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And we got a heads up on this late last night that there'd be a ruling at ten o'clock this morning, and here we are. Fourteenth Amendment Donald Trump can appear on presidential ballots this year. This brings us back to the case in Colorado and Greg's store by god us with us at the table right now, having written the story, filed it on the terminal, and here we are. It's great to see you, Greg, Thank you for this.
Much.
Is a strangely busy day out of nowhere. How rare is that to get a heads up the night before something like this.
Well, very rare to get a heads up over the weekend that something is coming in. And this is a ruling that normally when they issue rulings, they take the bench. They weren't scheduled to take the bench today and they weren't there. We just got the paper copy done in the press room.
Okay, so checking a box here. This is one we've been waiting for. I mentioned the Colorado case, but there were some other states who had taken him off the ballot on these grounds. Does this nullify them all?
Yeah, this essentially nullifies them all. There'll be some formalities to go through, but this issue is essentially over with. Donald Trump will be able to appear on presidential ballots across the country.
Fascinating. The grounds here were interesting because this had to do with being an insurrectionist essentially, and it brought us back to January sixth. Those who argued against it said that it was written a bit more narrowly than that. What did we learn about that underlying argument?
Well, we learned that the Court as a whole thinks that that provision of the Constitution can't be enforced unless Congress passes legislation to say, here's what we're going to do to decide whether somebody is indeed an insurrectionist. And that means that a state can't on its own say we've concluded under our processes that he is an insurrectionist and is therefore ineligible. It's going to have to be up to Congress and for the purposes of Donald Trump. That means he'll be on the ballot.
So it comes down to the definition then of an insurrectionist. Many folks were pointing back to the Civil War which spawned this to begin with, right.
Yeah, and really like who decides in house it is decided that somebody is an insurrectionist. So the court didn't get into those questions about whether Donald Trump incited the Capitol riot, whether he was culpable for what happened that day. This was all about the process for deciding whether he is culpable that day. And what they said was Congress has to lay down the rules for the process, and so far Congress hasn't done that.
This was originally the spirit of this was originally written to keep Confederates from running for office, is that.
Right, yeah, or at least from holding office. That was kind of one of the issues in this case about whether we are talking about somebody running for office, which is the way Colorado thought about it, or holding office, which would mean that up until January twentieth, when the president the next president will take will take the oath of office, then there hasn't been a violation.
Boy, all right, Now we're still waiting for a ruling on presidential immunity that is separate. Everyone should be reminded. This is with regard to Jack Smith's case that has now been taken off the calendar. Here. Do we have any reason to believe, having heard this today, that we might get a ruling on that soon.
Well, we're not gonna have arguments in that until we don't even have an argument date yet, but it will be the week of April the twenty first, so probably we're many months down the road now. They move pretty quickly in this case. One of the interesting things about this and the timing is, of course it's right before Super Tuesday, and Super Tuesday is the day that the vote happens in Colorado, so it seems pretty clear that they rushed to get this out before Colorado voters go
to the polls tomorrow. There's not that sort of clear deadline in the immunity case. Jack Smith wants to get the Supreme Court to rule quickly because you know, that's the only way there's a significant chance that there will be a trial this year before the election. So it's hard to say just how quickly. After that argument in late April, the Supreme Court will rule.
Well, even when the Supreme Court is acting in an expedited fashion, it still feels slow, doesn't it. But that's your life day in and day out.
Greg Store.
Yeah, well, I mean, you know, one case that people have pointed to is back in bushby Gore in two thousand. That was a case where the Supreme Court actually did all this in the span of three days. Incredible, but again there they had a very specific date they were shooting for.
Right.
Absolutely great to see you. Thank you so much for coming in the best Supreme Court reporter in the country. For you there, mister Store, with us on Bloomberg to get things started off. That's the phone call you make when the news breaks like it did this morning. And great to hear from Greg. One of these days or months, we'll be talking about that immunity case as well as we burrow down the whole here on another primary weekend and ahead of Super Tuesday. Of course, great implications with
this ruling, not that it came as a surprise. And that's where we start our conversation with David Kotchel, who we last spoke with when we were in Iowa. I love this Republican strategist he's the owner of red Wave Communications. David, it's good to see you as you kind of help us get back to the beginning here and remind us of where we've been and where we might be going. Before I start asking you about states and issues, David, I want to just ask you about this this ruling quickly.
It's a box week in check. You glad you got one thing you don't have to worry about now, the fourteenth Amendment.
Yeah.
Look, I mean this was always going to turn out this way. There's no First of all, you know, nobody's never been convicted of insurrection or anything like that, and there're just is no standing for these states to do this. And I think Supreme Court got it right. You need to leave elections in the hands of the voters, not in law fair or the courts. You know, this is always going to turn out this way, and I'm glad it's resolved so we don't have to worry about it anymore going forward.
Yeah, well, there's one we can put to the side. Of course, there are a lot other several others that we're waiting for, as I mentioned, but we're coming off another primary weekend. I could ask you about the three states Donald Trump swept. But there's not a lot of new there, David. What's new is Nicky Haley got one. She won a primary. It's in the district of Columbia. I realized this is not exactly a big deal. But her campaign is saying now that she is the first
ever woman to win a Republican primary contest. Does that deserve some credit.
Yeah, from that standpoint, it's historic and it's a big deal. But I think if there was any any contest she wanted to win in the country, watching DC probably be the last one she wants to win, because, as you saw, the Trump campaign immediately dubbed her Queen of the Swamp. It's just, you know, it's just one of those things that's kind of going to go in the history books as a little bit of a footnote.
To all of this.
You know, we started this back in Iowa, if you remember on you know, on your set that night, and you know, I think a lot of people who wanted to see something different than a Trump Biden remap. We're very hopeful that night that something could happen and kind of break through and change this race from the inevitability of these two candidates and although Trump was under fifty in that race, you know, and we did get to a one on one race, a two person race, which
is what everybody always wanted. Things have not turned out very well for Nicki Haley, and it looks like he's going to sew this thing up pretty quickly here in the next week or two.
Well, yeah, what's your thought on this. We were heading into New Hampshire to your point, coming out of Io, and there was still a sense of possibility here. We're going into Super Tuesday now where it's going to become not mathematically impossible, but maybe psychologically impossible for Nicki Haley to keep going here when you start looking at another fifteen states and that many delegates added to the pile, David, is this her last? Dan?
I think so. Look, she gave it a heck of a try. And like I said, the theory of the case was, if you get Donald Trump one on one, then you've got a chance. And you know, he had been consistently kind of polling in the in the forties, he was in the thirties through the twenty sixteen contests, but then once this national lead really consolidated around him, and you can go back to the Alvin Bragg indictment when Republicans really started to rally behind him. He's been
in the fifties consistently in the national polls. These early state polls had some vulnerability because the voters are really paying closer attention they're looking at all these other candidates. But at the end of the day, the Republican Party was kind of ready to foreclose this this primary and move on to the general election with Biden. And it looks like that's what's going to happen.
Now.
I don't begrudge Nicky Haley for staying in. She's got a point to make and she's making it. And you know, as long as she's not mathematically out of this thing, you know, there's no reason to get out. She's had enough money to stick around, which is usually white people get out of these races. But it does look like
he won't be probably the mathematical nominee by tomorrow. But the campaign says they're pretty sure he's going to get there on March twelfth, and it looks like that's going to happen.
Yeah, it does. That's a week from tomorrow. For those playing along on their home game, Nikki Haley says she may not abide by the pledge. I wonder, David if that matters, the pledge to endorse whomever the eventual nominee would be. She was asked about this on Sunday morning and says, I think I'll make what decision I want to make, indicating that the RNC has changed, that it's a different organization than the ones she made that pledge to Ronald McDaniel's gone. Does that give her cover?
Yeah?
Sure, I mean it's all transactional anyway. Everybody made that pledge so that they get to get on the debate stage and have a shot, hopefully at Donald Trump, which they never got. You know. She rightfully turns the tables on that argument and says, well, is he going to make a pledge that if I were to be the
nominee he'd support me. Nobody believes that he would do that, you know, so I don't think any Look, there are some people in MAGA world that are upset this, and I'm sure it'll bring a lot of mean tweets her way, but she's not obligated to support this president. She doesn't want to. I mean, it's a free country, and you know, by the way, he's treated her pretty poorly over her
husband's military service. And I don't think I think if you are sympathetic to Nicky Haley's argument at all, I don't think you're going to begrudge her from taking her time or withholding her endorsement altogether. Not that at this point he really needs it. He's going to get support of most Republicans. You've seen Congress and that leadership get behind him now increasingly, and I think there are very few people who are going to kind of hold out on that support.
Those of us who are watching on YouTube or seeing images of Ralph Norman. What's Ralph Norman going to do? Although I guess he's going to make a pretty quick pivot to Donald Trump. Spending time with David Koshel, Republican strategists looking ahead to Super Tuesday, Bring us to school, David, We've got about fifteen states at hand tomorrow. What should we be looking at with what seems to be an an evening of inevitability?
Yeah, Look, I mean the things you're looking at right now are signs of what the general election could hold. Republican primaries really don't always tell you what you need to know. And neither do Democratic primaries about the general election. But I think there's a weakness for Trump among suburban women,
which has been the Nicky Haley message all along. And I think if you see in places where there's a higher college attendance, where there are you know, where he's not doing well with women, that could portend trouble for him in the general election. But beyond that, you know, the support in the party has consolidated around him to a great extent. I think also we can just look at the numbers, the turnout numbers. There seems to be more enthusiasm in the Republican Party right now than there
is in the Democratic Party. Now, they've had success in special elections recently. They're counting on things like you know, the Roe decision to motivate their voters, but certainly President Biden is not motivating Democratic voters. It's going to have to be based on issues. So we can look for where Trump has some of his kind of you know, historic weakness, which is suburban voters and college educated voters. That might that might show us a little bit of
a problem. The thing is, he's offset those concerns by growing his numbers among non white working class voters, Black and Hispanic working class voters are increasingly moving towards Trump. Now, he may not win those voters, but he'll get a significantly better percentage of them than he did in twenty sixteen. So Trump is an interesting way of where he loses votes,
he tends to find them elsewhere. And you know, the latest round of polls New York Times Cenpol in particular, has real concern among Democrats for Biden and whether or not he's going to be able to pull this off, because you know, his net favorability is terrible, his job approval is way down. Trump's favorability is actually higher than Joe Biden's right now, which is kind of funny. We haven't seen that until the last couple of years here. And I think this is going to be a real
nail bier of an election. It's going to come down to those you know, five or six states that it has the last few cycles, and you know, I don't know how much we'll learn about that tomorrow, but certainly you have a lot more enthusiasm for Trump on the Republican side than you do for Biden among Democrats. In fact, I think there is a lot of nail biting going on in the Democratic Party right now.
Well, it seems to me, after all the talk, all the questions I should say about to what extent Iowa represents the nation or it gives us a forward looking view at what's going to happen in the race. Iowa and New Hampshire seem to have been pretty on point in the twenty twenty four campaign. David is great to see.
You don't be a stranger. He's run a lot of campaigns outside of the Iowa caucuses and we love to stay in touch with David Kaschel Red Wave Communications getting things rolling here for us on a Monday Super Tuesday special coverage Tomorrow night, Kayley and I will be with you starting eight pm Eastern Time, and we're going to go late into the evening as we follow the time zones across the country and get a sense of how close Donald Trump might get to actually putting this in the bag.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast kens just live weekdays at noon Eastern on Applecarplay and then Ronoo with a Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Let's assemble our panel with Genie Shanzano and Rick Davis, Bloomberg Politics contributors. It's great to have both of you with us here. I have to ask you, I guess about Donald Trump's legal status to start here by way of that ruling today, I don't think either of you expected that he would be knocked off the ballot. But Rick Davis, do you agree with Republicans who say it's a good thing because the people should be deciding elections, not the court.
Yeah.
First of all, yes, people should decide elections, not the court. And if there are issues of insurrection, which in this case are arguable, then it should be the federal government that makes that decision out of state government. You can imagine the chaos if state started pulling people off of state ballots just because they might disagree with the policy or program. And we've already seen that happen at the federal level. With impeachment, the last thing we want to
do is see state started. So I think the Supreme Court did the right thing, and it's notable that it was a unanimous decision with no dissent, So I think it makes total sense.
Your thought on this, Genie. Joe Biden has said repeatedly he wants to beat him at the ballot box. He didn't want the Supreme Court to stand on the way here ring No.
And neither did I. I mean I wrote an editorial in January and the Washington Examiner which said precisely that, I mean putting aside the legal aspects of this decision. Politically, had the Court gone the other way, that would have been a death noll for Democrats. They need to Benald Trump at the ballot box. So politically, this is absolutely
the best outcome for Democrats. And the reason of course Donald Trump is talking about the next case up in the Supreme Court on immunity in January sixth as opposed to this one today is because he knows full well and everybody knew that the Court was going to come down this way today on the ballot issue. The bigger question, and the more difficult one for us to read the Tea leaves on is the immunity one. And I think that is likely, and I believe Donald Trump believes it
is likely not to go in his favor. You know this idea, as they said in the appellate court, that he could shoot somebody and you know, a Seal Team member have had them executed and then not be held responsible for that is so out of the realm of democratic norms that I'm hard pressed to believe the court says he has absolute immunity, or any other president for that matter.
Let's talk about some actual ballots, because we saw a couple of them over the weekend. We're going to see a lot more tomorrow. Donald Trump sweeps Missouri, Idaho, Michigan over the weekend, and he is on track, it appears rick to be the presumptive nominee by the twelfth of March, by a week from tomorrow. There is a narrative out there that Nicki Haley is doing better now than she has yet. She won her first primary, and I realized it was in the DC primary, the district of Columbia.
Nobody's taking that terribly seriously. But what's it going to look like after tomorrow night? Is Nicki Haley really going to keep pushing this as Donald Trump walks into fifteen states he might win, you know, no.
Telling what her motivation is. I think we've talked about it. In many cases, it depends upon whether or not people continue to fund her campaign.
Everybody's going to see something.
Different in the kind of quixotic effort she's putting forth to contrast with him. She has been getting tougher and tougher on him in the press, so I imagine she sees this as opportunity to create a contrast and maybe create some space with for her in the Republican Party, certainly in the mainstream party. I would say that he may or may not get to the to the fifty percent point by the twelfth, probably more likely the nineteenth, where you have a slew of states like Arizona and
Florida and Illinois, Kansas and Ohio. That's the that's kind of the end game. But the bottom line is nobody thinks that Donald Trump isn't going to be the nominee, and he's sorted acting accordingly by taking over the RNC and doing the things he's doing. But this nagging, you know, presence of Nicki Haley on a campaign trail, even though it doesn't have a legitimate strategy and victory, you know, is going to keep him, you know, from having a
clean shot. And so there are a lot of Republicans who just want that to stay in the keep her in the race for as long as humanly possible.
There you have it. DC Primary Nikki Haley's sixty three three percent, Donald Trump thirty three. Two thousand and thirty five people voted. The Trump campaign says Haley has now been quote crowned Queen of the Swamp unquote. I'm Joe Matthew knee deep in the swamp. More ahead, This is Bloomberg.
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Donald Trump's the one who took credit for stopping the budget deal, the supplemental funding for Ukraine. So you really can't have one conversation without the other here, Kayley, because what's happening in Washington's being discussed on the campaign trail and vice versa. We got a thousand page bill out last night, as we discussed a little while ago, that might keep the government from shutting down, unless, of course, Donald Trump says.
Yeah, might keep the government. I'm shutting down is probably the correct way of phrasing that at this point of shime. And of course, when Joe and I talked about Washington in this context, we're talking about Washington, DC, not the states of Washington, but that actually is where we would like to go this segment next Live to Seattle, where a Republican candidate for the governor of Washington is joining us. Now, Dave Record, great to have you on the show, sir.
Of course, you are running as a Republican in a state pretty dominated by Democrats. It's been decades since someone of your party was elected governor. Why is the time where someone like you could do it now?
Yeah, Well, you're absolutely right. I've run in districts. Of course, when I was in the US Congress that was pretty much dominated by Democrats too, But the timing is right, the issues are right. It's been forty years since we have had a Republican governor here in Washington State. The seat is going to be open this time around, and
I've looked at the race. I really believe that the issues really line up with my experience, and those issues are obviously public safety, and secondly is homelessness, which is really substance abuse and mental illness. And then third is the economy. And I also like to talk about education a lot, and people are looking for some moderation.
Mister Rekert, you were, of course a congressman, and I wonder when you look back to the debate around that period of time, if you recognize the Republican conference that we have today in Washington.
I absolutely do. I have watched some of that discussion. You don't really disconnect from that world after you leave it, so you find yourself on c SPAN sort of following some of the committees sadly.
Well, and of course speaking of still being involved in the world after you leave it. At this point, Donald Trump isn't even the Republican nominee. He's just a former Republican president. And yet it's it's been proven that he actually holds a great deal of sway in the halls on Capitol Hill, and it has kind of underscored, sir, if you will, that there are some more Trump allied Republicans and then those that are not so much. How do you present your campaign to both ends of that
spectrum of what the Republican Party is today? Is that really possible?
It is possible.
Fortunately, I've had the opportunity to work with President Bush and President Obama and President Trump, and I still have a lot of friends back in the House representatives and
also on the Senate side and from both parties. So I think there's a great advantage in having those relationships already built in Washington, DC as a member of Congress for fourteen years, I think that being able to carry our message of what Washington State needs and how we want to move forward here in a way that's really listening to every community here in Washington State and every
viewpoint which hasn't happened. The government that we've had in Washington State for the last forty years really has shut out the people of Washington State.
You referred to, I think your time in law enforcement in your career before you were in the world of politics. Congressman, you're a sheriff. You've been hearing Republicans criticize the city of Portland on a regular basis, along with others including Seattle, going back to a couple of years ago here, and I wonder if you think the narrative surrounding crime in our inner cities is accurate.
It's absolutely accurate.
Accurate everywhere I go, and in the state of Washington, this is the number one issue that's been brought up, and that's crime and safety. People are worried about going to work and even in going home, their kids, going to school, and being safe. We are fifty first in the country as relates to the number of police officers per capita protecting the citizens of Washington State. Fifty first, including Washington DC. Seattle PD is four hundred people down.
King County Sheriff's about one hundred and fifty people down. Our crime rate in Washington State is actually is actually increasing rather than decreasing. We're letting violent criminals out of our state prison. So yes, I really believe my experience in law enforcement is going to be very beneficial here in this campaign. Look, I was a hostage negotiator when I was in the Sheriff's office. I was also a swat commander, So I know when to negotiate and I know when to kick the damn door down.
It's time to kick the door down.
Well on needing to negotiate. Just finally, we have about a minute left with you, sir. Even if you were to win as a Republican governor, it's highly likely that Democrats would still control the state legislature. How do you get anything done in that scenario.
Yeah, no, that's absolutely true.
Do I fully anticipate working with House Democrats and Senate Democrats. I think it really creates an opportunity here in the state for us to begin a dialogue with the other party. And I think people here in Washington State actually want a balanced government this time around. They want to see that dialogue created. They want to see a conversation between ideas and differing ideas to solve the problems that we're facing today.
He's running for governor of Washington. The former Congressman Dave Reichert. We thank you for the time congressman with us today on Bloomberg, KAYLEA fascinating discussion as we look at another race with national.
Implications, absolutely, and a lot of the issues that he just brought up, including the issue of prime we know is a national issue at play at all levels on the ballot this year, including of course twenty twenty four, and we're going to have more on that.
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Thirty alongside Kaylee lines. I'm looking forward to the State of the Union here and what's just going to be a wild week. We've got super Tuesday, Powell testimony, State of the Union, and a potential shutdown at least the beginning of one on Friday. But Kayleie, I wonder if we're getting a better sense of the posture that Joe Biden will take, specifically on the issue of Israel in
this State of the Union address. Having heard from Kamala Harris over the weekend, Joe Biden already said that Israel has gone quote unquote over the top. I think was his line when it comes to Israel's response in Gaza, and Kamala Harris now the Vice President is calling for an immediate ceasefire and did so in Selma, Alabama, a day before she met with Israeli Minister Benny Gantz. Let's listen to Vice President Harris from yesterday.
Given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate ceasefire or at least the next six weeks, which is what is currently on the tape.
A six week pause, Kayley, that would be a pretty big deal, and of course BENJAMINETTYA who has made clear that that's not going to happen until they get information on hostages being held.
Yeah, that's exactly right. Doesn't seem like a ton of forward progress is being made at this point in time, but we wanted to really get a check on where we stand, just why these conversations are so difficult. Joining us now is Hgar Shimali. She has now founder and CEO at Greenwich Media Strategies, but was former lead the director for Syria and Lebanon at the National Security Council. Hook are always great to have you on the show. When we think about these these ceasefire talks, obviously it
is not just Israel and Hamasa is involved. There are a number of intermediate air as well, Cutter, Egypt, the US. Which party is bringing the difficulty to these talks? Is this more on Israel's end or Hamas's end?
Oh, without a doubt, it's Hamas's end right now. The latest proposal is a six week ceasefire that would be temporary, it would include an additional amount of humanitarian aid brought into the country, and it would include about the latest numbers at least, though they shift on a daily basis, are forty Israeli hostages who would be released for about four hundred Palaestine prisoners. But like I said, those numbers
really do change on a day to day basis. But they are still allegedly considering that that request, and they've turned down the last two proposals that Israel was in agreement to. So it's on the ball, is in Hamas's court as we see it right now, and that is really what Vice President Harris was honing in on. That is what she was talking about. She was calling for an immediate ceasefire, but that is what she was referencing. She's referencing this deal that's on the table for six weeks.
She wants both parties to come to it immediately and to include that the parts of the deal that include a prisoner swap, prisoner hostage swap, and also humanitarian aid, additional homilitarian aid going into Gaza.
Some reports that are say that Prime Minister Netanyah, who wants to know about the hostages well being their condition now and how many are still alive before moving forward, Does Hamas have all of that information?
The Hamas that I know because I worked in counter terrorism in the US government and Hamas was in my portfolio. The Hamas, I know, should know that information and would know that information because they have control over Gaza completely. And even though you have other terrorist groups obviously of Palstini in Islamic Shahad, which we know has taken hostages, it doesn't mean that Hamas doesn't know where they are
or their or their state. It just means that it may not be within their complete power to negotiate them or to exchange them without incl tating other deals on their side. Between Hamas and Palestinian Islamicha Hid, the palsie Islamacha Had is going to try and get something out of that as well for themselves, and so that's really more. I would never believe when Hamas says that they just don't know the state of something, or they don't know where someone is being held that I find that very
hard to believe. I understand that in a war zone it could be it could be different, but they have ways of communicating then, and technically this is a This is an area that has always been under their thumb since two thousand and six, and so I don't see why that they wouldn't know that now.
So Hgar, you say that Hamas effectively has control over everything in Gaza, So we should also keep that in mind that it is Hamas's run health ministry in Gaza that is reporting these figures. But we're not talking about thirty thousand Palestinian deaths. And even now that the administration seems to have ramped up its rhetoric, we just heard Vice President Harris, they're talking about this as a humanitarian catastrophe. Has the US reached this point too late?
This is really important. I'm glad you asked about this because the issue that you have at hand here, the reason the United States hasn't called for a permanent ceasefire, and the reason that they still aren't calling for a permanent one, is because they don't want to give any kind of gift to Hamas. They don't want to give
a seaspire without anything in exchange. For example, the hostage is In particular, this could all end tomorrow if Hamas gave all the hostages back and so that's what's holding them back. But with the US, you can see, number one, they've shifted their tone publicly, right, and you saw that ever since the Jordanian King's visit where Biden came out stronger. He said Israel's behavior has been over the top. He tried to show more compassion for the Palestinians and feel
more and show more empathy for their pain. And since then we've seen the rhetoric grow, but particularly since the tragic event that happened on Friday where you had Palestinians who were there for a humanitarian convoy. There was gunfire and over one hundred were killed. And each side has their story, but the fact is that it doesn't even really matter when democracies are at war. This is not
supposed to happen. And that's why President Biden came out and said that there is no excuse, there's no justification from the Israeli government side on what happened on that tragic day. So that said, why do you see the US pushing for this still for this six week ceasefire. That is because they're trying to push for something that
could lead to a permanent ceasefire. But to do it in a way where a they get the hostages out and get something in exchange without giving something a freebee the way they view it to Hamas because ultimately there's one goal here, and that's that Hamas is not able
to govern Gaza any longer. And so if you have that six week ceasefire, they can kickstart or expedite negotiations on one hand, one hand, between the Israelis and Palestinians to ensure who controls Gaza, and on the other between the Israelis and the rest of the Middle East to have normalization deals to try and kickstart a two state solution. Now, I know I sound like that sounds impossible. It is a very tall order, but that is what the US government is.
Hoping to do.
Tigar, we only have a minute. You worked on the National Security Council. I wonder your expectation for Joe Biden on Thursday night, the administration's message on Israel. This is a political speech, of course, but it's one that's being driven in part by folks like you who now work in the White House, who are briefing him every day.
Well, I believe he'll be He'll continue this tougher tone against Israel's behavior, but he's also going to be very careful to remind everyone that Israel is an ally and why Israel is an ally, that we benefit enormously for our own counter terrorism objectives from Israel, and so I think he'll try and toe that line and be very careful about it.
But on the question of.
Ceasefire, I think they're going to hit this point much harder about calling for an immediate ceasefire, even if it's temporary. That the goal is to lead into a permanent ceasefire. But the only way to do that is to not allow Hamas to govern Gaza any longer. So I think he's going to expan a bit better.
You wonder if he gets both sides of the room up off their seats for that one. Hagar Shamali, Great to see you, Hugar again, formerly National Security Council on Syria and Lebanon founder as well of Greenwich Media Strategies. Thanks for listening to the Balance of Power podcast. Make sure to subscribe if you haven't already, at Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and you can find us live every weekday from Washington, DC at noontime Eastern at bloomberg dot com,