Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. The Prime Minister of Israel is in the United States, Benjamin Netanyah, who arrived in Washington this week. The purpose of his trip to address a joint meeting of Congress, and that happened on Wednesday on.
Behalf of the people of Israel I came here today to say thank you America, thank you for your support and solidarity, thank you for standing in Israel with Israel in our hour of need.
But a lot has happened since early June, when US lawmakers announced this week's speech. There was an attempt on former President Trump's life. President Biden got COVID, and after weeks of pressure, he ended his bid for reelection and endorsed Vice President Harris. All that complicated Netanyaho's itinerary. By midweek, he had three critical meetings on his calendar, one with Trump, another with Biden, and a third sit down with Harris.
It's really an extraordinary moment. I mean, you almost couldn't make it up, or if you put it into a movie script, it would be seen as almost unbelievable.
Nick Wadhams oversees Bloomberg's national security coverage from Washington.
Do you have a suddenly anointed presidential candidate who has very little foreign policy experience from her time prior to being vice president, and now the first foreign leader she's going to be meeting is Prime Minister Benjamin NETANYAHUO. And this is not an alliance like you know, a meeting with the NATO Secretary General or President of France. This is a very very tricky situation.
Today on the show, a visit from Prime Minister net and Yahoo falls in the middle of an unprecedented moment in American political history, with implications for Israel's war with Hamas and for US foreign policy. As President Biden passes the baton to his vice president. This is the Big Take DC podcast from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gera. It was the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who led a campaign to invite Israel's Prime minister to Washington to
address both houses of Congress. There was backlash from some Democrats, but in the end that invitation received bipartisan support. Once the visit was set, it was more or less assumed Netanyaho would seek meetings with both President Biden and former President Trump. I sat down with Nick Wadhams and Ethan Bronner, who is Bloomberg's Israel bureau chief. And Ethan told me Netanyaho had two goals going into this visit.
The first is to be seen at home as a statesman, as someone who is invited by both Republicans and Democrats. Then, of course, there is no greater more important ally for Israel than the United States. And Israel feels besieged on many fronts right now, from the north, from the south, from the east, from very far south, and all of
which is paid for and trained by Iran. Israel would like to urge the American government and people to embrace the campaign against Iran as a fight against terrorism and a fight against forces that wish ill on the West and on the US. And therefore it's time to get behind Israel.
Ethan, it's been more than nine months since October seventh. Can you just describe the pressure that Prime Minister is under back home.
The main pressure that the Prime Minister's under back home has to do with the remaining hostages in Gaza, some one hundred and twenty, probably fifty of them alive, and the growing sense that the people who are there are going to die of very sad death if Israel doesn't do everything it can to bring them home. For many months, there was a sense that fighting against Hamas and bringing the hostages home were two legitimate and equally important goals.
But polls show that when people are asked about what's really important to them, bringing in the hostel home comes out first. So that's the broad public pressure. Then within his coalition, he has a very right wing religious coalition. Those to his far right do not want him to make a deal, do not want anything to be granted to Hamas in a return deal or freeing of Palestinian prisoners.
So he's trying to thread the needle of accepting the importance of bringing hostages home without threatening his own coalition.
On top of that, Netanyahu is under increasing international pressure to protect Palestinian civilians and address the humanitarian crisis on the ground in Gaza. So all that complexity was there, but the prospect of NETANYAHUO meeting with both Biden and Trump made the visit even thornier. Can you describe just how complicated the dynamics of this visit are. He was invited by Congress, It was not an invitation from President Biden.
It's very complicated for the president. I mean, this is a president who, deep in his bones, believes that the US should be a steadfast and unwavering ally of Israel. After the October seventh attack, he went to Israel and gave Prime Minister Netanyaho a literal bear hug to underscore
just how closely he believes that alliance should remain. But at the same time, Biden has been repeatedly undermined by the Israeli government in his effort to get this ceasefire, to get it done, he came out at one point and said, we have a deal that is essentially on the table, and framed it as something that had the support of Israel and just it was a matter of details.
The Prime Minister made clear he did not see eye to eye with Biden, and there's been a lot of frustration within the administration they don't see the Israeli government and Prime Minister Netanyah, who as the reliable partner that President Biden wants him to be.
Ethan, what explains the undermining that Nick's describing, Why the deterioration of that relationship between these two leaders.
You know, they've always gotten along personally, Biden to tanyagn and each other for four decades, but they've actually never particularly agreed on policy. I mean, Biden is far more liberal than Ntonia, who briefly embraced the idea of a Palestinian state between maybe two thousand and nine and twenty and eleven, but he never really bought into it, and he's now a firm opponent of it. From Biden's perspective, there is no way Israel can be at peace and
secure without a Palestinian state. So there's a very big difference right there. You also have this dichotomy between how most Israelis see what happened on October seventh and subsequently and how much or most of the world does so.
For Israel, there was a sense that they had built this state in order to be secure in their own Jewish state, and now people on their border were coming over and slaughtering them, and they came to the conclusion that those around them really want them dead, and they continue to feel that every day. It's October seventh, pretty much every day in Israel and the rest of the world. See nearly forty thousand Palestinians killed in the Gaza strip and says it's really time to stop this. There's a
lot of suffering going on there. And while President Biden did embrace Israel and come to its aid, as Nick said very powerfully the beginning of the war, he has waned on that, partly, I think from his own beliefs, but also partly there are political problems in the United States. He's got young Democrats and Arab Americans and Muslim Americans who are horrified by what's been happening in Gaza, and that's causing a serious electoral challenge to the Democratic Party.
How about the relationship between Netanyahu and former President Trump? What do we know of the dynamics of that relationship.
When Trump was president, there was a lot of contact and it was widely felt that President Trump took his cues about the region trump Prime Minister Natanyahu. It's also true you know that President Trump's son in law, Jared Kushner, is very active Zionist, close to the right in Israel as well. And then, of course, while Trump is president, he did several things that made Israeli is certainly conservative.
Israeli is very happy. He recognized Jerusalem as its capital, He recognized the annexation of the goal on heights from Syria by Israel, and he declared that settlements in the West Bank Jewish settlements are not illegal from an American perspective. So in many ways, Trump was a great hero there. But then what happened is that when Joe Biden won the election in twenty twenty, and of course Trump denied
the legitimacy of this victory. So it was difficult for Natania who he waited a little bit before acknowledging and congratulating President Biden his victory, and that really angered President Trump. We all know that Trump is a guy who quickly makes enemies and then can agree to overlook what's happened. I mean, look at his relationship with JD. Vans. So the assumption is that they're now going to meet and that all will be more or less forgiven.
So those were the dynamic going into this week initially, but then last Sunday, President Biden ended his run for a second term. He endorsed Vice President Harris, and all of a sudden she was in the spotlight in a way she hadn't been, and Netanyahoo added a meeting with Harris to his itinerary. Now the Vice President's positions on Israel are under fresh scrutiny, But what are those positions exactly?
That's after the break, you know, when the Prime Minister sits down with Vice President Harris, presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party for president. The substance, of course, is important, but so is the presentation the whole thing. Talk about the importance of this meeting from a purely political standpoint.
She has been Vice president for almost four years now, but she was more a foot soldier in the foreign
policy that was set by the president. And now the first foreign leader she's going to be meeting as she introduces her herself to the United States as the Democrats candidate for the presidency is Prime Minister Benjamin Netta, who I mean already Secretary of State Anthony Blinkin held this frankly somewhat bizarre press gaggle where he vouched for her foreign policy bona fide said he had no doubt about her ability to do the job.
I've seen her command of the room full of world leaders.
It's almost like, well, if he didn't feel the need to try to convince people of that, he wouldn't have said it. It was just sort of a strange moment that suggests they're really trying to build her up in a place that they know is an obvious weakness. If this were a poker game, I guess that would have been a pretty big tell.
Ethan.
I was able to find a photograph of then Senator Kamala Harris standing next to Prime Minister NETANYAHUO I think back in twenty seventeen, any insight you can give us into what kind of relationship if any of these two leaders have.
I'm unaware are there any deeper lizes, but they've met on a half a dozen occasions. I mean, I do believe that the president was on the line for the twenty or so conversations that President Biden has had with Natanyahu over these months.
Of the war.
I think that Kamala Harris has a deep belief in the legitimacy of Israel. There is no disagreement about that. But she's more worried about the Palestinians who are undergoing bombing and difficult conditions, including hunger, than it's sort of this geostrategic question, or at least that's where she has placed her attention. I think the question is if she were to be elected and she then faced the bigger
strategic question of what do you do about Iran? And whether she would agree that Iran is the big problem that Israel says, than what to do about that.
This is something she addressed in broad strokes during a major foreign policy speech she delivered in February at the Munich Security Conference.
Israel then had a right to defend itself. Would we would and and how it does so matters. We have also been clear that far too many innocent Palestineans have been killed, that Israel must do better ethan.
How are you watching this play out? Prime Minister Netio having to really balance two outcomes. Of course, Vice President Harris should she be the nominee, she could be the next president. Former President Trump could go to the White House once again. How is he navigating those two potential outcomes?
Historically, I mean, at least for many decades, there has been a bipartisan, relatively bipartisan consensus about Israel that it was an important ally. Now, as Israel moved to the right and the American electorate has moved to the left, that has been strained, particularly in the Democratic Party. But I think that we see what's the Biden administration, how it's basically embraced Israel's desire to defend itself and to destroy Hamas with caveats of course and disagreements.
In Congress on Wednesday, Netanyahu spoke for nearly an hour, condemning protesters and urging America to side with Israel in its fight against Iran.
America and Israel today can forge a security alliance in the Middle East to counter the growing Iranian threat.
We are your agent in this region. We may have minor disagreements about things Palestinian state, this and that, but let us look at the big picture. We have a lot in common and a long history of shared values.
As for President Biden, when he addressed the nation on Wednesday night about his decision to drop out of the race, he said he wants to make the most of his remaining time in office, and I'm.
Going to keep working in the war in Gaza, bring home all the hostages, and bring peace and security to the Middle East.
And end this war.
The question is what his lame duck status means for Israel and its willingness to commit to a deal. Would they gamble on the idea of waiting for President Trump, knowing that Donald Trump is much more sympathetic to Israel. JD Vance said that Israel should be allowed to essentially finish the job. So there may be some benefit to waiting, but there may also be some disadvantage if Kamala Harris
wins the presidency. So there's a calculation there that Israel will have to make, and there's also a calculation that
the US will have to make. We are getting some hints right now from the administration that President Biden, like presidents before him, has the desire to take a big swing at one of the most intractable foreign policy problems in the world with the remaining time he has left to cement his legacy and do something that he believes would make a profound impact and that has bring peace
or a ceasefire at least between Israel and Hamas. A ceasefire is something very much that the administration wants to achieve, not only because they believe in it on the merits, but because as college gets back underway in the fall, if you see a return of those protests on college campuses propelsy protesters, there are folks in the administration who
believe that puts Kamala Harris in serious political jeopardy. You can bet that whatever happens, the administration will seek to show that Kamala Harris is in the thick of this thing. So one of the goals that President Biden will have will be to use some sort of deal, whatever deal they can get, as something that they can show the Biden Harris administration achieved, and that will be something that would argue for voters to turn out in her favor in November.
And I think for President Biden, who considers himself really a foreign policy expert his whole life, if he can actually drive a deal and there is movement toward a normalization agreement between Israel and the Saudis, I think that would be for him one of the most important ways to end his career.
Ethan and Nick, thank you very much, Thank you, Thanks thanks for listening to the Big Take DC podcast from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gura. This episode was produced by Julia Press. It was mixed by Blake Maples. It was fact checked by Thomas lew and RFT Jalasho Perry. It was edited by Aaron Edwards, Naomi Shaven and Kim Gittleson are our senior producers. We get editorial direction from Wendy Benjaminson and Elizabeth Ponso. Nicole Beemster Bor is our executive producer.
Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Please follow and review The Big Take DC wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps new listeners find the show