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We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints dot com. There was actually a crazy crash that happened
in Philadelphia. Let's go ahead and put some of the video up there on the screen as I talk over it, so you can see there were these insane ring camera videos that were coming out that are just showing a major fireball that erupted literally as a crash, as this plane, small plane carrying six passengers actually literally crash there in the middle of the See the emergency.
Lights, the fires that were all happening.
This is a particularly insane one because he's standing out there and he literally happens right outside of his front door. You can see the fireball that was right behind him. Absolutely terrifying. What we know about the crash so far is it's a little weird some of the details, so I'm just going to go ahead and read them to some of you. So they've named the crew and there
was actually a patient. It was an air ambulance in the northeastern Philadelphia area, so it was a medical jet and it was including a girl from Mexico who had received treatment for life threatening illness. But it plummeted to the ground in Northeast Philly, causing obviously a massive explosion, killing everybody on board and at least one person who was on the ground. We don't know anything else. What we basically know is that they left Northeast Philadelphia Airport.
It was headed for Springfield Branson National Airport, stopping in Missouri before eventually traveling to its final destination of Tijuana, Mexico. The girl was returning to Mexico after receiving treat in the United States, and the victims of the crash are the captain as well as several other Mexican nationals. So definitely a tragedy. And still some open questions as to what the hell was happening. You know, with all of this, can we put the next one please up on the screen.
Just read some of the details out that I was talking about. It's called a quote unquote angel flight en route to Mexico. All of the occupants were Mexican nationals. Plane was headed to Tijuana. So still some major stuff.
There, but a number of injuries in the areas too, just because of it, which this major urban area, which is you know, between that and then the fact that I had just come on the heels of this horrific crash in DC is why true?
Yeah, a lot why everyone's paying attention, I mean rightfully, right yeah, this is the people are on edge.
People are afraid to fly.
And Donald Trump addressed some of the crash on Thursday, blaming DEI as I'm sure we'll talk about it afterwards. Let's take a listen to what he had to say.
You can't have regular people doing that job. They won't be able to do it. But we'll restore faith. American air traveler have more to say about that. I do want to point out that various articles that appeared prior to my entering office. And here's one. The FAA's diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and
psychiatric disabilities. That is amazing. And then it says FAA says people with severe disabilities the most underrepresented segment of the workforce, and they want them in, and they want them they can be air traffic controllers. I don't think so.
This was.
In January fourteenth, so that was a week before I entered office. They put a big push to put diversity into the FAA's program.
On DEI and the claims that you've made.
Are you saying this crash was somehow caused and the result of diversity hiring, and what evidence have you seen to support these plans?
It could have been. We have a high standard. We've had a much higher standard than anybody else. And there are things where you have to go by brain power, you have to go by psychological equality, and psychological quality is a very important element of it. These are various, very powerful tests that we put to use, and they were terminated by Biden, and Biden went by a standard that's the exact opposite.
So there we owe from Trump. I was watching it live.
I was telling Crystal Wise and I was like, Oh, he's really He's really going to do it, isn't he?
And they immediately starts pulling out d articles.
My personal favorite was a response to that question whenever he's like, so, do you have any indication that it was DEI and he's.
Like not at this time, we don't, So Okay, all right, there we go. That's trump.
Let's put some of the details up here on the screen about the crash, because this is what's actually important. Where we are learning a couple of things. Number one is that the helicopter, it seems, was not flying at the correct height.
Now there's various reasons for that.
It could be that the screen the air traffic controller was incorrect, it could be an instrumentation malfunction on the helicopter itself. It could be a communication era between the
two that is currently under investigation. But the most important thing that we have learned is that FAA short short shortage of staffing in the tower had one person doing the job of two, and what they said is that the helicopter was flying outside of its flight path and that air traffic controller was juggling two jobs at the same time and was unable to keep the helicopter and the plane separated.
It does seem crystal that this has.
Been going on for years now at Reagan National Airport, that they have had a major shortage in air traffic control, and we have also learned of a previous close call incident between a helicopter and a plane. So unfortunately, just seems like it was a matter of time. Two crowded airport, not a non air traffic control.
Again, the helicopter thing, I still can't get over.
I have no idea why they are constantly doing helicopter training exercises over one of the most crowded, busiest, and difficult airports landing in.
The entire United States. It's crazy.
I've been landing there from my entire adult lives, as I moved to Washington, DC when I was eighteen.
I didn't even know that was a thing.
It's probably better that we didn't know, but now you know. They suspended the flights luckily, but it just it's like, how much does this happen in all over the country?
Completely insane. I had no idea same that this was a thing that happened, and it seems completely insane. A lot of conspiracy theorists are making a lot of the fact that the helicopter, Pete Hegseth, our Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth said, was on a continuation of government training mission.
But that is a little weird, right, So what is that content? Continuity of government mission?
Is it?
You know, for what purpose? What were you doing flying in the middle.
I'm with you on that one. I'm with you on that one.
But the factors that we know, so first of all, nationwide, there's a massive air traffic controller shortage, some three thousand air traffic controllers we are short on. There's an airport in the Bay Area that about to have zero air traffic controllers very close to San Francisco, not actual SFO, but a smaller airport nearby.
This is a crisis.
Because you can see potentially the results here because what happened at Reagan is that, like you said, Zager, for years, they've been operating in this shorthanded position where one person has been doing the job of two, having to both direct the passenger jets in and also manage the helicopter traffic. I mean, that seems that's insane, but they were only doing it only they shouldn't be doing it at all, okay, but they were forced into this situation for a shortage.
They were doing it after nine thirty PM, because that's when the traffic really starts to ease up. On this particular evening, the supervisor had allowed someone to leave early so that the one man band situation began much earlier in the evening, So the crash occurred just before nine pm.
This should have been a time when.
Typically they would have had two people in, you know, each doing one job, so that was unusual.
Then you also had, as you.
Mentioned, the helicopter flying above its approved path. The fact that there are helicopters flying through here is insane to begin with, but these are some of the factors that go in. The Other thing is, you know, I learned a lot about DCA. It sucks because this is actually my favorite airport in the region.
It's closed easy, it's not.
That big of an airport facility, so it's very easy to get around in et cetera. But the main runway there is actually the busiest runway in the entire country. And the reason is because there's only one real runway, it's already shorter than most you know, major runways at major airports, but there's only really one main runway that larger jets can land on, so that primary runway is the busiest in the country. Then you couple that with the fact that you have all of these sensitive areas
around here. You've got the Pentagon, you got the White House, you got all kinds of monuments and other facilities.
That are nearby.
So it effectively forces all of the air traffic into a very narrow corridor, predominantly just right over the Potomac River, which anybody again who's flown into that airport is kind of familiar. So it creates this really dense and very busily trafficked area. And those are some of the factors that seem to have contributed to this horrific, horrific death.
But one indication we got is that the screens that the air traffic controller was monitoring and using to you know, keep everything safe, etc. May have misread the level that the helicopter was flying at. So the NTSB is a term in the helicopter. The black Hawk helicopter was flying at three hundred and twenty five feet. It was supposed to be at two hundred feet. There is some indication maybe that the technical controls for the air traffic controller
were misreading the height. That could have been a factor. But you know, to go back to like Doge and all of this sort of stuff, the air traffic controllers got the same fork in the road email pushing them to retire, as everybody else.
In the federal government did.
Then there was another like Q and a email that went out that even more aggressively pushed everyone in the federal government, including air traffic controllers. Hey, now would be the time to take this buy on, go on like the dream vacation. This shows you, right, federal government is not a business. Okay, maybe it made sense a Twitter for Eland to just like acts however whatever eighty percent of the workers.
Et cetera.
But I'm sure there are some areas in the federal government where you could definitely trim the staff back and where it wouldn't make that much of a difference and it wouldn't be that impactful.
This is not one of them.
Right, This is a place where we need to hire thousands more air traffic controllers. Instead they're getting the same emails that are like, hey, take the buy on and go on vacation and like enjoy living your life and double dipping on your federal government salary and whatever new gig you're going.
To take up as well.
So that is where these sort of rubber hits the road in terms of what we actually need and rely on the federal government to do. And this just let me take a hatchet to the whole thing approach that we are seeing from our new god King Elon Musk.
I have no disagreement on that, and I think that is the absolute danger that they will fall into. I'll remind people that the lowest point of approval rating actually for George W. Bush, unfortunately was not Iraq even though it should have been. It was FEMA and New Orleans. Yeah, that was Hurricane Katrina. When people they feel like a disaster is not properly.
Handled, they do not take kindly to it.
And so that is of course the major caution for people who are supportive of Doze and others is look, like I said, I'm not going to sit here and cry about USAID or NGOs in California or anything like that. But if you find yourself in a position where you're either tangentially or somewhat to blame for a major disaster, and so something else like this happens and they can trace it back to you.
It can cause you some serious, serious problems.
Last thing on this is that we are learning that this was just the latest that a previous incident like this had happened. So let's go and put C eight please on the screen. A helicopter and an FAA plane actually almost collided in twenty eighteen right next to DCA. The near collision was almost identical to Wednesday's nights crashed. The controller in that case working both helicopter local traffic at the time. And the reason why, again is the short staffing of the FAA.
Yeah, and that's another thing that you raised.
You know, nine pm is one of the busiest times on the runway at DCA, tons of flights. I feel those usually the very last ones that come in.
And I feel so bad for this person because they never should have been put in the city of this or the traft troller maybe they never should have been put in this situation.
And now they have sixty seven lives on their contract.
Yeah, they got it. The helicopter pilot.
I mean, look, we got to learn. It may turn out that the guy didn't do it, or the woman whoever, the air traffic controller didn't do anything wrong. Instrumentation failure on the helicopter, well, that's on the military, right, because why are you not expecting your equipment before that happen? Or and this is the other one, the helicopter pilot. I mean, if anybody's to blame, it's probably her, because
if it's not instrumentation failure, then it's about communication. And also a lot of people when raising a lot, they're like, what you really miss a passenger jet?
I mean the video is insane. Yeah, the video, it's it looks like they.
Go, right, look, not helicopter pilots.
I'm trying not to pass judge, but to any layman who's watching that, I mean, it's basically a bee line, right.
The thing that's crazy to me is you see all these helicopter pilots that are like just imagine like it's at night and you're just looking out this little tube and you see these lecens like, Okay, well, if.
It's that difficult, yeah don't Why don't we doing right?
If it's like you can't see anything and you have no idea there's a regional jet right frick in there that you're flying into maybe we shouldn't be having these helicopters flying all around one of you know, an incredibly busy airport at nine o'clock.
And I said, they're wearing night vision. The allegation is they may have been wearing night vision goggles. So it's and they're like, oh, it's really hard to see. I'm like, okay, fine, but do that in Iraq. You don't need to do it over here.
All right?
Like, what are we training for? Exactly gets to the whole continent training for.
I would like to know what was that crazy thing in the Obama administration?
Something Yeah, down in Texas.
Kate Helm was that it? I think that is someone's going to remember that was a whole thing. Texas. Mobilize the national Guard.
Actually, as a Virginia resident, we should mobilize our national guard to protect us from the United States military, protect our airspace, keep the government off our runways.
All right, everybody gets super excited.
We got a new Democratic National Committee chair.
Big deal.
Ken Martin, the former Minnesota state chair, has won that contest over the weekend. As a reminder of what this guy is all about. He is the one who said that, oh, we should absolutely continue as a party to take money from quote unquote good billionaires. We should just to avoid those quote unquote bad billionaires. In one of the DNC candidate forums, let's take a listen to what he had to say.
There are a lot of.
Good billionaires out there that have that have been with Democrats who share our values, and we will.
Take their money.
But we're not taking money from those bad billionaires in party.
Yeah, yeah, I mean, and listen. Obviously, his definition of a good billionaire is just someone who gives the Democratic Party money, So that just frees you up.
To take money from whoever whenever.
Like, I'm sure they would be happy to welcome Mark Zuckerberg back into the fold, et cetera, et cetera. Let's put the vote totals up on the screen. Ken Martin one with two hundred forty six point five. I don't really know how the point five works, but anyway, I was wondering, Yeah.
Not important.
Ben Wickler, who's the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, one forty four point five.
Martin Omalley, former Maryland governor, got forty four.
Fashikiaro is Bernie's chief of staff who we interviewed here, who jumped in late gets a whopping two votes. Jason Paul don't even know who that is, gets one vote, and then no votes for anyone else. So Mary and Williamson was running, no votes for her, no votes for anyone else. I mean to me, this is just part and parcel of the Democratic Party is so lost right now.
They are so lost.
They have no idea how to handle this Trump two point zero administration. They have no idea how to be able to offer some sort of an alternative vision, like, for example, actually standing against all billionaires, not just the quote unquote bad billionaires, and taking a clear stance against oligarchy and the seizure of our country by a band
of robber barons. That would require them to, you know, totally remake their own party, because that is how many of all of their leaders effectively have come into power as well. And so what you have seen after Trump getting re elected, Sager, is you know, Chuck Schumer is.
Still thehead of the Dems in the Senate.
You've got Hakeem Jefferies still ahead of the Dums in the House. No one could tell you who the actual leader of the Dey Democratic Party is. They're going with this very standard issue Guy as DNC chair, and you even had Jamie Harrison, the outgoing DNC chair, say that he actually still thinks that Biden should have.
Maybe stayed in the race. Like the Democrats on the state of affairs right now.
The Democrats are praying for the scenario that I laid out in our previous block to happen. They want the public to freak out about the tariffs, then they just nominate some replacement level Democrat and he wins as opposition to Trump. That is the most politically convenient. By the way, that's actually a very likely outcome. I just want people to understand that it's extraordinarily possible that that could happen.
But the reason why they should really try and do something else is if it's nineteen eighty four and Donald Trump is Ronald Reagan who becomes massively popular even more over his second term, and then you have his vice president waiting in the wings.
What happened in eighty.
Four Mondale, who had I mean, if you think Democrats are bad now, think about back then in terms of who are we, what do we stand for?
They had zero policy position.
Eventually, it consolidates very late into the new Democratic Party. The DLC and all that under Bill Clinton in nineteen ninety two. But they were out of power for twelve years, so they easily could find themselves. This could just be year number four at the end of the Trump administration. You could have a two term J eight Evans or Trump Junior or somebody's presidency before they can actually get their act together. So they really are banking on Trump
screwing up. And that's not a strategy, that's not a movement, that's not something that you believe in.
Yeah, no, that's exactly right. And they also just like they have no idea how to deal with the speed of news and the current media environment either, definitely right, So you know, I mean they're like still processing things that happened on inauguration Day and here we are like ten crises later, and they, you know, they just they don't have by and large, I mean, this is where like whatever you think of AOC, she at least understands the new media environment and the fact that you know,
one of the few people that they have on their side who actually can garner media attention and track controversy and like start a conversation, et cetera. They also go out of their way to like bury and keep from any sort of a leadership position also tells you where
they are. So they have a myriad of problems. Their approval rating is like has never been lower effectively, because I think, not only do you have people who are normally opposed to Democrats opposed to them, but then you have the rest of the country and even people who maybe like sympathetic to democratic type principles just looking at them and like, you are so pathetic in this moment. You have no idea how to meet the moment. You
have no idea how to articulate a different vision. You're just going along and like doing the same things that you've always done, re electing the same people, same type of people.
Et cetera.
And it is not it is not a terribly inspired situation for them right now. And I think you're right, Zagara. I think they don't know what to do. They don't understand how to do. They had Corey Booker give some like social media seminar to everyone.
I don't know if we talked on the show or not.
Yeah, yeah, I don't know if we talked about this on the show or not.
But they had some meeting.
I think of the Democratic senators trying to brainstorm how to like go viral, and they're like, oh, Mark Warner made a tune melt.
Dur oh way.
I swear to god, you didn't see this, Mark Warner made it. You might have been like, I think you were off during that. I made it tuone melt during COVID that went supervirus, Like maybe he did that, but no.
One remembers that.
I'm like, I have no idea that's.
Your answer to Trump two point zero and Elon must take you over the government.
All this stuff is like, maybe we should do some more online cooking.
It's like, oh Jesus Christ, they're so lost.
And they've also they're not ditching their cartoonish identity politics either. There were a lot of great clips coming out. Let's take a listen to one of them.
Specify that when we have a gender non binary candidate or officer, the non binary individual is counted as neither male nor female, and the remaining six offices must be gender balanced. With the results of the previous four elections, our elected officers are currently too male and to female. In order to be gender balanced, we must we must elect one male, one female, and one person of any gender. So again, this is what we.
Have to do for this vice chair race. We have to.
Elect one male, one female, and one person of any gender. To ensure our process accounts for male, female, and non binary candidates, we conferred with our RBC co chair, our LGBT Caucus co Chair, and others to ensure that the process is inclusive and meets the gender balance requirements. In our rules, any candidate male, female, and non binary can
be elected on that ballot. After a candidate is elected on the first ballot, we'll have one officer of the three, so we will now so then we will know which position is filled of the one male, one female, and one vice chair of any gender.
Oh my god, who is this even for it?
So that's where we're got, that's where we're at.
And Faz Shakir said, this is the kind of identity politics in fighting that I was urging us against. Focus on fighting against oligarchy through solidarity. He got two votes, so that's the decision. There was a land acknowledgement too with the DNC.
So you know, look, you know, folks, I want to give Faz credit even though you know whatever, I don't think he ever had a shot even if he got in, got in early, et cetera. Because this isn't like, you know, a Democratic base alike. This is literally just DNC members. These are I mean, they're not like some of them are insider insiders.
Some of them are just like local county chairs.
But these are just you know, these are Democratic Party operatives whatever.
But he had asked at one of.
The forums, you know, do you think we should have a can't remember what identity group caucus? It was maybe a Muslim caucus. I can't I think it was a Muslim caucus. And he was like, no, I think we need to stop doing this like division by identity. I think we need to focus on like class solidarity and delivering for all people. And he gets two votes. We have a DNC vice chair who was elected as well. We can put D four up on the screen, David Hogg,
who's you know, gun safety activist. And one thing I will say here to defend David a little bit is at least David understands new media, like at least he knows how to communicate on social media platforms himself.
Yes, that's of course.
To be vice president of the United States.
We also became a senator.
So I haven't seen the Democrats need more posters on their side.
And at least he understands the social media.
Yeah, okay, mister David, I can show you, David.
He's had more fight in him than like ninety percent of having fight.
Okay, having the fight in you is not a skill. Having the fight in you in the right direction is an appropriate skill.
Of the right direction.
He's been no for real, he he has I agree, the bars on the frickin floor, but at least he has been forceful aggressive. Some of his post election analysis has been correct. He does understand at least the new media landscape.
So yeah, it could be worse.
Okay, it could be worse.
I think they should hire Parker Parker Short, the kid who's been on our show.
Oh I love God, that'll be good.
Yeah.
See he's he's the type of person.
Hey, David, if you're listening, uh, you should hire Parker Short. That that is an an immediate endorsement as far as that's going to carry from me.
All right, let's get to Tucker Carlson.
He had an interesting exchange with Piers Morgan where the topic of Gaza and Israel came up calling out Ben Shapiro on the topic of war.
Let's take a listen.
If you're intentionally killing civilians, you probably shouldn't beat your chest and brag about it.
You know, maybe you could make it agree with that.
Maybe you make the case that we had to do it or whatever, but you should you should weep.
And that's evil and you should just say it's evil.
And I know it's like really threatening to is it evil, Ben Shapiro to say that or whatever?
But is it evil to kill civilians on purpose? Yet it is?
I think it is kids and children? Well, how is it not? Actually we can call it whatever you want. How is it right to kill women and children?
I didn't say, well, because I think there's a moral right behind you. If you are literally to kill women and children, if as a world war that threatens the entire if it threatens the entire world, Yes.
Some people killed your kids, like your eight year old children justifiable because actually you have to well, by your cristire, it's disgusting.
Okay, it's nothing. So no war is morally justified. I mean I think it's pretty hard to justify.
I mean, yeah, you know, a pure defensive action, sure, but all I'm saying, Look, it's all ugly, it's all hard to stomach.
I've actually seen some of it up close. Super ugly. You say you hate let me mat Mafo the fact.
Justified to intentionally kill noncombatants, women and children. I think we can say that's wrong. In fact, I thought that was the thing we were fighting against.
Hmmm, very interesting.
This is, of course invited now some serious pushback from the Daily Wire. Let's put this up there on the screen. CEO Jeremy Boring. Anyone still blind to what Tucker is doing is wilfully so.
He isn't hiding it.
When a man has worse things to say about Winston Churchill and Ben Shapiro.
Notice the Churchill and Ben Shapiro.
Then Vladimir putin a Nazi apologists.
He's making his position pretty clear.
Somebody followed up and replied to him saying, Tucker is actually spot on. Any life lost in war is a tragedy. That's what he's trying to express. Jeremy says, that is not what he's trying to express. Tucker is one of the most gifted communicators of his generation. He isn't just misunderstood and anyway, Yeah, this is just the latest in this break between the two. But I thought it was fascinating to see Peers there. I guess it actually fits
with his British heritage. They are the people who really were the original pushers of area bombing otherwise known as strategic sorry the counter true strategic bombing, which is bombing of unch people in World War Two in the middle of the night. They stuck by that position, bomber Harris and their admirals and others. It's something or sorry. They're generals and others. They're very proud of that legacy, and it seems that that's trickled here into some of these debates.
But I think it's fascinating to watch for Peers and others whenever they get pushed on that position, especially with that last thing that he said.
He goes, I thought that's what.
We were fighting against, and you're like, oh, hold on a second. It's like, well, actually, you know, you can be quote pro Israel or whatever and also just be like, hey, some of the way that this war has been conducted is totally outside of the norms of the way that any modern West in power fights. But that situation, like if you know, you and I have experienced this. If you talk about that, you're really smeared as an anti Semite.
It's great. The whole thing is crazy.
Well, Pierce has really tried to hold on to this sort of like both sides middle ground in the you know, post October seventh world, and you can see pretty clearly there how that just falls apart, Like at this point, really all of Gaza is destroyed. We have no idea how many people were killed. The majority of them were women, children and the elderly. Like, it's just undeniable at this point. I mean, he says this thing that's so preposterous that like the entire world was threatened.
Like, give me a break.
What happened on October seventh is the absolute maximal amount that Hummas.
Would be able to ever pull off.
They were, by a lot of reports, like stunned at what they were able to, you know, the damage they were able to inflict on that day. So the position is just preposterous. I guess what I'll say is it's good Tucker is very influential on the right. It's good that you have a very influential voice on the right who is expressing concern about women and children in Gaza. It would if if I think this is a big if,
I think it's unlikely. But we'll say, and we're about to talk to as Israeli journalists from how Rat's talking about the ceasefire deal and what Trump is likely to do, et cetera, et cetera, if he were to further buck the like pro Israel hardliners, many of whom are in his own government now by his choice, by the way, and you know, push BB to continue with this ceasefire deal. It's good that there will be people like Tucker that are there to.
Back him up.
I just see, you know, it's always irritating to me. It's easy to go after Ben Shapiro for his pro Israel position, like Trump has already rolled back the restrictions on the use of two thousand pound bombs, rolled back the restrictions on the you know, the sanctions on the violent settlers, said we're going to clean that whole thing out, referencing like ethnic cleansing of all of Gaza, and you never hear any criticism of him. So, you know, Ben
Shapiro is ultimately powerless really in this situation. He's not in government he's not the president, he's not Elon Musk, So you know, I will have a lot more respect if there is actually some criticism that's leveled at the guy who actually has the power in the situation.
What I am worried about. Here's the thing right now. And Tucker did this luckily with my friend Kurt Mills.
He did a video.
Remember we were talking about the Mike Demino thing and the attack on him and Steve Witcotck. They did a whole podcast actually defending the two of them. Steve Wikoff is the key. I am the most worried about him. The amount of fire that the Pro Israel lobby and Washington has on him right now is insane. They are trying to smear him as a Katari agent. They're like literally calling which again we're talking about the Pro Israel lobby is accusing somebody else of being a foreign.
Age sharing water.
Shall we talk about do we all want to settle on that. You guys want to talk about foreign influence?
Should we start talking about go through your ten ninety nines and you'r ng o's and who's uh, who's donating to all of you? If you guys want to play that game. We can play that game.
But that's that.
And then Mike Demino other Mark Levin literally called him a creep. I think he called an anti semi creep Mike Demino for saying that we should not want to go to war with Iran. That's what it is as currently, the state of things, where things fall.
I have no idea.
Yeah, my hope hope is that because wick Cough and Trump are such old buddies, Trump will hopefully not let you know, Net and Yahoo and his government sway him to fire Witcough.
But let's all be honest.
You know about Miriam Adelson is there, She's give him a hundred You know, she didn't give you one hundred.
Million for free.
There's a lot of people who are in this government right now who have the ear of the pret Marco Rubio, I mean, look at all the stuff that the guys said previously about Israel. Mike Waltz, the stuff that he said previously, hegseeth exactly.
Stephan, I mean her position is not that important, but the whole reason she got the position is because of her crazy like mccarthyites, smears of propound el Teime demonstrators.
Oh, it's de Finnic. Yes, it's fine.
Yeah.
And Mike Kakabe is the ambassador Israel.
I mean that you could not find a more psycho like End Times Israel, no matter what kind of a guy.
So there's a lot there.
Yeah.
I don't know. I am not optimistic that any of this will happen.
We're about to talk with this Israeli journalists about the sy op and all those but in general, it is good at least that somebody is calling some of this stuff out. I really truly hope so, because if not, we all know what the path of that looks like, basically the Biden path with even more just open and pro support, which I don't think is good for any of us. Let's get to the Israeli journalists who's going to talk to us about net Yahoo and Gaza.
We are very fortunate to be joined this morning by a journalist for Haretzi Israeli newspapers reporting. By the way, we have relied on quite a bed throughout the coverage post October seventh, Amir t Bone.
He is also the author of a book called The Gates of Gaza. Great to see you, Amir, Good to see you, Hi.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, it's our pleasure. Let's go and put your reporting here up on the screen. Prime Minister Natya who is traveling to the US. He will be the first foreign leader to visit Trump in his new term. And your headline here is Natnya who comes to Washington to kill Trump's Gaza deal?
Will the President let him?
So?
What have you been able to learn about the dynamics between Trump and BB in advance of this meeting.
Well, it's clear that President Trump picks great pride in getting the Gaza cease fire that the previous president failed to achieve for more than a year. And President Trump secured a ceasefire in hostage release deal even before entering the White House. He and his special envoice, Steve Whitcock, who has earned a lot of respect here in Israel, did a lot of hard work to get this deal. But this deal is built in a very very sophisticated,
perhaps too sophisticated, of away. And a month from today it is supposed to move from the first phase of the deal, during which Mass is supposed to release thirty three of our hostages. We've already released more than ten. We are waiting for more and more of the hostages
to arrive. But then we're supposed to move into phase two, during which all the remaining living hostages, more than twenty of them, including two personal friends of mine, are supposed to be released and Israel is supposed to complete its withdrawal from Gaza. And this phase of the deal threatens the survival of Nataniao's governing coalition, which relies on several extremist fanatic parties that are threatening to blow up the governing coalition and basically end Nathaniel's hold on power if.
He goes through.
So he's caught in a situation where on the one hand, there is the survival of his coalition, on the other hand, the survival of the hostages, and smack in the middle is President Trump, who wants the still to continue and wants it to be the basis for a broader Middle East agenda centered around Israeli Saudi peace that really, first of all, requires an end to the war in Gaza.
So, Amir, can you pair this with some comments you've reported on there that Trump had floated. For example, He's like, oh, well, maybe the Palestinians can temporarily go to Jordan or Egypt. And I believe since that comment the governments of all of those countries have come forward and said that's an
absolute non starter. So in terms of the fork in the road, I guess, if you will, for the actual decisions that the Trump administration has to make, they have to decide whether Steve Witkoff and others will continue negotiations and push for a Phase two or to support a continuation of the war in Gaza.
Are there any other options on the table? Realistically?
I think the idea that Trump floated that some of the Palestinians in Gaza will, from my understanding, temporarily seek residence in a neighboring country until all the destruction in Gaza can be removed and new housing can be built. And the reconstruction in Gaza from this war is going to take years. This is a very difficult situation. That's obviously a suggestion that none of the neighboring Arab countries like Egypt and Jordan, are willing to hear about right now.
But if it is presented as part of a package that ends the war, that moves us toward Palestinian statehood, that includes guarantees that all of these people will be able to return to Gaza. No Israeli settlements built in Gaza completely is rarely Withdrew. Maybe then it will sound different when he just sends it on the plane, and you know, with some reporters who don't really know the nuance of this issue, and to be frank, I'm not
sure he knows all the nuance at this point. Either he comes and says, oh, we want them to move to Egypt. So of course everybody's rising up and saying, no way we're going to accept that. The Egyptians, the Jordanians, the Palestinians, we saw over the weekend, the CDs and the poweries, you know, very important countries in this whole
process also coming out against it. So I think if Trump has a real idea here that he wants to sell to the relevant art countries, it needs to be part of a broader package, and it needs to be explained as part of a move to end the war, reconstruct Gaza, and put us on a path to Palestinian statehood, which is supposed to be part of this brand Israeli Saudi.
Deal that he's trying to take.
So there's a lot of diplomatic ideas floating around right now, and I think we should bread every statement we hear with a bit of caution at this moment.
Yeah, we can put up two up on the screen, which you know, underscores what you all were saying that there was a widespread rejection from Saudi Arabia, UAA, Cutar, Egypt, Jordan, and Palestinian Authority and the Arab League all said in a joint statement they oppose President Trump's plan to move Palestinians from Gaza under any excuse the language, of course that he used, saying we need to quote clean that whole thing out, something along those lines.
That's like real estate language. That's not diplomatic.
Language, right, Well, I mean it's ethnic cleansing language, is
effectively what it is. And how could anybody given that you have within you know, THENT Nyaho Coalition, NET Nyaho himself, these extremists who are quite open about we want to push out the Palestinians, we want to completely settle and take over not just Gaza but also the West Bank, how could you ever have any assurance that this wasn't just, you know, an attempt at a final complete ethnic cleansing of both Gaza and the West Bank.
I think one of the things President Trump is going to learn as he navigates this issue is that the current coalition in Israel is not going to make his life easier in any way, because that's just the example
you gave now. Where an idea that to be presented with the right language, with the right assurances, with the right funding, as a temporary solution that allows to rebuild Gaza and then prepare beggers housing for all the people who lost their homes in this war, and we're thinking about hundreds of thousands, potentially more than a million people
who lost their homes. That kind of plan will immediately run into a wall of suspicion because it is being associated with people like Betzellar's Mootridge, the far right finance minister of the current Natanial government, who is openly celebrating the idea of emptying Galazza from its residents. And once he makes that kind of statement, then automatically you're going to see all of the relevant Arab countries coming and saying we want nothing to do with it. And Smotridge
is right now pressuring NATANIAO. You know, as we're speaking, he put out a statement that if NATANIAU agrees to end the war so that we can go into phase two of the hostage negotiations and save the remaining hostages.
He's blowing up the government. It's important to understand that for the hostage families in Israel, and I know many of them personally, and you know I'm talking here about friends of mine and their families, they see President Trump and Stephen Wickock as their last source of hope, literally literally the light at the end of the tunnel, because we know some of these hostages are being held in
inhumane conditions in tunnels underground, being starved, being tortured. And then comes President Trump and Stepping Whitkof and they put together this deal that says, within three phases, all the hostages are released, the war ends, Israel withdraws from Gaza.
And this is over.
And instead of saying, well, okay, this is the way to do it, now, we're seeing politicians from within our government pressuring Natanielle to say no, and not only that, to try to convince Trump himself to disregard the deal that he was so proud of just two weeks ago when he entered office.
So, Amir, this is my big question then is if does Trump have the political ability Steve Wikoff and others so well, by the way, I'm not sure if you're aware, I'm under major attack in our country.
Also, people who are aligned with the.
With the is really far right, Well, do they have the ability to force any of that, because, as you said, if the government falls, there's no guarantee what comes next. What does that scenario look like or is there some thread the needle scenario where Trump does force Nataiaou to take this deal, continue the Steve wid Cooff and other negotiations that does not lead to the falling of the government, or is that just simply inevitable.
So I think President Trump is surrounded by a lot of people who are blind admirers of Nataniel and are perhaps not giving the president the best advice possible. For example, Netaniao and his right hand man Ron Dermer will probably tell President Trump that can't follow through with the feasefire because the government will fall apart, and that this is bad for Trump because it will cause a stalemate in
the Middle East. But if you actually check very simple press statements being made out in the open in Israel, you will see that the leaders of the important opposition parties today today, not a month ago, came out and said that if Natanieu loses his majority because of the hostage deal, because of the ceasefire, they will give him temporary support for at least several months so that he doesn't lose power and the hostage and ceasefire deal collapses. Wow,
which means that any other claim is a lie. Now, Nataniel prefers the far right coalition that is against the hostage deal because that gives him the potential to hold power for another two years. That's why he prefers it. But from President Trump's point of view, he should know that if Nataniel comes and said I can't do this still for political reasons, that's not true. He will get a few months of support from the opposition to complete
the hostage release and cease fire deal. Because for the vast majority of Israelis, the release of the hostages is today the number one priority. This is something that unites a huge percentage of the population. We want to see them come back home and end this night. Now, I don't know if there will be enough people around President Trump who are strong enough and knowledgeable enough about our internal politics to present the facts to him in a way that overcomes the spin and the excuses that he
will hear from Nataniel. But I'm confident that if President Trump insists on this, we will see the deal come through. There will be ceasefire, the hostages will return, and Nathaniel will find a way to manage it politically with the opposition parties here in Israel.
He seems to always find a way to survive, if one way or another. I mean, thank you so much for your analysis today.
Thank you Mary, very helpful.
Thanks for having me, It's our pleasure.
Thank you guys so much for watching. Well, a great jow for everybody tomorrow and we'll see you all then.
But speak, speak to