Gaza crisis puts Trump at a crossroads

0:00Self-directed investing, trading, full-service wealth management, automated investing, financial planning, thematic investing, retirement planning. And to think, that's just a small taste of what Schwab offers. Because Schwab knows that when it comes to your finances, choice matters. No matter your goals, investing style, life stage, or experience, Schwab has everything you need all in one place. So you can invest your way. Visit schwab.com to learn more. Images of starving children in Gaza have dominated the news this week, and it's changing the way that world leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump, are approaching the war.

0:39Some of those kids are, that's real starvation stuff, I see it. And you can't fake that. These aren't the kind of comments you'd expect from an ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which could mean that this is the start of a larger shift.

1:00This is Swamp Notes, the weekly podcast from the Financial Times, where we talk about all of the things happening in U.S. politics, finance, and the economy. I'm Lauren Fedor, and this week we're asking, is Donald Trump losing patience with the Israeli prime minister? With me to discuss is Abigail Hausluner, the FT's U.S. Middle East affairs correspondent. Hi, Abby. Hi. Hi. We've also got Edward Luce, the FT's U.S. national editor. Hi, Ed.

1:28Edward Luce: Hello, Lauren. All right, let's start with some background here. Abby, can you tell us a little bit about how the humanitarian conditions in Gaza got quite so dire? Well, Israel controls all of Gaza's borders, obviously. And so the Israeli government ultimately controls everything, including food and water and medical supplies that go into Gaza and everything that comes out. And in the past, you know, in the recent months, we've seen a real tightening of that. There were several weeks that went by in which no food was allowed in. And we are now hearing from humanitarian organizations and foreign leaders around the world that the population in Gaza is facing really unprecedented levels of hunger, starvation, and we're seeing fatalities from starvation.

2:22spread, especially among children and the sick. And has the Israeli government responded to that? So as we've seen this kind of international condemnation mounting, Israel has stuck to this line, which is that everything we see in Gaza, all of the tragedy, all of the violence, all of the hunger, this is all because of Hamas, that Hamas has the ability to put an end to this suffering immediately. All it has to do is accept the terms for a ceasefire. Now, we're hearing now a growing chorus, obviously, of world leaders and all the major UN organizations and humanitarian organizations saying, essentially, you can't starve a population in order to force a political or militant group into accepting a ceasefire.

3:15Ed, I want to bring you in here. And Abby alluded a bit to the fact that there now is a growing chorus of Western leaders raising alarm bells about this. And I think we saw some of that actually in the UK earlier in the week, right? When Keir Starmer sat down with President Trump, he made it quite clear that the humanitarian conditions in Gaza were top of his agenda. The intolerable situation, including images of starvation. I think both of us know that we have to get to that ceasefire and we have to increase humanitarian aid in. And thank you for what you've already been doing, are doing and committed to.

3:56I'm wondering what you made of that meeting and that dynamic and the pressure, perhaps, that President Trump is facing to take a position on this here from his colleagues or counterparts, rather, in Europe.

4:09Edward Luce: Well, his five days golfing in Scotland appeared to have been, you know, a mini road to Damascus moment for Trump, because last weekend he was complaining that the Ghazans were not thanking him for$60 million or so food aid that Trump had approved. and said nobody takes the time to say thank you. It's kind of borderline to many people's ears. I think most borderline obscene sort of expectation that people who are close to starvation wouldn't know where this trickle of food is coming from if they get any of it, to the extent they would thank the American president. But it is striking that after meeting Keir Starmer and then the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, And that's when he seemed to really change his view.

4:58Edward Luce: And I guess he must have seen some TV clips or been shown some pictures of starving, starving kids in Gaza. And he does famously respond to visuals. We have to help on a humanitarian basis before we do anything. We have to get the kids fed. I mean, I completely agree that he is someone who responds to television, doesn't he? And images. And he talked at length about that. At one point he was talking about how he had discussed it with the first lady, which was kind of notable, too. What about this question, though, of recognizing Palestinian statehood? You know, we had the day after I think they met in Turnberry, Keir Starmer was talking about the U.K.

5:37position on this. I can confirm the U.K. will recognize the state of Palestine by the United Nations General Assembly in September unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza. A couple of days before that, we had the French. Then a bit later in the week, the Canadians. What's the goal of what these allies are trying to do here? And do you think that that puts any pressure on Trump whatsoever? I think they're hoping that this translates into some sort of pressure on the Americans to change their tone a bit with the Israelis. I think a lot of people recognize that the United States as the sort of biggest benefactor by far of Israel is really the has the most leverage, a really unique level of leverage compared to any other country in the world to try to influence Israel's behavior.

6:36And the way Sir Keir Starmer described it, the way we heard Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney describe it yesterday, was that they are essentially watching this crisis unfold in Gaza. They're watching Israeli settlement advancement really accelerate in the West Bank and settler violence against Palestinians. And as I think Carney phrased it yesterday, you know, they're seeing this the prospect of a two state solution, which has long been sort of the goal, the standard goal, you know, accepted by probably most countries. They're seeing that slip away before I think he said before my our very eyes.

7:17And so they see this decision to recognize Palestinian statehood as a sort of a necessary measure to say we are going to amp up the pressure however we can on Israel and on the United States. So, Ed, I actually would love to hear your thoughts then, I guess, in two parts. One, whether or not you think that this pressure will lead to anything when it comes to President Trump. You know, is the pressure actually working on him? And then part two would be on the Israeli government, whether you think that there'll be any kind of change from that end.

7:56Edward Luce: uh it's difficult to tell with trump because you know the last one of those canada mark carney's decision to recognize a palestinian state um caused trump to say that they're less likely now to strike a trade deal with canada so he his response was to punish rather than to feel pressured i think what's driving a lot of this in france and particularly in britain with kia Starmer's more conditional promise to recognize Palestine in September at the UN is public opinion. Public opinion across the West, including in the United States, and particularly amongst younger people, people who've never seen Israel as the David.

8:41Edward Luce: They've always seen Israel as the Goliath. There really is a very marked, and pretty much across the board, Western catching up with the rest of the world's opinion, with the Global South's opinion on this, which has been pretty clear cut for most of the last two years. Whether this has an effect on Trump is really an open question. He's unpredictable. Israel, though, is heading quite rapidly into pariah status, But, you know, nobody would bet on against Netanyahu's ability to wriggle out of a hole. You know, that's really been the story of his Houdini-esque career. I wonder if we can talk about how all of this is playing domestically here in the U.S.

9:31Abby, are Democrats and Republicans shifting their stances on the conflict? So Democrats have obviously been more critical for the past couple of years, but you're seeing more louder voices, more frustration on that side of the aisle with the White House's Israel policy. And then Trump is starting to is aware and is starting to, I think, notice these pockets of his own party. And specifically, I think, you know, we're seeing it from some people in Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Thomas Massey, a Republican from Kentucky, backed Greene's attempt to try to block U.S. funding for Israel. And then we have domestic polls, which are also showing that younger Republicans specifically are not too thrilled with Netanyahu.

10:23You know, I wrote this week about this question of are there red lines in the Trump-Netanyahu relationship? And something, one person I spoke to who's close to the administration told me that Trump recently told a prominent Jewish donor, my people are starting to hate Israel. And I was really kind of taken by that. But it showed that he's this is something he's thinking about. And my source got the sense that this is something that a number of people in the White House are aware of and are somewhat alarmed by. So that gets at the kind of question that we laid out at the top, though, right, which is, is this moment different?

11:01Are we at a tipping point? Is something changing in the way that Donald Trump is approaching Israel? But then also the relationship, this key relationship between him and Netanyahu. So, Ed, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

11:13Edward Luce: Yeah, I mean, it's a complex question, what's happening in MAGA. I mean, you do get the sort of, I mean, America first MAGA sensibility, which is simply the argument that we shouldn't be supporting Ukraine or Israel or whatever. We should just be withdrawing and not wasting taxpayers' money. But there are, you know, far, far further right, sort of anti-Semitic strains in there that really detest Israel and believe that, you know, American foreign policy is run by Jews. And then there's Trump, of course, who is unpredictable. He can sort of read the proverbial mob. He can sort of see where the beating heart of the Coliseum lies.

11:53Edward Luce: But in this case, there are contradictory signals because he has a lot of strong militantly pro-Israel backers. So making a prediction out of what Trump will do with this is a hazardous business, because he can be reading different runes. One of the contradictions that we saw from President Trump came just this morning. So I should I should make clear that we're recording this on Thursday. At the moment, I think at present, Steve Witkoff, the special envoy, is in Israel trying to once again broker a deal to to end the war. But Trump then this morning took to Truth Social and said the fastest way to end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is for Hamas to surrender and release the hostages.

12:37And yet earlier in the week, he was suggesting that maybe negotiating with Hamas is a dead end and there's no possibility of that anymore. So I guess the other crystal ball question, which I know isn't an easy one that I would pose to you guys, is where do you think this is all heading?

12:53Edward Luce: So I think if we're talking about what ultimately drives politics, the tide of public opinion across the West is moving very, very steadily, but I think very decisively in one direction, and that is to condemn Israel. You have people who didn't previously talk about war crimes in terms of deliberately withholding food to essentially starvation of populations, deliberate targeting of civilians. Roughly a thousand Palestinians have died trying to get to one of these few food distribution points. There's only four. There used to be 400. People know this. People who don't ordinarily pay huge amounts of attention to foreign policy.

13:38Edward Luce: they know details like this. They see the images of people rushing in a sort of Hunger Games scenarios for limited amounts of food that has gone in 10 minutes. And then they see the gunshots. They see people getting shot and killed. And that sort of juxtaposed with the images of starving children in a strip, you know, where famine could be solved overnight. This isn't South Sudan, where there are huge logistical problems of getting food aid in and reconciling with all the various militias. This is logistically completely soluble within a couple of days. It's a political problem and people know it's a man-made famine situation.

14:19Edward Luce: I cannot see without Netanyahu ending this war, I cannot see how this goes well for Israel. And that must surely at some point cost Netanyahu at home. Whether it costs him his job is the bigger question. Trump wants to have deals that he can claim credit for. He sees, I think, this region as sort of the ultimate, you know, ambitious deal-making environment, because obviously the previous administration, you know, failed on this front. but he's also, we've seen these flare-ups of impatience. The Truth Social post that he put out this morning, you know, I read that as sort of a signal to Israel that he's still very much sticking by Netanyahu's side.

15:08That is the Israeli line. If you want to end this crisis today, release the hostages. Now, behind the scenes, I think it could be quite different, but publicly, we are still lockstep with Netanyahu. This is Hamas's fault. All right, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we're going to do exit poll.

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16:03We're back with Exit Poll, where we ask an FT journalist a question submitted by you, our listeners. Ed, you're going to help us answer this week's question from Dennis in Texas. Here's what he wrote in. Successful Democratic candidates for the U.S. presidency have often been surprising, charismatic figures emerging from the lower ranks of the party. Are there any telling commonalities in where these successful figures have come from? And I guess I would just add to Dennis's question, Ed, do you see any charismatic figures in the party right now who may pick up that torch?

16:39Edward Luce: Yeah, let me answer the first bit first, because it's easier. I mean, there is no pattern. If you think of Jimmy Carter coming from nowhere, he was a one term Georgia governor, New South Democrat. that not well known, but came from nowhere and invented the Iowa caucus model basically by camping there for months. Bill Clinton, of course, infamously, but rather hysterically in the 1988 Democratic Convention, then as governor of Arkansas, gave one of the longest speeches ever from the podium. And the only applause he got was when he said, in conclusion, And Barack Obama is the third sort of modern example he had at the Democratic convention before his election.

17:23Edward Luce: And that was 2004. He was given a prime time speaking slot as a coming star. And really from that moment onwards, it was a question of when this charismatic figure, not whether, would run for the presidency. And I can't really see a pattern between those three, to be honest, except that two of them were not predicted. and the third was heavily predicted. So even that isn't a pattern. Dennis, I hope that answers your question. Ed Luce is our U.S. national editor and co-author of the Swamp Notes newsletter. His book, Zbigniew Brzezinski, America's Cold War Prophet, is out now. Thanks, Ed. Thanks a lot, Lauren.

18:04And Abigail Hauslohner is the FT's U.S. Mid-East foreign affairs correspondent. Thanks for joining us, Abby. Thanks for having me. If you have a question about U.S. politics and the economy, shoot us an email. Make sure to include who you are and where you're writing from, and we'll get you some answers next week.

18:27This was Swamp Notes, the U.S. politics show from the FT. If you want to sign up for the Swamp Notes newsletter, we've got a link to that in the show notes. Our show is mixed by Sam Giovinco and produced by Henry Larson. We had help this week from Mark Filippino. Special thanks to Pierre Nicholson. I'm Lauren Fedor. Our acting co-head of audio is Topher Forges. Original music by Hannes Brown. Check back next week for more U.S. political analysis from the Financial Times.

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