk Shia Ben-Ephraim, who we've had on this show, who's like a liberal Zionist. He lays out what he thinks that Bibi thinks he can survive this ceasefire with Trump's help. There are two parts to his strategy. He says, first, he's padded his coalition to make it Ben-Gavir proof, Ben-Gavir being one of the, you know, basically terrorists that are in this coalition. Of course, I think they're all terrorists, but anyway, put that aside. Netanyahu successfully played divide and conquer between Ben-Gavir and Smotrich, who were the two, like, most extreme parts of his coalition. They hate each other, and Smotrich is willing to stay if Ben-Gavir leaves. Netanyahu also brought in Gideon Saar, tore off Adan Roel from Yesh Atid and El-Magh Cohen. I don't know who these people are away from Ben-Gavir. But anyway, he's saying divide and conquer between those two. And now he's got the numbers. Second, he's hoping to get help from Trump. That will come in the form of one or more of the following. Normalization with Saudi Arabia, which Saudi is still holding to. It would require some at least track towards a two-state solution. So I don't know if that one is coming, but we'll see. An attack on the Iranian nuclear facilities or annexation of the settlements in the West Bank with American approval. So that's what I was referring to before. I think that is quite likely to occur, given what we know about Miriam Adelson's priorities. Then he will say to the Israeli people that he got the hostages back, defeated Hezbollah, killed Sinwar and Nasrallah, that Lebanon and Syria now have new regimes and will add the extra assets, Trump adds. He will say the war was worth it for all that, that the Middle East has transformed. Many will agree his chances of survival are good. And Zaghar, you have to say, I mean, you remember after October 7th,

Bibi

Netanyahu's political goose was cooked. I mean, his approval rating was as low as it could be. People blamed him because he was Mr. Security. He was supposed to be the leader who would always keep the Israeli people safe. And he failed in that. October 7th occurs horrors, you know, traumatic horrors for the Israeli people and his whole view of propping up Hamas in order to, you know, again, divide and conquer between the West Bank and Gaza and make it make sure that since it was Hamas in control in Gaza, that he could always tell there's no partner for peace. We'd love peace, but there's no partner for peace. So we can't possibly have peace negotiations. That strategy dramatically failed on October 7th. And yet here he is. Here he is, an absolute political survivor having held on, having delayed any sort of investigation into the failures of October 7th. Because remember, also, they knew in advance. They had the insight into the plans in advance. They had spotters who were there close to Gaza who were saying they're planning something big that they ignored. They had moved some of the IDF forces up to protect their extremist thug settlers in the West Bank, leaving the people near Gaza very vulnerable. The response on that day, chaotic, absolute catastrophe, disaster. And he forestalled all the questions on that, pushed him out into the future again and again and again. And now here he is still surviving and still likely to maintain his power in the state of Israel. Absolutely unbelievable. Yeah,

no, it's pretty crazy. I mean, he's survived and you can always give him credit, I guess, for that in being a survivor, but he does still have, you know, some interesting pushback inside of his own country. I genuinely wonder what's going to happen because the release of all of the hostages basically allows the Israeli left to, or whatever is reminiscent of whatever it is, to at least ask some big picture questions about the war and what it could return maybe even to debates around the settlers. I mean, remember, there is a portion of Israeli society that's not pro-settler. It's hard to believe, but it's actually true. There's a lot of debate, you know, inside of the country previously. Something that has been squashed now because of the ongoing war. But now that the war is effectively over, now these big picture questions are like, do we want Gaza? Do we want, remember Syria, you know, which is currently happening. I was actually reading behind the scenes too, the Trump people called Bibi and they're like, cool off in Syria. They're like, Golan, you can stop there. But beyond that, like, we don't need to go any further because they also, they were like, we don't need some breaking out between the new Syrian government, if you want to call that, and the Israelis. They're like, maybe we just keep things where they are. So it's clear that at the very least they're trying a containment strategy. Biden tried it too. But I think the key, the real lesson is America is still a superpower. Our power and our ability to course is immense when we want it to be.

It's

actually stunning to see it be used again. I've been waiting for this for a long time. As you said, look, if you're some pro-Palestine person, you ain't going to get what you want out of this administration. This is probably as good as it's ever going to be for you. Just giving you a warning. But the lessons that you guys tried during the Biden administration was correct. American power is supreme. It has the ability to compel any state, even Israel, to be brought to heel and to do what we want. Now, let's use this lesson for all other nations across the world, for Ukraine and for others, and to actually, for our own benefit, for once in a goddamn while.

I wanted to also, just a few details about this deal, and what, again, it hasn't been signed, sealed, and delivered, so I want to, you know, reserve complete judgment, but based on what is being reported, it doesn't require Hamas to be out of government. I mean, effectively, like they did not destroy Hamas and Hamas is very likely to take control on the Gaza Strip again. So again, Shael, who is the liberal Zionist we've had on the show previously, he says the reason this happened, he says the victory for Hamas is remarkable. Those are his words. It is remarkable that all of these previous red lines for Israel are being waived. The reason this happened is clear, he writes, despite incredible victories on the battlefield, Israel has not offered a political program to replace Hamas or move to remove them from Gaza as a governing force. It has failed to translate IDF gains into political ones that has, in essence, nullified all of its military achievements. So, you know, after all of this horror, bloodshed, women, children being murdered, schools, hospitals, mosques, churches destroyed, after all of that, Hamas is still going to be in charge. So, which, again, you and I could have told them on day one and tried to, but nobody listens to us. So in any case, that's where things are ending up. There was one more piece here that I wanted to get to because now that it's now that it doesn't matter anymore, suddenly a few media organizations have gotten around to reporting on the horse that our government and our tax dollars went to fund in the Gaza Strip. Put C8 up on the screen. So this is from 60 Minutes. They interviewed a number of the people from the State Department who had resigned over our support of these horrors. They interviewed this former U.S. diplomat who said she documented images coming out of Gaza for the State Department. Quote, fragments of U.S. bombs next to massacres of mostly children. Again, these people knew everything that was going on. They know more than we know about the horrors that were perpetrated here. And rather than doing anything to put pressure on Israel and Jack Lew, admits in his, it was the ambassador to Israel, admits in his exit interview that we never really put any real pressure on Israel whatsoever. Instead, they continue to green light these horrors. And this last one, again, this is like a media commentary. This is, again, 60 Minutes as part of this broader package that they do. They have, across the now decimated Gaza Strip, America's mark is everywhere. In footage shot by CBS News in May, the ground is littered with U.S.-made ammunition casings, some used to prop up tents, others turned into playthings by children. You had this footage in May. Why are you only releasing it now that it doesn't matter? Now, after the fact, when probably a ceasefire deal is, you know, in the offing in the next, possibly even today. You've had this since May and you said nothing. So, I mean, I guess, like, good job for finally getting around to caring about these horrors. But could have been a lot more useful and a lot more important and a lot more courageous, by the way, back in May when you actually obtained this footage. And, you know, you're seeing a significant amount of this saga. I mean, there was a big New York Times report relatively recently that confirmed some reporting we covered a year ago coming out about the way Israel was operating in the Gaza Strip and how many civilian casualties they were perfectly comfortable with tolerating and the way that they were using these power targets, apartment buildings, hospitals, schools, in order to try to inflict pain on explicitly on the civilian population in hopes they would turn against Hamas, finally confirming this reporting again at a time when it doesn't really matter all that much anymore except for the analysis of history, which I guess is, I, theoretically better than nothing. Yep.

Theoretically better than nothing. I think that's a good way of putting it, but nonetheless, a crazy development and lots of lessons, shall we say? So the next time this whole thing breaks out, because we all know that's going to happen. I don't know. I give it, what, three years? That's usually the cool off period that happens.

I think they may go after the West Bank here pretty quickly. There's already indications of that, but we'll see what happens.

They could, but if they do, I mean, I hate to say it, but a lot of those people have been thrown out of there, right? These settlers have already kind of moved in and made their territory. Absolutely, yeah. So is there even an ability to resist? I think Ryan just did a story about the West Bank, or Dropside just did some story about the West Bank and resistance. Anyway, we'll cover it, obviously. But the best thing, what the Trump people need to do and want to do, and this was always a case made to me by all these folks, is they're like, look, you're not going to like a lot of this rhetorically. They're like, but Trump has an anathema to conflict. general chaos, he especially understood during the Biden era, how much that can sink you from Afghanistan to Gaza to Ukraine. The ongoing chaos and the inability to wind these things up is actually very politically detrimental in a way I frankly would not have predicted in terms of how much people, when they want to, will pay attention to foreign affairs and at least absorb this feeling of everything has gone awry. So Trump is probably going to try his best to keep that contained. Now, look, a lot of the enemy gets a vote and not just the enemy. A lot of people get the vote. You got Hamas and all these other people can decide how they're going to absorb this. You've got Ukraine and Russia. Obviously, they need to come to terms themselves, even with significant amounts of pressure. There's so many different global problems that are still out there. The Houthis, there's a whole entire campaign that's happening. So anyway, we will be, I don't predict that things will be all rosy for the next four years, but I am at least heartened to see this.

One last thing to note is I referenced this interview from Ambassador Jack Liu, who's the U.S. ambassador to Israel. And not only did he say that, no, we didn't really try to stop him on anything, but he also says he thinks that this may have, well, sunk both Biden and Kamala Harris in terms of ability to get reelected.