Israel and Hamas have signed phase 1 of President Trump’s peace deal, paving the path for the release of all remaining hostages, hopefully in a few days. Glenn and Stu explain the significance of this historic deal and what it could mean moving forward.
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: Oh. Your initial thoughts here on the peace deal?
STU: It's an incredible opportunity. I think it is important to remind ourselves, that this -- these things typically do fall apart. That is essentially your expectation, any time anything like this happens. Part of this is going to be Hamas coming through on promises.
I have very little belief that they are typically able to do such things.
That being said. They probably also -- you know, one of the things -- a friend of mine pointed this out to me. We were going through all of this.
And he said, you know, one thing to think about it: This is, like, not the B team of Hamas. But the R team of Hamas. They've killed so many of the leadership.
GLENN: Yeah, yeah.
STU: These are people making decisions that were not at the top of this organization and had those ridiculous ideological beliefs that would lead you to October 7th. That's not to mean that Hamas, these people that are left are like, "Hey, you want to invite them over for Thanksgiving."
But I do think there's a possibility here that they're like, you know, maybe this life is not here for us.
GLENN: That would be nice if that were true. I don't know if that were true. But it would be really thyself.
STU: I don't know if that's true. I do think there may be a little bit lower ideological commitment, potentially. And also, the idea that some of these people might be able to make this deal and escape to another third country.
GLENN: Yeah.
STU: And live life there, in a different way.
GLENN: So the breaking news that just was announced, Israel, their parliament or their cabinet just met or approved phase one of the deal.
And Hamas has just come out and said, they accept phase one of the deal.
That means the hostages will be released either this weekend or Monday.
Any remaining hostage will be released.
STU: I mean, just that.
GLENN: Just that.
STU: If that occurs, it is a massive achievement.
GLENN: Yes.
STU: So far, it is already the greatest opportunity we've had.
And only possible because of his detection to this idea!
GLENN: And his deal-making.
Not just his vision.
But his ability to work all of the parties and find out what all the parties need.
And make it happen.
You know, we're not talking about peace between Gaza, you know, Hamas, and Israel.
We're talking about peace in the Middle East.
STU: Yeah. It's bigger. It's bigger than just Israel.
GLENN: I mean, it's Egypt and Saudi Arabia and -- and Jordan to some extent. And -- and Turkey. All of them getting together and saying, you know what! We'll rebuild Gaza. We want to make it into a very prosperous kind of area. I mean, think of places in Saudi Arabia that are so prosperous. That's the way Gaza could be. So they're all getting together and they're saying, "We will rebuild. We'll oversee. We will try to make everything -- you know, keep everything held."
They will put their money into it, which means they have a lot to lose if it goes awry. And they're all saying, "We can co-exist with Israel."
Three years ago, did you even think that was possible?
STU: Yeah. And, you know, look, there are a lot of places you can go and find non-stop criticism of Donald Trump. They will say terrible things he does, and everything he does is the worst thing ever.
GLENN: Yeah.
STU: Also, there are plenty of places you can go where you find that everything that he does is the greatest thing of all time.
I hope you realize that's not what we do here. And I -- on a -- I said this -- and you said this as well when we -- when this was unveiled.
Sometimes, you can get -- people are critical of the way Trump handles these situations.
Sometimes. And sometimes there's arguments on that.
Sometimes it's not the best approach.
You know, we were critical of him, for example, how he handled Canada. You know, probably cost Poilievre that election. And I think that's a really bad thing.
GLENN: I do on top.
STU: That being said, this is a great example of where his instincts work perfectly. This is all set up over a long period of foundational stuff from his first term. With the decision he made, to come out and just announce the agreement with Netanyahu. We agreed. We agreed to this peace deal.
Now, in theory, we have no position to agree between these two parties. But he came out and all of the focus had been, look at all the bad things Israel is doing. Look at how bad, they're so evil. They're so bad.
And he said, we agree with Israel. Now we just need Hamas.
And so the world's attention was like, what's Hamas going to say?
Finally, he was able to focus his attention to the appropriate place. To the party that is holding the hostages, to say, hey. How about asking if they want to a freaking cease-fire for once?
He was able to do that. In a way that I think only Donald Trump could achieve. Which leads to this, over a long foundation.
GLENN: And here's another thing.
You know, this guy has walked through wall after wall after wall of fire. Everybody calling him everything. Nazi, every day.
Here's a guy who, you know, in a time period where the whole world is like, the Jews control everything. Donald Trump is run by the Jews.
He not only kept his relationship with Israel solid and helped them, when he thought they were right. But when they were wrong, in his view, he chastised them.
He knew how to do it. And still hold their respect.
And gained the respect of places like Qatar. And say, so Qatar. When he chastised Benjamin Netanyahu and Benjamin Netanyahu had to I think apologize to some degree about what they did in Qatar.
That's when the Middle East went, wait a minute.
He's not being controlled by the Jews! You know what I mean?
That should be a really big wake-up call to everybody who thinks that Donald Trump is just being controlled by the Jews.
No. No. No. He's not.
He does what he thinks is right. And he'll chastise both sides.
And he will support either side. When they're right, to get to a deal. That's good for everybody.
This deal could be amazing.
I don't have any -- and it's not because of this deal.
I happen to -- I read the end of the book. So I know how this ends.
This will not -- you know, this is not --
STU: You skipped ahead?
GLENN: I skipped ahead. I skipped ahead.
STU: Don't ruin anything.
Don't -- no spoiler alerts.
GLENN: I won't. No spoiler alerts.
Let's just say, this might last for a week. It might last for a thousand years. I don't know.
But we will be in this situation again. We all know that. We all know that. But let's take and celebrate peace while we can.
And the hostage is coming back. That is massive. Massive.
And due to Donald Trump.
Today, if you don't like Donald Trump, fine. Fine.
But how do you take this one apart?
Honestly, how do you not claim this is a massive victory, for the whole world?
STU: Well, I can tell you, that a lot of people on the left are rooting for it to collapse, which is a shockingly revealing moment. I mean --
GLENN: Wait. What?
STU: They are -- you know, they're not going to be out there like, we hope this collapse is.
But you know they hope it collapses.
They don't want to give Trump credit for it.
And they would rather have this continue. They would rather have this war go on.
Than admit that the reason it's ending is because Donald Trump was able to negotiate this deal.
That is central!
GLENN: I think anybody who has played politics with the Palestinian, you know, all that stuff. And all the stuff on the streets. That -- that has been a very effective tool for them. And so I would agree.
And they don't want that tool to be taken away.
STU: You think the Hamas wing of the party wants this? You think Rashida Tlaib is all thrilled about Donald Trump's efforts here. They will hear about Ilhan Omar -- how wonderful --
GLENN: Those are extremists.
STU: I mean that. This is a very revealing dividing line on the left. Right?
If there is anything that is ever going to happen, that Donald Trump can be given credit for. That you think this could be clear. John Fetterman. Fetterman has obviously pretty good on this issue. But Fetterman came out, gave a statement that should be basic. Basic. Like, hey, this is good. And I really hope it works. Donald Trump did a good job on this.
That's the type of stuff that should be obvious for everyone to be able to --
GLENN: That's what "Tip" O'Neill would have done. "Tip" O'Neill and Ronald Reagan, they got together. They disagreed. They fought hard, but they had dinner.
Yeah. Because "Tip" O'Neill could say, that was good. That was good. What he did was just good for all of us.
STU: That worked well. Good. I'm glad that happened. You should be glad that happened. We should all be rooting for the success here.
Even if what the -- you know, like, I rooted -- again, I have all sorts of criticisms the way Barack Obama dealt with the Middle East.
Yeah. Plenty of them. And we went over them over and over and over again.
And plenty of issues with specifically the way he went after Osama bin Laden. But on the day that it happened, really happy about.
Very happy that we were able to do it.
Now, look, it's our military that does it. They can say all this stuff too. They can say, oh, well, the real reason is. Blah, blah, blah.
But we can still be happy, that this occurred. And you can still be excited and give credit where credit is due.
GLENN: This is a win for all humankind. For humanity!
For life!
Stopping Hamas from torturing. You know, torturing kidnap victims.
Stopping the bloodshed that was happening because of the war on both sides.
That is a win. Having the possibility of a stable Middle East, at least for a while. That's a win!
That's a win all the way around. Everyone should be happy. I don't care if you like the president or not.
Everyone should be happy that mankind, put one on the chalkboard for all of mankind today.
This is a huge -- never seen -- this is on the good side. Never seen this one before. Didn't see this one coming.
I mean, we should all be able to say, wow!
And thank you. Because he's the -- I really, truly believe, when it comes to negotiating things like this, there is nobody better.
I mean, that's what he does for a living.
And he knows it. He knows how to read people. He knows how to it.
And this is evidence of it.
STU: And he will do things that are so out of the norm. That it resets everybody's thinking. You know, I mentioned --
GLENN: If he wouldn't have done that. If he wouldn't have done that, we wouldn't have all the Middle East signing on to a peace deal.
STU: I respect. What would they have done in a situation like Trump was with Netanyahu?
Their advisers would have said, "Look, this is great. You guys are together on this. Let's go to Hamas. We'll talk to them. We will see if we can get something done. We don't want to ruin it by announcing it publicly. There are times, where that tactic cannot work. But it worked really well here."
He forced them to basically say, "No, we don't want a cease-fire," or, "Okay. We'll go along with this."
And, by the way, you go down this list, there's a lot of stuff -- this is Hamas never, ever having control of this region ever again is built into this agreement. Now they've only talked about -- they're only on phase one here. So we don't know that we get all of this stuff. But like, there's a lot here that really improves the lives of Israelis, of --
GLENN: Palestinians.
STU: Arab Israelis in the region. You know, Palestinians. Other Arabs in the region.
GLENN: Saudi Arabia. Everybody.
STU: Yeah. Not to mention, just globally.
Right? This is a positive.
GLENN: Look what this does.
That's Turkey. So that separates Turkey from Syria, which is right in bed with -- with Iran.
I mean, think about how this box is. If you have the entire Middle East, now operating with Israel, and saying, we have a right to exist. Think about what that means, for this block, now to Iran. Iran doesn't mind being a pariah.
But now, everyone is officially saying, aisled do business with them.
STU: We will choose business over these guys.
That's a big statement in that world.
GLENN: That's a big deal. Big deal.
