117. Can Trump End the War in Gaza?

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1:25Welcome to The Rest is Politics US. I'm Katty Kay. And I'm Anthony Scaramucci. How are you, Katty? You're in Greece today, yes? I am. I was at a very nice literary festival, actually, with Rory Stewart. So that was nice. We had time to hang out with Rory and his wife and trying to reassure the good people who had attended this festival in Cardamili that the world is not about to end. I see Rory as the Eddie Redmayne of Goalhanger. Of course, an Eddie Redmayne with a 200 IQ. Oh, that's interesting. He was looking very sharp, standing against the Mediterranean Sea as the sun set. He had this kind of very elegant jacket on.

2:03I was dressed in jeans and a black sweater because I went thinking it was going to be nice and summery. And of course, it was freezing. So I had to put on every layer that I had. We had a lot of talks about, there was an extremely good talk from a journalist called Michael Sheridan, who's written a very good book that you would enjoy about Xi Jinping and told some very interesting stories about Xi's biography and what Xi wants and what Xi wants from the Americans at the moment. So that was fun. We'll get him on the program one day. That would be good. Sounds good to me. What do you want to talk about this morning?

2:30We are going to talk about Gaza and whether this peace plan has legs and what the process is. And I think I'm interested in how Donald Trump managed to use some leverage over Bibi Netanyahu and whether he can sustain that leverage and what you think about that. And then in the second half of the program, we are going to talk about ICE, which is something that you texted me this morning and said you wanted to talk about, Anthony. Obviously, a lot happening in Portland, but particularly in Chicago, and a lot of pushback from those governors and indeed from the courts and from Trump-appointed judges against what the president is trying to do in terms of sort of sending the military into those cities.

3:11So I think that's quite interesting, too. We didn't get a chance, Anthony, last week to talk about Gaza. So just quickly to remind people, Donald Trump has managed to get Bibi Netanyahu to agree to a 20 point plan for peace. It actually looks similar to the plans that Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken were roaring up under the Biden administration. But President Biden never managed to use leverage, couldn't or wouldn't use leverage against Bibi Netanyahu and forced him to get him to accept this peace plan. Bibi Netanyahu now has. The plan is partly short term, the release of the hostages, the stopping of the fighting, Israel beginning a phased withdrawal of its forces.

3:51And then there is also a longer term peace sort of proposal for the Strip more long term, which includes other nations, their presence in it, the financing of the rebuilding of the Gaza Strip, who keeps the security, who has control of the Gaza Strip long term. There seems to be a disagreement about that between the Israelis and the Americans over whether the Palestinians and the Palestinian authorities have some kind of control. But the Americans are making it clear that Hamas will not have control over Gaza afterwards. And some of the national security types that I have spoken to in the last couple of days, Anthony, have said the most smart way to think about this plan, and I don't know what you think about this, is from a sort of negotiating point of view, to separate the short term from the longer term issues.

4:33Let's, as Donald Trump has said very much in the language of Joe Biden to Bibi Netanyahu, take the win here. This is not an optional plan. You've got to take this. But the idea is, you know, you get the hostages out. That's the first thing. You get Hamas to agree to release all of the hostages. And then you get the fighting has to stop as well. The bombardments have to stop as well. And then we have the beginning of the phased withdrawal and what happens afterwards. But what do you make of this plan, Anthony? Do you think it has legs? And how do you think Donald Trump came about it? There's a lot of positives in the plan.

5:10So I want to be fair to the administration. And like you said, it's sort of an extension or an adaptation of the Biden Blinken plan. But the little bit of a ruse going on from Hamas because they're conditional yeses. And they're really only accepting parts of the plan that they like. And the other parts of the plan that they don't like, they're either ignoring or they're going to push back on. And some of those have to do with who's going to control the Gaza Strip or parts of the Gaza Strip on a going forward basis. Clearly, they want it to be them. And obviously, President Trump doesn't want it to be them.

5:48And this is what Putin did with Ukraine. You give him a proposal, the stuff he likes, he'll take. And the stuff he doesn't like, he leaves. And then he sends more drones into the cities to kill civilians. So I'm optimistic here for two reasons. When you talk to secular Arabs in the Gulf states, they want the war to end. And they're putting extreme amount of pressure now on whatever is left of the leadership of Hamas to end this war. So I do think you're going to get a conclusion. I don't know if you can get it by year end, but I do think you're now going to get a conclusion. And again, like or dislike Donald Trump, as you and I have tried to be as objective as possible on this program, his flexing on Netanyahu may work, but it may not work.

6:40Yes, because Netanyahu is the type of guy that I would never underestimate and I would never underestimate the relationships that he has in our Congress. I would never underestimate the lobbying community that's behind Prime Minister Netanyahu. And so, yes, Trump is a different beast than Joe Biden. He's less placid. He's more willing to flex on people. But don't underestimate Netanyahu. And so, I hate to say this as a Wall Street person, Caddy, sometimes it's about the money. And you take a look at that strip of land and you take a look at the opportunity there that a lot of people are seeing to renovate that land, to rebuild that land.

7:28and to create an economic oasis on that land, it doesn't include Hamas. And I don't think Hamas has done themselves any service in keeping themselves in good stead with their secular Arab friends who aren't terrorists, but also want to recognize some rights for Palestinians. So, again, I don't think it's going to happen quickly. But I think if it does happen, the Israelis, the Americans, the interests of the West are going to have way more control over this. This is not Cuba. They're not giving this up. It's too close to Israel and it's too big of a national security crisis for them. So I think a couple of things have happened that have changed the dynamic.

8:17One is, as Donald Trump actually, interestingly, in an interview with Axios, has just said, Israel has lost a lot of support. He says he's going to get it back with this deal, but it's interesting to hear Donald Trump vocalize that loss of support. the Israelis made a mistake bombing Doha they lost a lot of Gulf Arab support the Gulf Arabs started to get concerned that this could be a conflict that spreads and spirals out of the control it only takes one mistake often to start a conflict and that really meant that they were going to put pressure as well on the Israelis to come to some kind of deal and the Gulf Arab states are close with Jared Kushner who's been part of these negotiations and close with the Trump family.

9:03So there was a moment there for Donald Trump to put, because of the Israeli mistake, to put more leverage on Benjamin Netanyahu. And you had that extraordinary photograph that we spoke about the other day of Netanyahu calling the emir of Qatar and apologizing. And Donald Trump is holding the telephone in his lap in front of the fireplace in the Oval Office. It's worth a look, guys. Take a look at the photograph if you want to kind of understand the dynamics here. And Benjamin Netanyahu is reading a piece of paper that it looks like Benjamin Netanyahu at that moment is Donald Trump's puppet. Trump has said to Netanyahu, here's what you're going to say.

9:39I'm going to hold the telephone and you're going to make this public apology. And we are going to tell the world that you have made this public apology. And that puts Netanyahu in an unusual position. So there was an amount of leverage that the White House could use. I think the other thing we should talk about, though, in terms of leverage, and you mentioned how Netanyahu still has a lot of support. I think that is more true when Donald Trump is not the president. When it was Barack Obama, he could go over the head of Barack Obama to Republican senators, and he did do exactly that. When it was Joe Biden, he could peel the Republican Senate away from Joe Biden in order to get congressional support for Israel.

10:20But right now, Donald Trump's the president and the Republican Party is in lockstep with the president. And a fascinating poll has just come out in the Washington Post showing that 61 % of American Jews believe that the Israeli government has committed war crimes. 40 % of American Jews believe that the Israeli government is guilty of genocide. Those two numbers are stunning. I did not expect to see those two numbers. And those numbers in turn put pressure on senators and members of Congress in the Republican Party and give them some distance from Benjamin Netanyahu. So I think there's a kind of a shift.

11:00We've spoken about this before, the shift that is taking place amongst the American population. And now that has filtered upwards, if you like, into the Oval Office. And because of confluence events has given Donald Trump the opportunity to put the kind of pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu that Joe Biden perhaps didn't feel able to put. I don't know if he can continue that pressure. I don't know while this deal is being negotiated, the finer points of it, the longer term points of it, if he can continue that pressure and that leverage. But he certainly had a kind of sea chain. This is a change, of course.

11:33And if he pulls this off, there will be people in the world saying that guy should get the Nobel Peace Prize. And listen, it would be well-deserved. So I'm not saying that he shouldn't get the Nobel Peace Prize. I don't think, by the way, he will ever get the Nobel Peace Prize. No, I don't think he will, because I don't think the Scandinavians are going to offer it. There's no circumstances. I mean, this guy could wave a magic wand and every conflict around the world would end. He's still not getting the Nobel Peace Prize. So, you know, and by the way, if he got the Nobel Peace Prize, they would stop the escalator on the way up to the speech to prevent them from actually giving the escalator.

12:06Conspiracy theorist. I want to say something to you that has me, not concerned, but just has me a little off center with this whole issue. And that basically is who is still supporting Hamas? Who is still supporting them? Because when I talk to people like Jared, I have a lot of friends in the Middle East and not only in the financial community, but in the political community, people, they've exhausted a lot of patience in terms of the way that they've handled themselves. Remember, Netanyahu has said repeatedly, give me the hostages back, the fighting will stop. And they're holding onto the hostages for what?

12:49Their political survival? Do they think they're going to be running Gaza after this is over? Well, they have no other leverage, right? I mean, why, in a sense, the big question of all of this is why would they give the hostages up? I understand that, but you know this and I know this about the world. The world is unfair, Gaddy. And the world is, it can be punitive in certain ways. And whatever you think of the Palestinian rights, whatever you think of Hamas's political standing, I think the winds are against them right now. And by the way, what you said about the votes among American Jews, I don't think it's anti-Semitic to contend the behavior of a sovereign government.

13:29You can still be a pro-Semite, a philo-Semite, but also offer some criticism of a government. I don't think it's a binary thing. That is a philosophical point that has needed clarifying in the United States, which is why these numbers are striking. I mean, 60 % of American Jews think they're not saying that Israel writ large or that Jews writ large have committed this. They're making your point, It is the Israeli government they are critical of. Lastly, not a lot of Palestinian representation in the plan. We have to remember that. I was with Jared Kushner in Bahrain back in 2018. He put an economic proposal together for Palestinians.

14:16There were no Palestinians in the audience and nothing ever got done because there was no Palestinians there. And the plan also wants reconstruction without sovereignty, and there's no real path in the plan for a two-state solution, despite UK government, French government, Canadian government, others wanting to recognize Palestine as a state. I think that there are still several questions about this plan. I mean, are you really going to see Gulf Arab states potentially take up arms against Palestinians who might still be in Gaza Strip, who may not be demeaned to be members of Hamas now, but could be deemed to be Hamas or anti-Israeli or become terrorists in five years time?

15:05I mean, it's a very, they've created unbelievable amounts of ill will towards the Israelis. You now have a generation and a generation more of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip who will do everything they can to destroy the state of Israel. They have created enemies galore of the people who are left. If your mother has been killed, your brother has been killed, your daughter has been killed, your sister has been killed, you're not going to rest until you demand revenge, as we saw in Lebanon, right, for years. So the idea, I think, that you could have a shiny Gaza strip that is a lovely economic miracle, whilst Gazans are still living there, harbouring the pain and the hurt and the hatred of Israel that has been fostered in that strip, especially over the course of the last three years, I think that's a bit of a pipe dream.

15:56So the security and the governance of this. That's why I say maybe there's a move. You separate the short-term points, which are perhaps easier to achieve. And even that, we don't know because we don't know if the Hamas is going to greet it from the longer-term points. Sometimes when we go after our enemies, Katika, we make things worse for ourselves. And during the attack on the World Trade Center 24 years ago, Americans wanted vengeance. The politicians wanted vengeance. But they played right into bin Laden's hands because he said, you're going to come after me. you'll probably get me eventually but we're going to blow out your treasury and you're going to spill your treasure and you're going to take your civil liberties away from yourselves and they did that through the patriot act so so sometimes what did joe biden say to bb netanyahu after the attacks october the 7th don't do what we did yeah don't act in anger and do what we did that's exactly right i think that's the lesson that we're never learning because of the impulses and when you have Have a military.

16:58Guess what happens when you have a military caddy? Use the military. That's what happens. Talking of using the military, we're going to take a quick break and come back and talk about ICE and using the military in American cities.

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19:03Welcome back to The Rest is Politics U.S. I'm Anthony Scaramucci. I am Katty Kay. Katty, we're going to talk about ICE. We're going to talk about the American military, the National Guard, and what I see as a potential threat to the democracy because I think Donald Trump is now testing us and he's testing the court system. And so for people that are not well informed about this, let me just go over it a little bit. He's authorizing 300 troops to protect federal officers and assets in Chicago. He wants to send the National Guard up to Portland. He was actually blocked by a judge that he appointed.

19:39Cady said, no, he can't do that. It's not in the Constitution to do that. There's certain requirements to do that. It doesn't meet the test of an insurrection, etc. Katie, what I don't like about this, and I'd like to have you react to it, is the videos coming out. The videos are absolutely terrifying to people. And they're pulling people out of cars. They're smashing windows. They're zip-tying people's hands. And they're doing it without warrants. They're doing it without search and seizure permits, if you will. And the U.S. does have a constitution. You have a right to privacy in the Fourth Amendment.

20:16You have a search and seizure, you need a judge to sign off on that. That's the Fifth Amendment. Katya, are you worried about this? Because I'm worried about this. I think this is a test of the system by Stephen Miller and Donald Trump. We know from the first administration that Donald Trump was furious that he wasn't able to use American troops against the Black Lives Matter protesters. And he kept asking his generals, why can't I just shoot the protesters? and the general said, no, you can't do that. He wanted to invoke the Insurrection Act, which is a very broad act saying that there is an interaction against the government, which would allow him to use the military against the American people.

20:55And he didn't manage to do it. And ever since then, he has said this, Antonia. He said quite openly that he regretted that, that he didn't manage to put those protests down quicker. And this time around, you now have Governor Pritzker of Illinois, which I thought was interesting, going on the Sunday shows saying exactly what you just said. He said, the White House is trying to create a war zone so that the American public gets riled up and fights back. And that then gives the president the opportunity to send in federal troops and start shooting at the American population. And when I've spoken to conservatives in the past around before the election of Donald Trump, and I've asked them, you know, people who don't love Donald Trump, but who are very much on the conservative side.

21:39And they said, what are you worried about? And this is the scenario that they've painted. And the story I thought that Governor Pritzker told of what happened in Chicago over the weekend, where ICE went into a building to get a few gang members who were in the country illegally. But in the process, they're throwing elderly people into vans, into U-Haul vans. They are putting zip ties on children who hardly had any clothes on because they'd been pulled out of their beds at night. And they're keeping these people, some of whom are American citizens. And these are the kinds of things. And I think the alarm bell that Governor Pritzker was trying to ring this weekend was exactly the scenario you described.

22:22So how then, what do the courts do about ICE? Because ICE seems to have a huge amount of power. The courts have ruled against the White House in the case of Portland. No, there isn't an insurrection. No, there is no riot. This is a Trump-appointed judge has ruled against the White House saying, hold on a second, guys, there is no justification for sending national troops or the National Guard into Portland because there isn't a war going on. There's no big crisis going on. There isn't an insurrection happening. There are no big riots happening in Portland. But what happens with ICE? What's the jurisdiction process against ICE, around ICE?

22:56How does ICE get controlled in a circumstance like this? I don't know what the law is. Do you? Well, I mean, the law is fake. That's the problem. OK, so if you ask some of you ask constitutional scholars, they'll say, well, he's over the spirit of the law. He's doing things that no other president has done. Is he inside the letter of the law? And, you know, the ICE guys are saying that they have these rights and they have the warrants, et cetera, and they're more blanketed macro warrants. Now, the Supreme Court did make a ruling recently that gave ICE in exigent circumstances, in emergency circumstances, to have some flexibility about who they're able to detain and eventually deport.

23:43But it's unnecessary, Caddy. And what it's doing is it's invoking fear in the society. And again, it's slowing down the economy. Okay, because if you can't leave your house because you feel like you're going to get deported. And I have U.S. citizens, U.S. citizens, okay? 73-year-old woman, U.S. citizen. She's originally from Colombia. She won't leave the house with her grandson. Why are you not leaving the house? Well, these people are crazy. If they end up grabbing me, they could take me away from my kid. and you know they've detained U.S. citizens that are brown and black. Ultimately, they released them, but they've split up people.

24:25They've split up kids from their parents. And so this is an absolutely appalling thing that's going on. It's a disgusting thing. And I think you know Chef Jose Andres. I think you know who he is. I mean, you lost the guy. he's taking he's taking the videos and he's putting it up on his twitter feed to show the 1.1 million followers that he has what the hell is going on and this is really bad for america this is how you lose people around the world and this is how you start to lose your own citizens where your citizens are saying to themselves is this the country now because you've used the word chilling it has a quote unquote chilling effect.

25:09Am I now going to be chilled to my First Amendment rights? Am I now going to be chilled to what I do? You have people that are in immigration courts right now. They're trying to get their citizenship or their green card and they won't go to an airport anymore. Well, how are you going to get home? I'm taking a Greyhound bus. Well, why are you taking a Greyhound bus? Because if I go to the airport, I could be on a list and I'll get detained at the airport by ice and I'll be shipped out of the country and I'll lose my job. Even though they are in the country legally, going through the process legally.

25:42Yes. Or remember, they're in the country seeking asylum. They're seeking political asylum. Which means they're here legally. Exactly. Which gives them rights. But the Trump administration is, no, we're going to get rid of everybody. And this is the thing I worry about, Katie. I want you to react to this because I always ask you to play political strategist. So I come into the room, I'm a Democrat opposed to this. And I say to you, Caddy, it doesn't pull well for us. Well, what do you mean, Anthony? Well, you know, it looks like over 50 % of the Americans want the deportation. So how would you handle this?

26:20If you thought that this was causing a constitutional crisis, it's giving Trump some martial law flex, if you will, as a democratic strategist, how do you handle this? Because if you go out on the airwaves and you start denouncing it, It turns out the Americans are actually weirdly forward. It makes me sad to think that way. But how would you handle it, Caddy? Yes, I know this is not what you thought would happen when they started rounding up people who had not committed crimes. Yeah, because Trump said he was only going after the criminals. After the bad guys. And he's not doing that anymore.