- 1 day ago
President Donald Trump prepares for a high-profile victory lap after brokering what could be a historic peace agreement aimed at ending the long-running Israel-Hamas conflict.
Join guest moderator Vivian Salama and a distinguished panel — Nancy Cordes (CBS News), David Ignatius (The Washington Post), Jonathan Karl (ABC News), and Mark Mazzetti (The New York Times) — as they break down what this deal means for U.S. diplomacy, Middle East stability, and Trump’s political future.
🔹 Is this truly a path to lasting peace — or a calculated political move?
🔹 What does it mean for U.S. relations in the region?
🔹 How might it shape the 2025 global political landscape?
📺 Watch now for in-depth analysis and expert insights.
Join guest moderator Vivian Salama and a distinguished panel — Nancy Cordes (CBS News), David Ignatius (The Washington Post), Jonathan Karl (ABC News), and Mark Mazzetti (The New York Times) — as they break down what this deal means for U.S. diplomacy, Middle East stability, and Trump’s political future.
🔹 Is this truly a path to lasting peace — or a calculated political move?
🔹 What does it mean for U.S. relations in the region?
🔹 How might it shape the 2025 global political landscape?
📺 Watch now for in-depth analysis and expert insights.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00President Trump prepares for a high-profile victory lap after brokering what could be a historic peace agreement that finally ends the Israel-Hamas war.
00:10Tonight, why after years of failed negotiations, the sworn enemies are putting down their weapons for now,
00:16the likelihood that their agreement holds, and the turning point that changed everything.
00:22Next.
00:25This is Washington Week with The Atlantic.
00:28Corporate funding provided by...
00:32In 1995, two friends set out to make wireless coverage accessible to all.
00:38With no long-term contracts, nationwide coverage, and 100% U.S.-based customer support.
00:44Consumer Cellular. Freedom calls.
00:49Certified financial planner professionals are proud to support Washington Week with The Atlantic.
00:54CFP professionals are committed to acting in their clients' best interest.
00:58More information at letsmakeaplan.org.
01:00Additional funding is provided by...
01:04Coo and Patricia Ewan for the Ewan Foundation.
01:08Committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities.
01:12Sandra and Carl DeLay Magnuson.
01:15Rose Herschel and Andy Shrieves.
01:18Robert and Susan Rosenbaum.
01:20Charles Hamowy through the Charles Hamowy Fund.
01:24Steve and Marilyn Kerman.
01:27And by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.
01:34And now from the David M. Rubenstein studio at WETA in Washington, here is Washington Week with The Atlantic.
01:42Good evening and welcome to Washington Week.
01:46I'm Vivian Salama in tonight for Jeffrey Goldberg.
01:49Despite his best efforts, President Trump did not win this year's Nobel Peace Prize,
01:53the award he has long coveted and lobbied for since his first term in the White House.
01:58If there's a silver lining for the president, the award is typically given for achievements made the previous year.
02:04So in 2026, Trump may be a stronger candidate because of what could be a historic deal he brokered between Israel and Hamas that ends the fighting in Gaza.
02:15The ceasefire is underway and the last of the Israelis still held hostage are set to be released as early as next week.
02:24But enormous challenges remain even as the bombs fell silent.
02:27Gaza is largely demolished and trust on both sides is deeply fractured, making the road to lasting peace in the region fragile.
02:35Joining me tonight to discuss this and more, Nancy Cordes is chief White House correspondent for CBS.
02:42David Ignatius, a foreign affairs columnist at The Washington Post.
02:46Jonathan Karl is the chief Washington correspondent for ABC News and the author of the soon-to-be-released book,
02:53Retribution, Donald Trump and the Campaign that Changed America.
02:57And Mark Mazzetti is a Washington correspondent at The New York Times.
03:02Thank you all so much for joining me.
03:03David, I want to start with you.
03:05You had a really gripping piece yesterday in The Washington Post where you started it off by saying,
03:10war's end is like waking up from a nightmare.
03:13It was so striking.
03:15Can you kind of take us behind the scenes into the contours of this plan,
03:18what we can expect to see in the coming weeks and months?
03:21So, as you said, the guns did fall silent today with the Israeli Knesset approving the deal.
03:29The ceasefire has begun.
03:31Israeli troops have begun a partial withdrawal.
03:34They'll still occupy about half of Gaza.
03:37And we've now begun a 72-hour process, a window in which the hostages are to be released,
03:4620 living, the remains of 28 dead.
03:50And many Palestinian prisoners, probably well over 1,000, will be released.
03:56And aid will, in theory, surge back into Gaza, ending the terrible suffering, we hope, of the Palestinian people.
04:09This is phase one of the deal.
04:12What's still left is everything else.
04:14And those are all the crucial things for the future stability of Gaza.
04:19The disarmament of Hamas, the transitional governance in which technocrats will take over,
04:26governance of the enclave, and a process that will hopefully provide security for the people of Gaza with international help.
04:36Just to say one personal thing I felt today watching the scenes.
04:41I was in Gaza in November, a month after the October 7 attack that began this terrible war.
04:50And I watched as the civilian population of Gaza City streamed out of Gaza City, moving south, moving, they hoped, toward safety.
04:59It was just a scene of desperation.
05:02Today I saw pictures of a line as long as that one I saw in November moving back from the south toward Gaza City.
05:10And I had a sense of, I hope, the beginning of an ending of this war.
05:16The beginning of an ending, certainly so many challenges ahead.
05:20But still, the White House seems cautiously optimistic.
05:23Nancy, you were there this afternoon.
05:25Take us behind the scenes.
05:27How's the president feeling about all of this, as well as those around him?
05:30Yeah, the president is pumped.
05:31I was in the Oval Office with him a few hours ago.
05:34He likes to talk about the fact that people are dancing in the streets, not just in Israel and in Gaza,
05:39but around the Middle East.
05:41But behind the scenes, I would say that senior advisers are nervous because they will say openly that there are still so many things that can go wrong.
05:53And so they are on high alert diplomatically to try to troubleshoot the details of this very fragile plan,
06:00especially in the early days where they know they've seen this movie before.
06:05Phase one started off well the last time that they created a multi-stage plan and then fell apart.
06:12And we saw seven months of some of the worst fighting of this entire war.
06:15And so the hope is that if problems do pop up, they're better prepared this time to find ways to solve them.
06:21I mean, John, this is objectively a very momentous moment.
06:27Just to get a permanent ceasefire that both sides agree to is huge.
06:31President Biden had tried for the year and a half or so, more than that, actually, that he was in office,
06:37and fell short on getting that ceasefire to hold, even temporary ceasefires.
06:43President Trump comes in.
06:44He says that the war would never have even started if he was president.
06:49Of course, that is hard to qualify.
06:51But he got it done.
06:53He said he was going to get it done, and he got it done.
06:55What do you think changed?
06:56What's different between both presidents and just the time that's passed?
07:00Well, first, it is an incredible moment.
07:03I mean, just to see the, as David mentioned, the lines going back into northern Gaza, aid about to be resumed.
07:13And, you know, hopefully an end to the famine, an end to one of the worst humanitarian crises of our time, an end to the war.
07:23I mean, Bibi Netanyahu had announced, you know, an offensive, a major offensive into Gaza City,
07:30some of the worst fighting, worst Israeli attacks of the war.
07:36And now you have, as the agreement says, the war will end.
07:42It is, you know, look, Trump is the person that made this come together.
07:50Trump is the one who, on one hand, gave the green light to the Israelis to do all they did.
07:56There was no talk of holding back weapons, but also pressured the Israelis.
08:00I mean, this 20-point plan includes the statement, an immediate end to the war,
08:05at a time when Netanyahu was absolutely not wanting to end this war, wanting to continue this war.
08:11And it also says amnesty, amnesty for members of Hamas who commit to peaceful coexistence, amnesty.
08:21So that, Bibi Netanyahu does not sign on to something like this without immense pressure.
08:28And Donald Trump can pressure Netanyahu in a way that Biden simply could not.
08:33Now, President Trump was asked today at the White House about the ceasefire.
08:36Here's what he said.
08:39And how confident are you that the ceasefire will hold?
08:42I think it'll hold, yeah.
08:43I think it'll hold.
08:44They're all tired of the fighting.
08:47I want to read an excerpt from David's piece yesterday, something really striking.
08:53He says, it took the imperious, implacable personality of Donald Trump to ram a peace deal home.
09:00The lustering go-it-alone president did it in an unlikely way by listening to others
09:06and organizing a coalition that by the end included all major Arab and European nations,
09:12as well as Israel and Hamas.
09:13You know, taking that into consideration, Mark, we talked so much during the Biden years about leverage,
09:20this concept of leverage, whether it was weapons and other assistance to Israel that might get it to
09:25either let aid into Gaza or have them scale back on their bombardment of Gaza.
09:32President Biden did not withhold weapons.
09:36Neither did President Trump.
09:37Was there some other leverage, or was it, as David says, this personality, this, you know,
09:43his personality and just his ability to influence Bibi Netanyahu that made this possible?
09:50I think there's a few things.
09:51First off, Netanyahu has built his entire political career on being the person who knows American politics, right?
09:57He sells it as, I know America, I know political shifts.
10:01And the politics have changed also.
10:04That's one thing to say about politics toward Israel.
10:07The Republican Party's support for Israel is no longer a given, especially among younger Republicans.
10:14And President Trump has voices in his head in the MAGA wing of the Republican Party
10:20who think Israel just gets the United States into trouble.
10:23That's part of it.
10:24That's part of where Netanyahu knows that he needs Trump.
10:28He needs the United States more than anything.
10:30Europe can all go in another direction, but he fundamentally needs American support.
10:35So when Trump pressures him, it certainly matters.
10:38But there's another thing, and that's a more recent event, and that was the September 9th strike
10:43that the Israelis took in Doha where they tried to kill the Hamas negotiating team.
10:49And it really was a game changer.
10:53I was actually in Israel when that happened, and there was this shock about that they actually,
10:56you know, even after the last year where Israel had struck in Iran and Lebanon and Yemen and Syria.
11:03Doing this changed things, and it changed things for Trump and at the White House.
11:07Why?
11:07Well, because, first of all, they didn't know about it.
11:10And, you know, they were trying to...
11:11They were outraged by it.
11:12They were outraged.
11:12They were trying to end this war.
11:13And the day before, Jared Kushner is meeting with Ron Dermer, who's BBC senior advisor,
11:19in Florida to hash out, you know, a kind of peace deal.
11:23And then the next day, you know, Dermer doesn't tell them that they're about to bomb into Doha,
11:27and they're furious.
11:28So that does change the dynamic.
11:30And that's also, to your point, gets the Arab governments to sort of see an opportunity here
11:38to pressure Israel and also to pressure Hamas to end the conflict.
11:43So that's another big element.
11:44And, David, on the flip side of that...
11:46Oh, please, yes, John.
11:46I'm just going to say, think about that moment of that strike in Doha.
11:51There was a sense that this was...
11:53The peace talks were over.
11:54I mean, how can you have peace talks when, at an assemblage of peace talks,
11:58the Hamas side is bombed?
12:01There was a sense that it was...
12:04That any hopes of ending this conflict were dashed.
12:08And the hostages could all be...
12:09Yeah, and there was...
12:11Well, what are the faith for the hostages?
12:13But what happened instead is it was such a crisis that, first of all,
12:19you had the effort that Jared Kushner was making,
12:22which was the long-term plan for a post-war Gaza...
12:25Which began around August, about a month before that.
12:27And the effort that...
12:29And the other effort you had with Steve Witkoff to get a hostage deal,
12:33well, those come together.
12:35And Witkoff and Kushner are working together.
12:38Our Gulf allies are outraged by the Israelis.
12:42So is the White House.
12:44And there's much more urgency to the task.
12:47That urgency is what brought us to this moment.
12:49You know, and since we're on this topic...
12:50David, I'll come to you in a second, because I want to talk a little about Hamas.
12:52But, you know, Prime Minister Netanyahu was here in the Oval with President Trump over a week ago.
13:00And an apology to Qatar was a critical element to get this moving forward.
13:05Not just that, President Trump also very quietly signed a security guarantees for Qatar.
13:11What more do we know about that, you know, in terms of the phone call,
13:14but also President Trump's decision to just grant security guarantees for Qatar,
13:19which infuriated many in Israel?
13:21So, Qatar, after this strike on the Hamas negotiators who were in Doha,
13:30demanded a public apology from Israel
13:35and a security guarantee from the United States that it would not be attacked again.
13:42It had asked for such a guarantee after Iran attacked.
13:46The U.S. didn't give it.
13:47But this time, it was granted.
13:51And, you know, the crazy thing about that strike was
13:54Netanyahu, in effect, was destroying the one channel he had to end the war.
14:02And, you know, there is a sense of exhaustion in the Israeli military.
14:06Netanyahu may have wanted to continue.
14:08But it was a moment when Trump got angry.
14:13Qatar said, you know, either you do what we want or, you know, it's over.
14:17And I think there was a rallying.
14:20Trump decided he was going to move, he was going to pressure Israel.
14:25And the whole dynamic changed in that moment.
14:29It's unlikely that that strike would have produced peace.
14:31But, you know, it began the process.
14:33And, David, very quickly, while I have you,
14:35to talk about the Hamas position in all of this.
14:38I mean, Hamas has called President Trump, and I'm quoting here,
14:41a racist, a, quote, recipe for chaos, and a man with an absurd vision for Gaza.
14:47So what would motivate them at this stage?
14:51Exhaustion, pressure from the Palestinian population in Gaza,
14:56certainly pressure from every Arab country.
15:00You know, this 20-point peace plan is essentially a surrender document for Hamas.
15:06Hamas gives up its weapons.
15:09It gives up future political control in Gaza.
15:13I mean, you know, it's an unlikely series of things for them to agree to.
15:17And my biggest fear is that what's going to happen as we move past this wonderful first phase
15:23and the guns go silent is we'll have a low-level insurgency of a kind that's very familiar
15:29to the United States and to Israel, which could continue indefinitely,
15:33because there will be Hamas fighters who want to fight to the death,
15:36who are not prepared to turn over their guns, who don't want amnesty.
15:39They want to fight.
15:41And, you know, how the U.S. is going to deal with that,
15:44how Israel will deal with that, you know, over the next hill, as it were.
15:48And who's going to run Gaza?
15:50Right.
15:51I mean, there's this idea of this technocratic government
15:53and, you know, the regional powers.
15:56I mean, who is going to keep the security in Gaza?
15:58So one of the wonderful things that has begun with phase one is the delivery of aid.
16:04How is it going to be distributed safely inside a Gaza that's going to be chaotic,
16:10where there's nobody to keep order and peace?
16:13You know, that's in the next few days.
16:16I shudder to think the kind of violence you might see as people scramble,
16:20desperate people scramble for the aid that's now arrived.
16:23And that's why this summit that's taking shape in Egypt in a few days
16:28that President Trump is slated to attend is so important,
16:32because there are these momentous questions.
16:34Who's going to run Gaza?
16:36Who's going to rebuild Gaza?
16:38President Trump just said today he's counting on these wealthy Gulf nations,
16:42these wealthy allies throughout the region,
16:46to put up some serious money to help rebuild what was destroyed.
16:51And, you know, if everyone sort of, like, wipes their hands and says,
16:57OK, the deal is done, it's going to create the conditions
17:00for the very kind of low-level insurgency that you're talking about.
17:03And I think we're all agreeing on that this is taking time and attention for a long time.
17:09And commitment from the United States and commitment from the president.
17:13And is he going to stick with it?
17:15Because if he doesn't, right, then, to David's point about violence,
17:20anything could trigger a start again of the war.
17:25I think there's a lot of elements of the Israeli government,
17:28certainly the prime minister, who would see a pretext for war in a Hamas attack,
17:34that if Trump isn't leaning on them and all parties,
17:38that this could become violent again.
17:41And that's my big concern.
17:43And, Nancy, you just actually mentioned President Trump's trip to the region.
17:46You're going to be joining him on that trip.
17:47What else do we know about his itinerary?
17:50Well, he's going to be going to Israel.
17:51He's going to be speaking to the Knesset for the...
17:53He's the first president, U.S. president,
17:55to speak to the Knesset since George W. Bush.
17:59And then he'll head to Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt
18:01to meet with leaders from the region.
18:03There will probably be some European leaders there as well
18:06to talk about what happens next.
18:09I mean, even the president himself, his vision for Gaza has evolved over time.
18:14You know, it wasn't that long ago that he was saying people would need to be moved out
18:17so that there could be this really glitzy redevelopment in Gaza.
18:21He's kind of backed away from that.
18:23Yesterday, he said nobody has to be displaced from Gaza while the rebuilding takes place.
18:27But there are still so many unanswered questions about what happens there
18:32and who's in charge and who's footing the bill.
18:35That conversation is going to begin in earnest in Egypt.
18:39And so many unknowns there.
18:41John, you know, we keep hearing about the two players on the American side
18:46who have largely orchestrated these talks.
18:48Steve Whitcoff, the envoy for the Middle East,
18:50and the president's son-in-law who is not in government, but he's back.
18:55Jared Kushner.
18:55What can you tell us about their role in all of this?
18:59Look, Jared Kushner is, I mean, Whitcoff's been frenetically traveling the region,
19:05meaning, and by the way, he's also, you know, the envoy for Ukraine.
19:09He seems to be everywhere.
19:11Marco Rubio, the actual secretary of state, is, you know,
19:14is also the national security advisor.
19:16This is really something that came together with an incredibly small team.
19:21And Whitcoff travels with the team.
19:24His entire support staff is four people, I believe.
19:29But Kushner was the one that was really crafting this 20-point plan.
19:35You know, he is the one.
19:36He had already been working on the plan for post-Gaza.
19:40This is really the return of Jared Kushner,
19:43who I think was the critical player in pushing this thing through.
19:47And by the way, part of the plan, I mean, it's somewhat utopian.
19:51You know, it talks about, in the vision for post-war Gaza,
19:56one of the points is a reduction in tariffs.
20:00It would be, like, favorable tariffs.
20:01I mean, as if, like, you know, Gaza's ready to start producing mass exports.
20:06I mean, there are huge questions about where it goes now.
20:09But that's kind of characteristic of Jared Kushner, which is,
20:12and Whitcoff, too, this very optimistic,
20:15we're deal guys, we can get this stuff done.
20:18You know, the politicians don't understand it.
20:20The diplomats, you know, go through, you know, too many contortions.
20:24We, just the point is, let's make the deal.
20:25Let's get it done.
20:26And U.S. officials who briefed us on Thursday
20:30talked about potential phase two, what comes next.
20:33And, David, you were alluding to that earlier.
20:35One of the things that was very striking
20:37is an international stabilization force
20:40that might include at least 200 American troops,
20:44which is quite striking for a president
20:46who said he was going to curb U.S. presence abroad
20:48and U.S. wars abroad.
20:50And so what do we know about the involvement of those 200 troops,
20:53or what don't we know as?
20:54So from what was initially announced,
20:57they will be a kind of command and control force based in Israel.
21:01You know, whether this is going to be an open-ended commitment
21:04that could expand, we don't know.
21:06That will reassure the other countries
21:08that are going to be on the ground in Gaza
21:11in the international stabilization force,
21:13the countries like, it said, Italy, Azerbaijan, Indonesia.
21:18There are a range of countries that have agreed privately
21:22to contribute troops.
21:25But just getting enough stability for that force
21:29to be able to enter safely, you know,
21:32you've got a long distance to go.
21:34And it's still not clear to me
21:35who's going to do it.
21:36And the White House is adamant
21:38that those U.S. troops are not going into Gaza.
21:40They are not keeping the peace in Gaza.
21:43They are there to have this coordination function in Israel.
21:46And there are also troops that are already in the region.
21:48I mean, the White House is trying to minimize
21:50exactly what this means.
21:52But there's some U.S. skin in the game,
21:54even though they won't be exposed to fire.
21:56That's one of the things, actually,
21:57that I think is good about this deal.
21:59The U.S. is there to help and stabilize.
22:01Yeah, they're there to monitor the ceasefire.
22:04They are troops that are specialized in logistics
22:07and transportation to help with all the logistics
22:11with bringing aid back into Gaza.
22:13So they're not, at least at this point,
22:16supposed to be crossing that border.
22:18But they'll be there to make sure that the ceasefire
22:21is being carried out to the letter of the agreement.
22:23Mark, very briefly, the White House started to whisper
22:26the words, Abraham Accords, again,
22:27the normalization deals with Israel.
22:30Of course, the coveted normalization with Saudi Arabia
22:33still sort of out there.
22:35How realistic is that at this stage
22:37with everything that's happening?
22:39So before October 7th,
22:43I think it actually was happening
22:45under the Biden administration.
22:46And why is that?
22:47Because the Palestinians were basically left to the side, right?
22:51Israel and Saudi Arabia were going to normalize relations.
22:53No one was thinking about the Palestinians,
22:55even the Saudis, right?
22:56After October 7th, after the war,
22:59it was clear the Palestinians could no longer be ignored.
23:02I think, you know, with the ending of the war,
23:04if all these phases continue,
23:07down the road, there will be this possibility,
23:10but there's still the question of,
23:11is there a Palestinian state?
23:14Will there ever be a Palestinian state?
23:15That is, in the current construct of the Israeli government,
23:18that is a total deal breaker.
23:20They would never go along with it, right?
23:22And the question is, would the Saudis demand it, right?
23:25Or are there other things that would mollify the Saudis
23:28to get normalization with Israel that the U.S. could give them?
23:32And once again, the question is,
23:34who's going to be speaking for the Palestinians?
23:36Nancy, we have just about a minute left.
23:38And I want to just turn to the shutdown.
23:41The director of the Office of Management and Budget,
23:43Russ Vogt, wrote today on X,
23:46the rifts have begun,
23:47referring to reduction in force plans
23:49that the White House has been contemplating.
23:51You were just at the White House.
23:52What did the president have to say about this?
23:54Well, I tried to get him to provide any kind of details
23:56about the size of these layoffs,
23:59the number of people who got letters today,
24:01which agencies they come from.
24:04All he would say is,
24:05it's a lot and it's all Democratic priorities,
24:07but he wouldn't go into more specifics.
24:09We do know that there are some workers from the EPA
24:13who have gotten letters informing them
24:16that they are going to be laid off 60 days from now.
24:19DHS, HHS, some workers there as well.
24:22Education.
24:23Exactly, education.
24:24But we're still trying to get our arms around
24:27how widespread this is,
24:30whether it's more of a scare tactic, as Democrats say,
24:33or whether these are true significant cuts
24:36to the federal workforce.
24:37And in 30 seconds, are we any closer, John,
24:39to seeing an end to the shutdown?
24:41I don't think so.
24:43I mean, look, Congress is not even going to be in session
24:45until, you know, midweek, next week.
24:48I don't see any light at the end of this tunnel.
24:52And, you know, Russ Vogt, the OMB director,
24:56does, I think, see a shutdown as a great opportunity
24:58to do what he really wants to do,
25:00which is to reduce the size of the federal workforce.
25:03A lot to cover there, but we have to leave it there.
25:06Thank you so much to our guests for joining me
25:08and thank you at home for watching.
25:10You can read more about the Gaza peace deal
25:12by visiting theatlantic.com.
25:13I'm Vivian Salama.
25:15Good night from Washington.
25:18Corporate funding for Washington Week with The Atlantic
25:21is provided by Consumer Cellular.
25:27Certified financial planner professionals
25:29are proud to support Washington Week with The Atlantic.
25:32CFP professionals are committed to acting
25:34in their clients' best interest.
25:36More information at letsmakeaplan.org.
25:41Additional funding is provided by
25:43Koo and Patricia Ewan for the Ewan Foundation,
25:47committed to bridging cultural differences
25:49in our communities.
25:51Sandra and Carl DeLay Magnuson.
25:54Rose Herschel and Andy Shreves.
25:56Robert and Susan Rosenbaum.
25:59Charles Hamowy through the Charles Hamowy Fund.
26:03Steve and Marilyn Kerman.
26:05And my contributions to your PBS station
26:08from viewers like you.
Recommended
0:40
Be the first to comment