Will Trump & Netanyahu Let Gaza Starve?

Summary

Pod Save America: "Will Trump & Netanyahu Let Gaza Starve?" (Released July 29, 2025)

In this intense episode of Pod Save America, hosts Jon Favreau, Tommy Vietor, and Dan Pfeiffer delve deep into the escalating humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the complex political maneuvers between former President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the broader implications for U.S. and international politics.

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1. The Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza

The episode opens with a grim overview of Gaza's deteriorating conditions since Israel broke its ceasefire with Hamas in March. Hosts discuss the severe blockade imposed by Israel, which has effectively cut off all food and aid from entering the territory. This blockade has led to the destruction of infrastructure, including homes, schools, hospitals, and farms, resulting in tens of thousands of Palestinian deaths, predominantly children, and the displacement of nearly 2 million residents.

Tommy Vietor highlights the dire situation:
"Israel has now destroyed most Palestinian homes, buildings, schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, and farms... the UN says that every single resident of Gaza is at risk of starvation." [04:50]

Dan Pfeiffer adds depth to the discussion by citing real-time statistics:
"The World Food Program says 100,000 people are in dire need of treatment for malnutrition, which has claimed the lives of 48 people in July alone, 20 of them children." [05:14]

The introduction of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an organization backed by American contractors and Israeli interests, is scrutinized for its inefficacy. Originally intended to streamline aid distribution, GHF has only established four distribution points, a stark contrast to the UN's 400 locations. This centralization has led to violent confrontations, with Israeli forces reportedly shooting over 1,000 individuals attempting to access aid.

Tommy Vietor expresses frustration over GHF's failure:
"These distribution points force Gazans to make long, dangerous walks or navigate active war zones to get food... Hundreds have been killed near these points." [08:06]

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2. Political Dynamics Between Trump and Netanyahu

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the strained relationship between Trump and Netanyahu. The hosts argue that Trump's political capital in Israel, especially following his strikes against Iran, positions him uniquely to influence Netanyahu's decisions. However, Netanyahu's governance is hindered by a coalition of far-right ministers who are resistant to ending the war, fearing it could collapse his government amidst ongoing corruption charges.

Dan Pfeiffer critiques Netanyahu's strategy:
"He [Netanyahu] blames Hamas for aid not reaching people. Yet under international pressure, he can and has allowed more aid into Gaza multiple times." [10:17]

Jon Favreau questions Netanyahu's leadership:
"The propaganda and lies in the face of what's being documented... it's like, is anyone gonna... you just lied to everyone and now you're just gonna pretend that it was..." [10:52]

The potential for Trump to mediate and push for a comprehensive ceasefire is discussed extensively. The hosts suggest that Trump's influence could compel Netanyahu to agree to a deal that ends the war and facilitates the release of hostages, but Netanyahu's current political precariousness makes this unlikely without significant pressure.

Tommy Vietor emphasizes the need for strategic U.S. intervention:
"Donald Trump has so much political capital in Israel after the Iran strikes, Netanyahu needs him. But instead of ending the war, Trump has exacerbated it by promoting genocidal rhetoric." [15:19]

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3. Critique of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF)

The episode provides a critical examination of GHF, highlighting its shortcomings in effectively distributing aid. The foundation's limited number of aid distribution points has led to chaos and increased violence, undermining its intended purpose.

Ezra Klein, guest on the show, comments on GHF's inefficiency:
"Replacing the UN system with just four distribution sites was doomed from the start. These centers became hotspots for violence, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis rather than alleviating it." [76:27]

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4. U.S. and International Political Responses

Senator Angus King's stance is highlighted, where he joins 21 Senate Democrats in calling for the Trump administration to cease funding GHF and return aid distribution to the UN. This move is portrayed as a significant political shift, reflecting growing bipartisan concern over Israel's actions in Gaza.

Dan Pfeiffer discusses the broader Democratic opposition:
"21 Senate Democrats are pushing to end U.S. support for Israel until there is a demonstrable change in Israeli policy. This includes cutting off military assistance to a country that doesn't need our multi-billion-dollar aid." [27:36]

Internationally, France's recognition of Palestinian statehood is noted as a diplomatic pressure point on Israel, signaling a potential shift in global alliances and support.

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5. The Role of Media and Public Opinion

The hosts address how media narratives and public opinion, both in Israel and globally, have shifted against Israel due to the ongoing humanitarian crisis. The perpetuation of misinformation and the failure to adequately distribute aid have damaged Israel's international reputation and fueled anti-Semitism.

Tommy Vietor laments the global perception:
"The world is turning against Israel, and this war is fueling centuries-old anti-Semitism, making it harder for Israel to maintain its alliances and moral standing." [94:59]

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6. Strategic Recommendations and Future Outlook

The conversation concludes with calls for a massive surge in aid to Gaza and bipartisan efforts within the U.S. to pressure both Trump and Netanyahu towards a lasting peace agreement. The hosts advocate for building a broad coalition, transcending traditional political divides, to address the crisis effectively.

Tommy Vietor urges for inclusive political action:
"We need a coalition that spans from the furthest left to the most isolationist right to pressure Trump and Netanyahu to end the war. It's time to come together for the sake of humanity." [33:29]

Ezra Klein echoes the necessity of comprehensive diplomatic efforts:
"Ending the war requires a deal that addresses hostages, aid distribution, and long-term peace strategies. Trump's unique position could be pivotal, but it requires decisive action." [95:36]

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Conclusion

This episode of Pod Save America presents a compelling and urgent analysis of the Gaza crisis, critiquing the existing aid distribution mechanisms, Netanyahu's political fragility, and Trump's potential role in mediating peace. The hosts emphasize the need for immediate and bipartisan action to alleviate the suffering in Gaza and restore stability in the region.

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Notable Quotes:

• Tommy Vietor [04:50]: "Israel has now destroyed most Palestinian homes, buildings, schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, and farms... the UN says that every single resident of Gaza is at risk of starvation."

• Dan Pfeiffer [05:14]: "The World Food Program says 100,000 people are in dire need of treatment for malnutrition, which has claimed the lives of 48 people in July alone, 20 of them children."

• Tommy Vietor [15:19]: "Donald Trump has so much political capital in Israel after the Iran strikes, Netanyahu needs him. But instead of ending the war, Trump has exacerbated it by promoting genocidal rhetoric."

• Ezra Klein [76:27]: "Replacing the UN system with just four distribution sites was doomed from the start. These centers became hotspots for violence, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis rather than alleviating it."

• Tommy Vietor [33:29]: "We need a coalition that spans from the furthest left to the most isolationist right to pressure Trump and Netanyahu to end the war. It's time to come together for the sake of humanity."

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the critical discussions and insights shared in the episode, providing listeners with a clear understanding of the complex interplay between humanitarian concerns and political strategies in the ongoing Gaza conflict.

Transcript

[Jon Favreau]

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[Tommy Vitor]

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Tommy Vitor]

This is Gavin Newsom and this is what you've missed. Steve Bannon.

[Gavin Newsom]

We're in this job because of over.

[Tommy Vitor]

Promising and underperforming governor Tim Waltz. These are bad guys though. These are bad guys, but they exist and we could deny they exist. Not only they exist, they persist. Anthony Scaramucci.

[Jon Favreau]

When he goes off on you on.

[Tommy Vitor]

Truth Social with the nonsense name calling and then you see him like a.

[Jon Favreau]

Week later or a day later in.

[Tommy Vitor]

California, he acts like it didn't happen. Right?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Of course.

[Jon Favreau]

Scott Galloway.

[Tommy Vitor]

It's not that our government, our elected representatives in D.C. are whores. It's that they're such cheap whores. Frank Luntz. You've taken more than anyone. Ezra Klein.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I would like to see a liberalism that isn't just angry about a bunch of things. Government is failed to do as I am, but is also optimistic about what is possible.

[Tommy Vitor]

Listen to this is Gavin Newsom on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever.

[Jon Favreau]

You get your podcasts. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'm Jon.

[Tommy Vitor]

Tommy Vitor.

[Jon Favreau]

On today's show. Stick around later for a big announcement about a live in person event. We'll be holding this fall. That's the teaser. We're also going to talk about Trump's new alliance with Epstein's convicted co conspirator as a way to keep her from talking the new taxes we'll all be paying on stuff we buy from Europe and the $1 billion we might end up paying for Trump's new luxury jet. Then you'll hear Tommy's interview with Haaretz columnist Amir Tbone about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, why a deal to end the war has been so elusive and Trump and Netanyahu's relationship. There were quite a few developments in Gaza over the weekend, so let's start there. If you've been following the story, you've probably seen that since the Israeli government broke its ceasefire with Hamas in March and blocked all food or aid from entering the territory, Gaza has become hell on earth. Israel has now destroyed most Palestinian homes, buildings, schools, hospitals, mosques, churches and farms. They've killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, mostly children, wounded hundreds of thousands more, and have displaced nearly 2 million Palestinians, almost the entire population. In late May, Israel started distributing small amounts of food at four locations run by American contractors. But Israeli forces have shot more than 1,000 people who've tried to get that food. And now the UN says that every single resident of Gaza is at risk of starvation. The World food program says 100,000 people are in dire need of treatment for malnutrition, which has claimed the lives of 48 people in July alone, 20 of them children. Israel has blamed the UN and Hamas for the hunger crisis, though senior Israeli military officials told the New York Times there is no proof that Hamas has been systematically stealing UN food and supplies. On Monday, two of Israel's leading human rights organizations said for the first time that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. International pressure from some of Israel's closest allies like the uk, Canada, Australia, Germany and France, which chose to official recognized Palestinian statehood last week, finally led Netanyahu to announce daily pauses in the fighting in three places so that Palestinians can get food, though even that small step doesn't seem to be doing too much. And none of this has stopped Bibi from denying the reality of the atrocities he's committing. Here he is on Sunday.

[Ezra Klein]

Israel is presented as though we are applying a campaign of starvation in Gaza. What a bold face lie. There is no policy of starvation in Gaza and there is no starvation in Gaza. We enable humanitarian throughout the duration of.

[Tommy Vitor]

The war to enter Gaza, otherwise there.

[Ezra Klein]

Would be no Gazans. And what is interdicted the supply of Humanitarian aid is one force, Hamas.

[Jon Favreau]

There is no starvation in Gaza, says Bibi. As for Israel's closest ally and largest source of military aid, US, the United States government. Here's a sampling of how Donald Trump answered questions about Gaza during his golf trip to Scotland over the weekend.

[Gavin Newsom]

Well, you know, we gave $60 million two weeks ago and nobody even acknowledged it for food. And nobody said, gee, thank you very much and it would be nice to have at least a thank you. Do have to take care of the humanitarian needs at the. On the. What they used to call the Gaza Strip. You don't hear that line too much anymore. You don't hear the Gaza Strip, but we're going to be getting some good, strong food. We can save a lot of people. I mean, some of those kids are. That's real starvation stuff. I see it. And you can't fake that.

[Jon Favreau]

Real starvation. But no thank you notes from any of the starving children from. That was just.

[Tommy Vitor]

Who did he want a thank you from? Did some kid there have his number? Did he want like Hamas to give him a call?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. Fire off a thank you note.

[Tommy Vitor]

Just maybe thank you for the bombs.

[Jon Favreau]

Those are for the bombs. Maybe, you know, you know, it's like J.D. vance asking. They all want people to thank them. It's very weird. You know, Zelensky's got to thank them. The kids in Gaza got to thank them. Let's start with you guys. General reactions to the developments in Gaza over the last week. And Tommy, maybe you can tell us what you think about the pause in military activity that Bibi announced.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, I mean, I think just generally, I mean, you see these photos of these emaciated, literally starving to death or starved to death, children, and it's just impossible. It's the worst thing I've ever seen. It's impossible as a parent not to imagine that being your child and being incapable of protecting them. You know, that's where my brain always goes. And what is so enraging is that this was not just predictable, it was predicted. Like taking aid distribution away from the un giving to this brand new organization, the Gaza Humanitarian foundation, that just emerged out of nowhere recently was destined to fail catastrophically. And every expert said as much. One example why you mentioned how The GHF has four aid distribution points. The UN had 400. And so what that does. This new system forces Gazans to make these long, dangerous walks or an active war zone to get food. There are all these instances of the IDF or contractors shooting them or drones going off, you know, near these distribution Points, hundreds of people have been killed. Like 6, 700, 800 Gazans have been killed near aid distribution points. There was a former GHF contractor who served in the U.S. special Forces, did an interview with the BBC. He said, quote, he has never witnessed the level of brutality and use of indiscriminate and unnecessary force against the civilian population, an unarmed, starving population. This was a guard for the ghf.

[Jon Favreau]

And he. And he said he fought ISIS and the Taliban.

[Tommy Vitor]

ISIS and the Taliban.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And it's, by the way, no longer anonymous. So they can claim, oh, these are fake or anonymous. Or this person on the record, on camera describing this. Someone who was there. U.S. sport. Yeah. U.S. special Forces veteran also describes it as, like, amateurish. Right. Like, this is a thing that was just stood up.

[Tommy Vitor]

It just. The processes are terrible. The individual treatment of people are terrible. So your questions about these, the humanitarian pauses that are happening, the pauses in military activity, I mean, they're good, but it's like the definition of too little, too late, because there's no on, off, switch for a famine. Jeremy Kun Eindyke, the president of Refugees International, has been sounding the alarm about this, how difficult it is to control a famine once it reaches the tipping point. And the tipping point is, like, you just see clusters of deaths. That's how you know this is happening. And it will require a massive surge of aid. Food, malnutrition, treatment, clean water, sanitation, healthcare. Not just these bullshit PR airdrops or a few pauses. And so I'm glad there is this, like, acute focus on the famine, but we need to also focus just as much on permanently ending the war, because, as you mentioned, like, the death toll before this famine has been catastrophic. Gaza health ministry says 55,000. Other studies say closer to 80,000. 70% of structures destroyed. And so, like, the only way the living Israeli hostages are going to survive and get out alive is to permanently end the war. And it's going to take a massive diplomatic push to get there because Netanyahu is extending the war for political purposes.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, look, Netanyahu blames Hamas for aid not reaching people. And yet under international pressure, he can get more aid into Gaza. This happened repeatedly. The Times published this long and deeply reported story about Netanyahu's conduct before and during the war. And there's a scene that describes Netanyahu facing pressure from the right internally to not allow aid into Gaza and from the Biden administration at the time to allow aid into Gaza. And he ultimately relented to the pressure from the Biden administration in that Instance, he responds to pressure. How can it be that it is Hamas's Fault or the UN's fault and not Israel's fault that aid is not getting to people who need it? When under pressure, that policy changes. It's happened multiple times.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

The propaganda and the lies in the face of, like, what the entire rest of the world is seeing and has been documented is just really. It, like, drove me insane over the weekend.

[Ezra Klein]

The.

[Jon Favreau]

You know, like, the footage of all the UN trucks, and it's like they're just sitting around and I think AIPAC tweeted this and Israel's been talking about this. And then as soon as he announces the pause, you see pictures of the UN trucks just coming on into Gaza. So it's like, is anyone gonna. You just lied to everyone and now you're just gonna pretend that it was. You're not gonna even correct yourself or anything. They just don't care.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The other part of this, too, is if you only allow in a fraction of the aid that is required, it is not surprising that the people who will get that aid are the people with guns. It is not surprising that you have chaotic and dangerous scenes among people who are starving and desperate. And experts in this. Former envoys to the region have worked for Democrats and Republicans. People who have delivered aid to the region will say the answer is more aid. If you have enough aid. It can't be commoditized if you have enough aid. If Palestinians are no longer terrified that today's truck will be gone tomorrow. Right? If people can trust that there will be enough food, then all of a sudden, these distribution points by the UN become less chaotic. And by the way, this new organization stood up by the Trump administration's allies, right? Like, they are backing the IDF and doing these extremely controlled distribution points where they're shooting at people and they claim they're shooting in the air, but we. Lots of reports of hundreds, if not a thousand people dying because of it. To maintain control at these four points. At other. When the UN is distributing aid at these hundreds of places, there are times where people are overrunning. What do they do? They back off and let people take the food. Right. They don't shoot people under desperate circumstances.

[Tommy Vitor]

Imagine you have a crowd of people where it's like you literally can't move. And the IDF starts shooting in the air as warning shots to try to back people off, but you can't back off. Like, there's massive crowds of people and people are desperate. And so, like.

[Ezra Klein]

But the other.

[Tommy Vitor]

The thing. I know that people are probably gonna be tweeting at us as they listen to this is Hamas could end the war right now. They relieve the hostages. And what I wanna say to you is you can repeat that talking point or you can actually get them home, because Hamas is a terrorist organization. They're not good actors. We should not trust them. We should not expect them to act in this, you know, act in a way that we would want them to, right? Like the hostages are their only leverage. They're the only hope of releasing the hostages is through a deal. And that deal has to include ending the war permanently. And that is what Netanyahu refuses to agree to. And that is that there. You can talk about it. Like, Amir and I go through this. There's all this sequencing and, you know, the phasing of hostage release and Palestinians and Israeli prisons getting released. The big sticking points are Hamas wants a deal that permanently ends the war. And Netanyahu won't do that because it will collapse his government and he will be out of power and he is facing corruption charges and he could go to jail.

[Jon Favreau]

That's it. The idea that if. If only everyone who was criticizing Israel would call on Hamas to release the hostages, suddenly Hamas would release the hostages. All would be, well, it is. It is fucking absurd that we're still doing this in July of 2025 as this war has dragged on, talking about what Hamas can or cannot do. You know what? We're not funding Hamas's military. Hamas isn't accepting diplomatic pressure, international pressure. The whole point. Bibi stated goal when they started the blockade was to put pressure. The blockade of food into Gaza was to put pressure on Hamas. Since that time, they've recovered one hostage, an Israeli American hostage, and that was like a side deal with the United States that Israel isn't. So it was by Netanyahu's own, like, his own stated goals. It's been a fucking failure to get to pressure Hamas to release the hostages. And what it's done instead is just starved a bunch of people and led to, like, a staggering loss of life.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Hamas, Hamas started this war. Hamas has shown incredible disregard for the lives of the people it claims to represent. It is a monstrous organization. We should demand better of Israel and that it. Yes, Hamas does not. Hamas could save Palestinian lives right now. So can Israel. We hold Israel to a higher standard because it is an ally of ours, who we fund, who we ostensibly believe has a moral and ethical compass that at some point in its history claimed to believe in. So the idea that, like, oh, well, you know, it's Hamas's fault. Okay, sure, I agree. Hamas is responsible ultimately for the ongoing suffering of the Palestinian people because they hold the hostages, because they committed an act of terrorism, that monstrous war crime. Fine, okay. So what? So Palestinians have to die? That's the answer.

[Jon Favreau]

You mean Israel can do better? So can we. So can the United States. We have the capacity to go and do something about this. So does Europe. So do. I mean, it's just Donald Trump could.

[Tommy Vitor]

End this war with one called Netanyahu. Donald Trump has so much political capital in Israel after the Iran strikes, Netanyahu needs him. Netanyahu wants his political backing. He also wants US Military and intelligence support. But instead of doing that, instead of getting the Nobel Peace Prize that he wants, Trump has made things exponentially worse by announcing a few months back a plan to ethnically cleanse the entire Gaza Strip and turn it into a resort town. And what that did in practice was make it so much harder to get a deal done to end the war, because the far right in Israel was like, that's on the table. Ethnic cleansing. That's on the table. Controlling Gaza fully permanently is on the table. We want that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

You have a right wing.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, that heritage minister over the weekend last week, he said all Gaza will be Jewish. The government is pushing for Gaza being wiped out. Thank God we are wiping out this evil. And I realized, you know, Netanyahu then later said, oh, he doesn't speak for the government, blah, blah, blah. It's like, well, he's one of your fucking ministers.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

He's also the same guy that said they should consider using nuclear weapons in the Gaza Strip. And then was, what, suspended briefly and then reinstated? And now he's being kind of. It took him hours for Netanyahu to ultimately come around to denouncing it. And then.

[Tommy Vitor]

Anyway, but Israel Katz, the Defense minister, announced a plan to, like, focus everybody into one city in Gaza and then push them all out. It's ethic cleansing.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, and they're like.

[Tommy Vitor]

They're like advertising.

[Jon Favreau]

They're advertising their ethnic cleansing. Yes, but to your point about Trump, like, what do you make of his. His shifting and typically incoherent comments? This just the last few days, he did the thank you thing, and then it seems like he had a bunch of meetings with European leaders. And then we got. We're recording this Monday. Then we got his comments today, which is like, oh, yeah, the starvation is bad and those kids look really hungry and we gotta do something.

[Tommy Vitor]

I don't know what to make of it. Like, he's Just all over the place.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

He's seeing it on television and he knows they're bad. And he is a creature of television.

[Jon Favreau]

And he watched cable news Viewer Trump again.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

He knows.

[Jon Favreau]

He remembers he's the nation's biggest television fan.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

The Feed the children ads from the 80s and 90s that were all over television are seared in his memory. He knows people don't like it. He knows it's wrong, and he does want to be responsible for it.

[Jon Favreau]

He also said, we're going to set up food centers where people can walk in and no boundaries. We're not going to have fences. They see the food, it's all there, but nobody's at it because they have fences set up that nobody can get in. It's crazy what's going on over there. It's so crazy. Just, he's just like a dispassionate observer.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's. It's what, it's just, it's somebody who was kind of paying attention to a briefing about the facts that we were like, it's like that is the transmuted version of the facts we were just describing that he can barely hold on to. So he's getting some information about this and about Israel's culpability for the lack of it.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, we remember it was either during the campaign or during the transition, but basically Trump's problem was like, I just don't want to see this on tv. You know, I want, I want Bibi to just finish up the war because I don't like the images, because he doesn't like the mess.

[Tommy Vitor]

It just, I think real, like, military experts in Israel, like the former Defense minister Yoav Gallant said like a year ago that, like, the military value of the fighting has been exhausted. You know, I heard today, I was listening to like a Haaretz podcast or something like, I think the IDF has destroyed 25% of Hamas's tunnels. If the goal is 100%, like, how long are we going to be there? The organization is, is decimated. There were something like 30,000 Hamas fighters when the war started, and there's been at least 55,000 casualties since.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, his top generals told him a year ago that there was no longer a military advantage to continuing the war. There are reports of them taking a hospital, then withdrawing, then literally going in.

[Tommy Vitor]

A circle, just taking the same stuff.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Taking the same territory, taking the same territory back, this time destroying the hospital. There's just lots of, look, Benjamin Netanyahu, his coalition depends on these right wing ministers. And they told him if he agrees to a truce or a ceasefire. He won't have a government and he put his own personal political interests against the interest of the hostages and Israel's long term interest. And here we are a year later. Israel's a pariah nation. The suffering of the Palestinians has continued. Thousands, hundreds, if not thousands have died since that truce was on the table a year ago. He lifted the short term ceasefire. And by the way, it is impossible to measure deaths caused by malnutrition and starvation. You will have specific numbers of people whose deaths are ascribed to that. But hospitals not having supplies, people being weakened to infection, to miscarriage, to all kinds of horrors. The toll is ongoing. It is very difficult to measure just how many people are being hurt, if not killed, by the fact that food and medicine and aid is so scarce, at least largely because Israel has prevented enough aid from reaching people in a sustained way.

[Jon Favreau]

I gotta say, too, I mean, you know, it's my fault for being on Twitter all weekend, but, you know, the New York Post ran this story about there's a picture that was in the New York Times about a mother holding her emaciated, starving child, you know, and his stomach was distended. It's a horrific picture. And the New York Post ran this story. You know, actually the boy is suffering from genetic disorders. And so it wasn't just starvation. And the boy's gonna get medical treatment. And then Israel, you know, the Israeli Twitter account tweeted out the same thing. And I saw it's not just randos on Twitter, like actual pundits, other people being like, well, the New York Times ran this picture and I'm like, what kind of lack of humanity do you have when you're like, oh, this kid, in addition to being hungry, also had a genetic disorder. So therefore all the other fucking pictures we've seen of like little babies dying, like, we shouldn't take seriously. I just, I don't. It's a, it's horrifying that this is where we are right now. This is where some people are.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I'll also say it's, it's, it's a form of like weaponized anti Semitism, unspoken because the, it's that, oh, all of these people that are saying this, all these reports, right? These are people that hate Israel, hate the Jews, are anti Zionists. And so they're reporting on what the Hamas officials in Gaza are saying uncritically, or they're going with anonymous sources. They will drum up anything to attack Israel, right? And there is anti Semitism. There are people that are biased against Israel. There are people that mischaracterize what is happening in the conflict, but it requires viewing all of these organizations as lying. It requires the images we can see with our own eyes to deny them. It just requires such a broad conspiracy to believe that this is all being cooked up to damage Israel. And they can try it. But I just. First of all, Donald Trump doesn't agree. Marjorie Taylor Greene doesn't agree. A lot of right wingers are starting to understand that this is wrong, so they can try, but I just don't think it's working.

[Tommy Vitor]

It's just dehumanization. I mean, there's just so much. The rhetoric, it's so dehumanizing. They treat Palestinians and Gazans like they're not human beings. Everyone's part of Hamas. Everyone's a target. Doesn't matter if you're a.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

We don't feed our enemies. We don't feed our enemies.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, it's just. It's horrific. And I'll say it for the thousandth time, I think what hamas did on October 7 was an evil act of terror. I think it's indefensible. I think that no one can ever justify harming civilians. But the rhetoric you always hear when you talk about stats coming out of the Gaza Health Ministry, they're like, oh, you have to say that that's a Hamas run organization. It's like, sure, okay, it is. But the numbers they've released have generally been viewed as trustworthy. And in fact, independent outlets think the casualty count is much higher, in part because so many people are buried under rubble and this war has been raging for 662 days now.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I also just like, yeah, Hamas is monstrous. And you have Palestinians who have no advocate because you have Ben Yahu, who's putting his own political interest ahead of the interest of the hostages and of Israel at the great expense of Palestinian lives. And you have Palestinian lives in the hands of a terrorist organization that launched this attack on October 7, knowing it would lead to untold suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. And so, yeah, it's like, Hamas is awful. These people have no one who is speaking for them.

[Jon Favreau]

Pod Save America is brought to you by cookunity, as is Jon Favreau. Before they were ever a sponsor, I was a cookunity guy.

[Tommy Vitor]

Tell me about cookunity. I don't know.

[Jon Favreau]

Okay, Cook Unity. Basically, there's this great menu every week. There's like over 300 meals, 300 on the menu, but you can sort them by, like, what kind of food you're looking, you know, do you want meat? Do you not want meat? But whatever. And so you can look that way. They have new items and they're all made by chefs from like actual restaurants either around here in California or in New York or other places.

[Tommy Vitor]

160 plus award winning chefs, it says.

[Jon Favreau]

In the coffee and it's really good. And they send like you know, however many meals you want, five, six, seven a week to your house and it's all fresh so you gotta eat it that week. But the food is excellent quality, nice. It's like really good variety. And so I'll tell you like I just ordered today, ground beef, chili and broccoli rice, California style chicken enchiladas, spicy lobster diablo tacos, Martin's Ecuadorian chicken. Like this is. It's really, really good.

[Tommy Vitor]

I'm copy and pasting the link from this ad, sending it to my wife right now and we're gonna get some cook unity going.

[Jon Favreau]

Nice, nice. No, I love cook unity. You know, fully cooked meals, you can heat em up as little as five minutes in the oven or microwave and.

[Tommy Vitor]

Oh, it's that fast.

[Jon Favreau]

Enjoy. Yeah. High quality culinary masterpieces for a fraction of of restaurant takeout prices. Subscriptions start as low as $11ameal. That's the other thing. It's really affordable. Wow. Skip deliveries, pause or cancel any time. Let me tell you about the heating up. You can heat it in the microwave but if you have time you can also reheat it in the oven or like in an air fryer and then the quality is even.

[Tommy Vitor]

There you go.

[Jon Favreau]

So get what you're craving. Try the freshest, best tasting meal delivery made by your favorite celebrity chefs. Go to cookieunity.com crookedfree or enter code crooked free before checkout for free Premium Meals for life. That's free. Premium Meals for life by using code Crooked Free or going to cookunity.com crookedfree Terms and conditions apply. Go to cookunity.com for details.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Support for Windows 10 ends 10/14/2025. Move to Windows 11 Pro PCs with Intel inside. Secure, simple to deploy and built for AI upgrade. Today at www.windows.com business intel.

[Jon Favreau]

I saw a group of 21 Senate Democrats are calling on the Trump administration to stop funding the ghf, the Gaza Humanitarian foundation that's Israeli backed and run by American contractors and put the UN back in charge of aid distribution. As we saw Senator Angus King of Maine today put out a statement. He said, I am through supporting the actions of the current Israeli government and will advocate and vote for an end to any United States support whatsoever until there is a demonstrable change in the direction of Israeli policy. I mean, good for Angus King. I don't want my taxes funding this. I don't want the people who represent us voting for that funding. I don't want the people who represent us taking money from aipac. AIPAC over the last couple days accused Bernie Sanders of blood libel just because Bernie Sanders was criticizing the war and the government. And I don't think Democratic candidates should take money from AIPAC or vote to fund military support for Israel anymore. Like, I really don't like it's just this government. Absolutely not. And that especially includes, I think the next Democratic nominee for president.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, I mean like this, these are tall orders in the Trump administration. But the things I want to see Democrats at least calling for is cutting off military assistance to Israel. It's a rich country, by the way. They don't need our 3 billion a year. And hands up right? Barack Obama signed a 10 year MOU for 3.3 billion a year. Like so we are part of the problem here. Let's correct it. I would like to see talk about sanctioning Israeli government officials who use genocidal rhetoric or talk about ethnic cleansing openly. We should support a ceasefire resolution at the un. We should demand that international press be allowed into the Gaza Strip to report on what's happening without an IDF minder. It's insane that the press still can't go into Gaza and cover what's happening. And I also think, like, there has to be a total mindset change in the Democratic Party.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

When the war ends, we are not going back to the pre October 7th status quo where. Because it's not where the party is, it's not where the world is. We're not going to shovel billions a year in military aid. We're not going to veto every effort to recognize the Palestinian state at the un. We should not take money from aipac. And like, I will hold out hope for better political leadership in the US and in Israel. But we have to also recognize that the Biden era hug Bibi Netanyahu strategy has to be thrown in the trash can for fucking ever. Netanyahu is a bad actor. He's continuing a war for political purposes. He bombs Lebanon when he wants to. He bombs Iran when he wants to. He bombs Syria when he wants to. The idf, they literally bombed the Syrian army headquarters two weeks ago in Damascus. Like this is not a partner we can count on. This is not someone who is like leading to Calm and stability in the region, which should be a core interest. And like the only good thing is like that, you know, APAC calling Bernie Sanders blood libel or accusing a blood label a few years ago I feel like would have been a big deal. But that rhetoric has been so overused that I think the effect has worn off.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

And people are not scared anymore. And I think that's good.

[Jon Favreau]

They're not scared. But it's just, it's incredible to me how many Democratic politicians still haven't, I mean, 21 Senate Democrats wrote that letter. That's great. That's not the whole caucus. Angus King, like, you know, how many other Senate Democrats have called for cutting off funding like at this point, cutting off military funding for a government that is starving 2 million people and like advertising how they're ethnically cleansing the Palestinians seems like the least we can do.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. Especially if we're going to head into a primary. Table stakes is going to be no more military aid for Israel. That's like, you know, I don't understand how the argument in favor of it. And beyond that, I do think, you know, France just recognized Palestinian statehood. You know, I went and looked at the AIPAC memo on why that was so bad. And the point it makes is for 40 years, Democratic and Republican administrations have made clear that recognizing the state of Palestine must only come from negotiations. Where's that gotten us over 40 years? Right. Our being the staunch ally in the lone vote in the Security Council to prevent Palestine from being recognized. So I do think we need to what does it mean for the United States to support Israel's right to exist and defend itself after this war? And it will have to look very different. And that will start, I think, by recognizing the profound shift in the power dynamic after Israel has leveled the Gaza Strip. And by the way, as Netanyahu has promoted and sort of stood by, as the west bank has become even more settled over the last, what, how many, I don't know what percent. The expansion of settlements been dramatic.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And the violence and the violence in the West Bank.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

Against Palestinians.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So there will just will have to be a shift. And I, and I do think that will mean being putting far more pressure on Israel. And that's what I think Democrats want, by the way. That's what the country wants. And when you, when you poll Israelis, they say they want a fucking ceasefire. Like Israelis want the hostages returned through a negotiated settlement. And by the way, that's the way in which the vast majority of hostages who were returned were able to be returned.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, I will say, like, it's funny talking to Amir in the interview today. Israelis talk so much more bluntly about their criticisms of their own government than Americans do. Americans are so scared because of, you know, sort of groups like AIPAC accusing you of blood libel or people like Jonathan Greenblatt at the adl, who accused me of anti Semitism because I said Netanyahu started a war that he needed Trump to finish, which is objectively true. And talk about Iran, by the way. But, you know, I do think the Democratic Party is way behind where its base is right now and needs to catch up. One, two. I hope that in this acute moment of interest in the horrors of this famine and the need to end this war that we can find a moment to build a broader coalition that goes well beyond the Democratic Party, because the kind of. The left got very mad at me on Twitter over the weekend for saying this. But I feel strongly that the coalition that has a chance of pressuring Donald Trump in this moment to end the war in Gaza or to force Netanyahu to end the war in Gaza has to be as broad as possible. It's the furthest left to the furthest right, like the isolationist Rand Paul, Thomas Masti types and then everyone in between. And that includes people who supported the war and now they don't. That means people who are uncomfortable calling it a genocide because of the legacy of that word in the Holocaust and how it makes them feel. And I'm mostly talking my tweet said people. I was talking about average people, people. But we should also recognize that politicians we don't agree with on shit like Marjorie Taylor Greene could be very influential and important allies in this fight because she is Trump's ear. And so, like, what that means in practice is let's welcome people into the tent for the purposes of making this argument, this push to end this war, like, we gotta pull the same direction for a bit. That doesn't mean there's no accountability forever, we're buddies forever, that we won't out vote out people that supported, you know, shoveling money to the IDF through the duration of the fighting, even when it got really bad. But, like, just, can we just. I would love to see some sort of organizing effort around pressuring Trump in Netanyahu now.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, you know, it's classic story of politics is you start from the goal that you want to achieve and then you work backwards to figure out how to get to the goal. Right. It sounds simple, but it's like people lose that in the social Media mess. Right. Which is the goal is to end the war, end the starvation in Gaza. And as you said, Tommy, Trump has a lot of power to do this. And so then the question is, how do you pressure Trump to do it? That's it. And then you build the coalition to do that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And just, you know, right now, Benjamin Netanyahu has Trump, but Trump won't be there forever. And what Democrats are saying now about what they will do when they regain power matters. It's funny. It's in the same way we need to be signaling to corporations that are capitulating to Trump that there will be an after. We need to be signaling to allies and other countries around the world that there will be an after. And I think the more that Democrats now are saying that there will be increased pressure on Israel up to and including recognizing a Palestinian state. Right. That cudgel being real, like Benjamin responds to pressure in the same way people pretend Trump doesn't. People pretend Bibi doesn't, but he does.

[Tommy Vitor]

It's happening internationally, too. I mean, you mentioned the French example, but there's also a huge. There's a letter from like, 220 or 240 MPs to Kier Starmer calling on him to cut off military support to Israel because David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary of the uk, who's a good guy, a friend, he's been on Pots of the World a bunch of times, had some really harsh words for the Israeli government. But they need to be backed by actions. That's what we're all. So everybody's calling for, action.

[Jon Favreau]

Speaking of Keir Starmer, he was standing with Trump in Scotland during the press conference when Trump made the Gaza comments. And then he also had to be there for Trump, getting a few questions about his late friend and fellow enigma, Jeffrey Epstein. Here's how Trump answered.

[Gavin Newsom]

I don't do drawings. I'm not a drawing person. I don't do drawings. Sometimes he would say, would you draw a building? And I'll draw four lines and a little roof. I don't do drawings of women. That I can tell you. Now, with that being said, they say there were many letters done by many people and many big people, you know, big successful people, because he did something that was inappropriate. He hired help. And I said, don't ever do that again. He stole people that work for me. I said, don't ever do that again. He did it again. And by the way, I never went to the island. And Bill Clinton went there supposedly 28 times. I never had the privilege of going to his island. And I did turn it down, but a lot of people in Palm beach were invited to his island. In one of my very good moments, I turned it down. I didn't want to go to.

[Jon Favreau]

So, you know, we went through the whole landscape there. First he was talking about the birthday message. He doesn't draw. He doesn't draw women. Then we got to the island where he keeps saying that Bill Clinton went 28 times, which is not supported by any facts that we know of. He didn't have the privilege to go there. He was also talking about why he had the falling out with Jeffrey Epstein years ago. And the White House has been saying that Trump kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of Mar A Lago because he was a, quote, creep. But Trump there seems to say that actually he kicked him out because he poached some employees from him at Mar A Lago. I don't know, guys. What do you think?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. So, first of all, there are always. There's been these sort of unsubstantiated, anonymous reports that actually Trump kicked Epstein out of Mar A Lago because he was a creep and he was hitting on people. And Trump doesn't seem to know that that story is meant to be true because he tells this other one. It's like, how dare you accuse me of being friends with this sex trafficker and pedophile. I had a falling out with that sex trafficker and pedophile over an unrelated HR matter.

[Tommy Vitor]

He stole my butler.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It's absurd. Absurd.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah. Like, okay, just the initial denial about the drawing in the Wall Street Journal was, I never wrote a picture in my life, remember? And then we learned that Trump donated a doodle to charity every single year, and he wrote about it in his book. So now he's saying he doesn't draw women. So there's another crisis comms masterclass there.

[Jon Favreau]

Pretty soon it's going to be, I've never drawn pubes that are also my signature.

[Tommy Vitor]

And as you pointed out, the White House has been saying, oh, yeah, he kicked Epsing out because he's a creep. Now. It's like, then there was a report that it was a fallout over a real estate deal that they were competing over. Now he's just saying, you know, he poached my staff. So it's like, does he just forget the previous spin? You know what I mean? How do you not have a handle on this?

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. I feel like the White House probably did not really line up their story with him.

[Tommy Vitor]

Compare him.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. On why he kicked him out. And they probably Said, oh, you kicked him out, right? Yeah. And then they were like, oh, let's just say it's cause he was a creep, you know, like I don't really think there's a lot of rigor going into the briefings here.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. The other part of this is the letter. And now he's saying I don't draw ladies. JD Vance went on social media and said that it was fake news. And Chris Hayes got into it with him because JD Vance replies to a lot of people, present company included. And Chris's question was, so are you saying the book is fake, his letter's fake. What exactly is your contention here? And all JD Vance can say is, well, they won't even show us the letter, which is exciting cuz it does mean at some point we're gonna see that letter.

[Jon Favreau]

We're gonna see they're saving it. Jeffrey Epstein's estate has the book. So DOJ reviewed it, just waiting for that.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And we know Trump is worried about this because he's starting to refer to it as a hoax witch hunt.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, Democrats, Comey, Obama, Brennan, you name him, they all get together to put the fake pages in the book.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So now it seems like he knows that whatever we're gonna see, if we ever see it would not be good for him.

[Tommy Vitor]

It was Brennan with the sharpie.

[Jon Favreau]

With the sharpie. Brennan Island. Yeah. Comey was the one who drew the pube signature, the shell. Comey's. That's very much, very metro Comey.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And then it was the, the lovers who squeezed lemon juice on it and.

[Tommy Vitor]

Put in the toaster, made it look old but like it's been what, three weeks now. This has not gone away. I think Joe Rogan there was the quote going around today where he said the Epstein files are a hardcore line in the sand that the administration gaslight you. There's like we talked about how Congress, the House of Representatives went into recess early to avoid a vote on this Thomas Massie Ro Khanna legislation that would require the full release of the Epstein files. So that's going to kick back up when they're back in five or six weeks. Ron Wyden is talking about how he's been reviewing all of these Epstein specific bank records that are really shady. Like Trump's superpower is his relentlessness and ability to repeat a line over and over and over again until he just like bullies you into submission. But it just doesn't seem like there's a process to make this go away.

[Jon Favreau]

No. Trump said again in that press conference too that he's, quote, allowed to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. He said this on Friday for the first time. This is all after we learned that Trump's Justice Department gave Maxwell limited immunity to speak freely about the crime she committed with Epstein during her two day, nine hour conversation last week with Todd Blanche. Just Ghislaine Maxwell and Todd Blanche, the President's former defense lawyer turned deputy Attorney general. That's usually what happens. I don't know if you guys know in the Justice Department that you send the number two in the Justice Department, the guy who's usually running the Justice Department, to go alone to hang out with a convicted accomplice to a sex predator sex trafficker. And I don't know, was any. Were any of the career officials who prosecuted the case there? No, doesn't sound like it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, also, as is normal, then the defense attorney for that, that convicted sex trafficker says how great a job he thought the DOJ did in the conversation. Those prosecutors, by the way, said about Maxwell that she previously lied repeatedly about her crimes, exhibited an utter failure to accept responsibility, and demonstrated repeated disrespectful for the law and the court. Blanche says that he's showing great courage. And for the first time, we're gonna get answers from Ghislaine Maxwell. She is in prison for 20 years. A lot of these questions presumably were asked of her during the period of time in which she was being investigated, charged, put on trial, and ultimately convicted and sentenced.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah, we still don't know what Maxwell said during this, this two day session, though. Her attorney told reporters afterwards she was asked, quote, maybe about 100 different people, and that she answered every single question. That reminds me of just like Joe Biden in the debate, she answered every question Maxwell's also asking the Supreme Court. She filed this today to overturn her conviction on the grounds that she should have been protected from prosecution by the deal Epstein cut with former U.S. attorney Alex Acosta, also turned Trump Labor Secretary briefly back in 2007. What do you think? This whole idea that Trump, like Trump's, gonna pardon Maxwell potentially because she'll absolve him of any wrongdoing or just name other people and not him. Do you think that helps or hurts his political problems with his base?

[Tommy Vitor]

So clearly they're trying to seed this idea that she could be a victim and she's like a good guy and all this. Right. Like Newsmax is, Greg Kelly said on the air she just might be a victim. Like this seems like a trial balloon. I just want to be clear for folks who don't totally know Ghislaine Maxwell's role in Epstein's crimes. I mean, so According to the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York, Ghislaine Maxwell recruited and groomed girls as Young as 14 for Epstein. She was present for sexual encounters between minor victims in Epstein. And in some instances, Maxwell participated in the sexual abuse of minor victims. She and Epstein would ID vulnerable girls. They would find girls who were poor or from single mother households and prey on them because they were easy to give favors to and then pull into their evil shit. This happened from 94 to 2004. So this was someone who is evil and very much a part of this. And Republicans have spent what, the last decade, I think, calling all their political enemies groomers. And now they are talking about pardoning a literal groomer.

[Jon Favreau]

You see, Mike Johnson said on Meet the Press Sunday that he thinks she actually deserves a life sentence and he hopes that Donald Trump doesn't partner good. So that's kind of interesting, but that's a quote that seems destined to come back and haunt Mike Johnson.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, right. Well, with Mike Johnson, it's like he'll say something and then he'll just sort of be sort of smacked back into submission. Right. He also says we should have full transparency on the Epstein matter and then has Congress leave the city to avoid having that vote, like stepping back. Ghislaine Maxwell was charged under the Trump administration. When Blanche says that we're finally going to get answers, he is saying that those answers were not gotten under the first Trump administration when William Barr was Attorney General. He's saying Bill Barr was in on it.

[Tommy Vitor]

Well, there's all the connection with Bill Barr's dad and Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Barr's dad apparently hired him to work at the school, school in New York.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Tommy Vitor]

So that's all part of this conspiracy theory.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And so I agree. Yeah, I think he's in on it.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, it's interesting.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But, but like the, the like what, what makes it impossible, I think for all of this to go away is that this whole story is so con. It's so right wing shaped. Right. That's what makes it so hard for Trump to get. It's. He's never been on the business, he's never been on the, the losing end of one of these right wing shaped conspiracy or when he has, it is sort of like blown up in his face. Right.

[Jon Favreau]

It seems on Friday he's like, I don't focus on conspiracies, I'm focused on getting deals Done for the American people. Yeah. If there's anything we know about Donald Trump is he is not focused on.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Conspiracies, but like fundamentally. Right. Epstein kills himself. And a lot of evidence and a lot of what would have come out in trial doesn't happen. Right. Because the trial doesn't take place. And they turn this into a, a global pedophilia ring of Democrats, Hollywood elites, deep state operatives, and the Jews. And it's now sort of coming back to haunt him because it turns out nobody is more implicated in that conspiracy than Donald Trump himself. And I don't think you get out of it by pardoning a convicted sex trafficker and Jeffrey Epstein's chief accomplice.

[Jon Favreau]

You guys see in the Washington Post over the weekend, we got a classic of the genre, a Trump fume story. Trump fumes over Epstein and it's got like, he's, he's really angry kind of thing. But there was a few tidbits in there that I think are worth mentioning. It's, it just kind of slipped in. For weeks after the memo's release, Trump and Bondi spoke on the phone nearly every day, as they often do.

[Tommy Vitor]

That's so weird.

[Jon Favreau]

Is that, is that normal? Just the President, United States just calling up the Attorney General. Remember when, remember when there was a big scandal over Bill Clinton saying hi to Loretta lynch on the plane?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Can I make a neoliberal defense of norms?

[Ezra Klein]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

One reason this story doesn't go away is because everyone understands that Pam Bondi is Donald Trump's attorney before she's the country's attorney. She doesn't have the ability to make this story go away for him in another era. Right. It could go to the Attorney General and say, we're gonna investigate this, we're gonna look into this. It'll be completely independent and it'd be accused of being political in all kinds of ways, but it actually would allow the story to progress. Right. It would go to a prosecutor, it would go into an investigation, and it would move off of like, like the Donald Trump plate into the legal plate. But it can't, because there's only one big fucking trough of Trump control. And it means Pam Bondi can't save Donald Trump from this story. Cuz no one thinks she has credibility or integrity or any kind of separate political interest from him.

[Jon Favreau]

And in that trough is about 1,000 FBI personnel. Over two weeks, the thousand personnel had to scour. This is all the Washington Post story had to scour. More than 100,000 pages of Epstein related documents. Workers toiled around the clock and staffed mandatory weekend shifts for weeks to accommodate punishing deadlines from higher ups, and were told to flag any mentions of Trump and other prominent figures. This is. A senior bureau official said in a whistleblower report to the Senate Judiciary Committee that was obtained by the Post. After concluding that fewer than a tenth of those documents could be considered for release, staffers were asked to go through them at least four times more.

[Tommy Vitor]

Again, what is happening at the FBI, it's crazy. And it's like they're just. We'll never understand the opportunity cost again. A thousand FBI agents were. And 24,7 to review documents that they then just sit on like elves on December 22nd.

[Jon Favreau]

Just flag. Again with the control F. Could we not control F. I don't.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

I don't understand why we're not. This is.

[Tommy Vitor]

I look at this shit.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah. About to say, look, many problems with ChatGPT, but throw this bad boy up into the fucking cloud and get some names.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, apparently There's a Microsoft SharePoint online collaborative file that Blanche's office put together of mentions of Mr. Trump. Trump from the piece. So there is an Epstein. You might call it a list. It's a Microsoft SharePoint. There is a list with Trump's name on it of how many times that someone has. And Dick Durbin is demanding that. Dick Durbin is also demanding the tapes of the Maxwell interviews that Todd Blanche did. Doesn't seem like he's gonna get them, but I don't know.

[Tommy Vitor]

I think it's smart to make that part of the conversation. For sure. I wouldn't have thought that there might be tapes. There might be a transcript or a record of it. I mean, I was thinking about the Loretta Lynch, Bill Clinton conversation on the tarmac, however, in 2015, 2016, because Republicans never stop talking about it, we need to get these meetings sort of viewed in that way. And I wondered if Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie could include these documents that Durbin's going after as part of their release. All the Epstein files legislation that feels like it would fall under that bucket.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

And then you see all these kind of ways around releasing the Epstein. It would be all credible information. And I do like, to Tommy's point too, like, these were serious and disgusting crimes. And, like, part of what can't be released is a lot of graphic evidence. Victims. Right. Like, a lot of people were hurt. And like, to me, that just goes to. They turned, like, sort of despicable crimes that were allowed to go on for years into this political cudgel. And they never cared about the victims. It was never even that real to them. It became a kind of like, I don't know, abstraction about they thought Bill.

[Tommy Vitor]

Clinton was gonna go down. They thought they were gonna get some way to, like, prosecute Bill Clinton. They didn't care about the victims. And this whole conversation about releasing Ghislaine Maxwell or giving her a pardon. I mean, Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre said of Maxwell, she is a monster. She's worse than Epstein. She was vicious, she was evil. I know that woman. I mean, this is one of Epstein's victims.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It reminds me too, like, they spend all this time saying they're gonna. They're going after criminal aliens. And then in order to get the innocent people out of El Salvador, they release a murderer, a triple murderer, onto the streets of the US they spend all these years claiming there's a cabal of people protecting pedophiles and their accomplices, and then they're sending the deputy attorney general down to kind of start the process of a sweetheart deal with one of like, like, basically a serial predator. Really don't like them.

[Tommy Vitor]

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[Ezra Klein]

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[Tommy Vitor]

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[Ezra Klein]

Were we?

[Tommy Vitor]

I think that's what Hannah and I got. But either way, it's a great mattress. It's super comfortable. It also gets shipped to your door.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

Then you.

[Tommy Vitor]

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[Jon Favreau]

Back to our apartment. It's terrible.

[Tommy Vitor]

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[Amir Tbone]

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[Jon Favreau]

Well, you know, Trump and the White House are celebrating a big development in the president's global trade war, a new permanent 15% tax on most of the stuff we buy from Europe. The quote unquote deal Trump announced with the European Union is lower than the 30% tax he initially threatened. And in exchange, the EU said it would spend $750 billion on American energy and invest another $600 billion in the U.S. whatever the hell. As a reminder, U.S. tariffs are at their highest since the 1930s and about six times higher than when Trump took office, which is probably why the BBC went with the headline winner Donald Trump, Loser, US Consumers. Here's what Trump said about the deal on Monday.

[Gavin Newsom]

But we're going to be setting a tariff for essentially the rest of the world, and that's what they're going to pay if they want to do business in the United States. Because you can't sit down and make 200 deals. I would say it'll be somewhere in the 15 to 20% range.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

So maybe 15 or 20 or no.

[Gavin Newsom]

I said, you know, I sort of know. But I just want to be nice deals first.

[Jon Favreau]

We're going to have deals, all the 90 deals in 90 days. Now there's no deals. It takes too much time. So I'm just setting a tax. What's the tax based on? What's the tariff rate based on? We don't know. Big victory because now other countries aren't paying tariffs, but we're paying tariffs here in the US like, what's going on? What is the point of all this.

[Tommy Vitor]

These are not really deals or framework agreements. The details are just not ironed out. And then like, you know this because the Japanese are signaling, if not outright saying that Trump's team is just making shit up. Like Scott Bessant went on Fox, I think Laura Ingram, and he was like, oh, yeah, they're going to buy all this stuff. We're going to have an implementation process where we review it every three months. And the Japanese trade negotiator responded. In my eight trips to the United States, during which I held talks with the President and the ministers, I have no recollection of discussing how we ensure the implementation of the latest agreement between Japan and the United States. In other words, bullshit. And the White House is saying that this is a $550 billion investment in the US and the US is going to keep like 90% of the profits. The trade minister from Japan said no 1 to 2% of the 550 billion is actual investment. The rest is loans and loan guarantees. So it's like, it just, it's like the EU part of it is a little weird. I was surprised they didn't put up little more of a fight, given that they have some real heft in terms of, of economic leverage. But it's probably harder to get a big block like that to negotiate as a group. And maybe they were just nervous or maybe it's all bullshit too, and we're going to see more details of the EU deal and realize that I do think like big picture, all these countries benefit from knowing that Trump cares about the Day One headline, not the implementation.

[Jon Favreau]

Right.

[Tommy Vitor]

Remember six months ago when Trump had that press event with Sam Altman and the head of SoftBank, Larry Ellison, and they announced a 500, a half a trillion dollar thing called Stargate. Remember this? So the company said, we're going to invest half a trillion dollar on like data centers and infrastructure for AI in the US including 100 billion right now. Well, the Wall Street Journal the other day reported that they haven't completed a single data center deal yet. It's like all scaling back the ambitions completely. In the first Trump term, Trump made this deal with China where the Chinese promised to buy 200 billion in additional U.S. goods and services above the level they purchased in 2017. And then China ultimately bought none of that additional $200 billion. So I just, I don't trust that any of this is going to happen.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Or, or that any of it is not investments that were already on the table. I mean, that was like Mexico and Canada, that was their move. Right. Like, just. Let's just label shit we were already doing. It's like, oh, yeah, Trump, you got us. And so, like, you know, we have our EU and the United States, Japan, United States. Our economies are incredibly intertwined. There's. There's billions upon billions of dollars moving between our countries. You can ascribe, oh, yeah, we're gonna buy a bunch of American energy. Oh, yeah, we're gonna invest in a bunch of factories. They are every day. That's why this is so fucking stupid.

[Jon Favreau]

Markets seem happy these days with the trade war. I think that's maybe because the period of uncertainty is coming to a close here. And I guess Trump didn't go with the full Liberation Day tariffs, But, you know, Morgan Stanley says they don't think we'll have a recession, but we still believe the most likely outcome is slow growth and firm inflation. So it's like, great, we're gonna have inflation now and slow growth. And, you know, the. Again, we've said this before, but a lot of these companies have so far either been eating the tariffs themselves or still have goods imported from before they went into effect. So the price increases really haven't set. They're about to set in, but they really haven't even set in yet. And I still remember that quote from our friend Jason Furman, who we used to work with on. On Derek Thompson's podcast. He was like, look, if you asked everyone in the country to come together and set fire to $1,000, it would seem like a phenomenally stupid idea, and we'd all remember forever who came up with it. But it wouldn't crash the economy. It was just be a bunch of people lighting $1,000 on fire. He's like, that's about what's going to happen. Like, there's like a half a point of growth that we're going to lose that we would have had otherwise, with that. Without the. Without the tariffs, right?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes. Like, the United States economy is strong enough and robust enough to survive a stupid policy from Donald Trump. And by the way, even as a lot of people will end up paying more for things that they need. Right. At first, it'll be washing machines. Right? We've seen that before. The price of washing machines just goes up. They pass the price on to consumers. Right. And then you'll see a bunch of wealthy people be like, hey, they said this trade war was gonna bankrupt the economy. I'm not feeling it at all. Well, of course you're not. Of course you're not. You're not impacted by the daily cost of necessities. That's not what you do. That doesn't hit you in the same way it hits a person who will actually be impacted by this.

[Jon Favreau]

Speaking of lighting money on fire, you know what it's time for, guys? A corrupt date.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Nice. Oh.

[Jon Favreau]

Corrupt date.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

God, that sucks. Just sucks. Terrible.

[Jon Favreau]

You guys remember the Qatari jet episode where everyone freaked out for a few days over Trump accepting a free gift from a royal family that funds Hamas? Turns out that Qatar may have built the plane, but guess who's going to pay for it? We are. The New York Times reports that the cost to taxpayers of renovating the plane for Trump's use might be around $1 billion. And the reason we know this is because the Times discovered that the Pentagon made a secret transfer for that amount from the program intended to upgrade our nuclear missiles to an anonymous project that's believed to be refurbishing the Qatari jet. But wait, there's more. The Washington Post is reporting that in the original draft of the agreement that transfers ownership of the plane, Qatar included language that stipulated the plane would belong specifically to the Air Force. But the US Pushed back and removed that language so that Trump could take the plane with him when he leaves. As a keepsake, of course, from us as a $1 billion thank you to Mr. Trump for making America great again with his Middle Eastern sugar daddy plane. Tommy, why isn't this a bigger story?

[Tommy Vitor]

This is incredible. This is incredible. We're paying for our president's plane that he gets to keep. He gets a little doggy bag with a plane in it from the guitarist when he leaves the White House, and it costs a billion dollars and it comes out of the nuclear missile fund. I mean, if we take back the House, this list is getting longer. But this has got to be like, top three items on the oversight relentless focus list. Right? Because remember, the Republicans figured out that Hillary Clinton had a private server and a private email because they did 700 Benghazi hearings. That's got to be the focus here. Just like relentlessly to ban documents, investigate this stuff. All kinds of oversight over corruption, the crypto, the Qatari plane, all the real estate dealings, all of it, as we kind of sell a message about what MAGA has become.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, it's even just. We were talking about this when we on earlier that. That it's even being framed. Like, oh, the US Is getting this weird gift from the Qataris. No, there's a plane that Donald Trump is receiving as a gift that the US Government is fixing up for him for free. He is stealing a billion dollars from the US Government to fix up a present he's getting from the Qataris. It's making a brief stopover in D.C. but its final destination is Trump's, quote, presidential library. But it will be his to fly around the world. It may be never done in time for him to use his president. And by the way, just, I mean.

[Jon Favreau]

Hopefully it's done in time for him to leave the White House. Otherwise he's gonna miss out on that gift.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Well, you know, all right, well, right on that. I think what they won't just get. What happens if he leaves before it's done.

[Jon Favreau]

That's what I'm saying.

[Tommy Vitor]

Well, if it's not done, who cares? He doesn't need all the, like, special comms equipment stuff.

[Jon Favreau]

Oh, then he just takes it. He's just like, yeah, can't take it.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Half finished. So none of this makes sense, Right? Obviously, this is all stupid. They're gonna have to finish up the other Air Force ones that they're already building anyway. So this is just an add on cost. But by the way, like, did anyone.

[Jon Favreau]

Keep the receipt for the other two?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

But, like, everyone's like, oh, my God, it's a billion dollars. They don't know how much it's gonna cost to fix up this. No one, no one in human history has ever taken a 7478 from a middle Eastern government, stripped it down to the studs, and then rebuilt it at Air Force One. It's not like, how much did this cost the last time we did that? It's never been done before. They have no idea what it's gonna cost.

[Jon Favreau]

And we need the gold. Gold plating, too. Everything needs to be gold. How much is that gonna cost?

[Tommy Vitor]

You guys know the Pentagon. They usually come in on time, under budget with these sorts of things. Famously so.

[Jon Favreau]

Famously so.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah.

[Jon Favreau]

Well, now that they've been doged, you know.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, exactly.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah. So that's great.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

President Charlie Kirk is gonna be gonna be getting this at the end of his term.

[Tommy Vitor]

Jesus Christ.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

If he's lucky.

[Jon Favreau]

All right, when we come back from the break, you'll hear Tommy's conversation with Amir T. Bone. But before we get to that, here's the news that I teased earlier. Big announcement.

[Tommy Vitor]

What do we got?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Dan's in the Epstein files. So got to get ahead of that.

[Jon Favreau]

No, that's not it. We're here to announce something. It's called Crooked Con. In November, it will have been a year since Donald Trump won again. And everyone has had some Time to sit and think about what we've all done and what we haven't done. And we wanted to get everyone together who doesn't want Donald Trump or someone like Donald Trump to be president again to talk about the path forward.

[Tommy Vitor]

Republicans have their cpac. Oh yeah, this is D pac.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Oh yeah, we need a better name.

[Jon Favreau]

Terrible name.

[Tommy Vitor]

Terrible, terrible name. Truthfully, Republicans have been really smart about this and they gather everyone together. And sure, at the beginning it seemed like a bunch of fringe crazies, but guess who's now running the government? Those fringe crazies who started cpac. So we need to get together, talk about what's going on, get smarter, get better, maybe trying to figure out how we screwed up so bad in the past, move forward.

[Jon Favreau]

If you have seen the intra party debate among in the Democratic Party play out on the Internet and in the media, you've probably noticed that it's maybe not the most constructive thing to do.

[Tommy Vitor]

Not always.

[Jon Favreau]

So a real constructive thing we thought would be to get people together in person and have bunch of conversations with organizers, strategists, politicians, the cool ones.

[Tommy Vitor]

If you work in politics at any.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Level, from Capitol Hill to in your community, this is the place to go to learn what's happening in this country, to learn from some of the smartest people out there and meet the people who are on the front lines trying to beat maga.

[Jon Favreau]

Plus, we're going to figure out a way to stop those text messages.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yes, truly. Like, if there's one thing that can come out of this event, it is stopping the text messages. Dan, I don't think we should put that on ourselves. The measure of success can't be attend this event. Never get an annoying text from a Democratic politician again.

[Jon Favreau]

It's a high bar and it's going to be in D.C. we're going to gather at the Ellipse.

[Tommy Vitor]

Gonna be wild.

[Jon Favreau]

It's gonna be wild. It'll be wild. No, it's gonna be at the, at the.

[Tommy Vitor]

No, Wharf.

[Jon Favreau]

Wharf.

[Tommy Vitor]

It's gonna be at the Wharf.

[Jon Favreau]

We're calling it the Wharf.

[Tommy Vitor]

Is that, Are we calling it the Wharf?

[Ezra Klein]

Right, it's the Wharf.

[Jon Favreau]

It's gonna be. It's gonna be a place that's so new that when we lived there, we didn't even.

[Tommy Vitor]

It was just a dock.

[Jon Favreau]

It was just a dock.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

It was just.

[Jon Favreau]

Now it's a whole wharf. And in case you guys think it's gonna be just us Neolib Obama shills, we're gonna go way to the right of us people from across the Political spectrum. If that political spectrum is from the left to the center right, it'll run.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

From the left to Tim Miller. Basically. That's the. And Sarah, that's. That's really the bounce.

[Jon Favreau]

We're gonna get everyone together and we're gonna have some fun. We're also gonna do a positive America show the first night just to kick things off. And then the next day, we're gonna all get together and get down to business, you know?

[Dan Pfeiffer]

Yeah, get down to business and. And fun.

[Jon Favreau]

There'll be alcohol.

[Tommy Vitor]

Dan's gonna do shots.

[Jon Favreau]

Dan's gonna do shots.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

If we can solve the text message.

[Tommy Vitor]

Problem, I'll definitely do shots.

[Jon Favreau]

Yeah.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

What happens if the wharf stays at the wharf?

[Jon Favreau]

Is it even called the war?

[Tommy Vitor]

We don't even know if it's called the war.

[Jon Favreau]

Anyway, get your tickets. Crookedcon.com Is it crookedcon.com yes, of course.

[Tommy Vitor]

Great job getting crookedcon.com crookedcon.com Stay tuned for more information, but we're gonna be announcing our lineup soon.

[Jon Favreau]

November 6th and 7th, Washington, D.C. yeah, be there, there. Grab tickets, go online cricket.com crookedcon.com Pod Save America is brought to you by Bombus. Summer's here, and we're all chasing something. A break, a goal, a vibe. Let's not let bad socks and blisters ruin it. Bombus makes socks that keep up with whatever your summer looks like, whether you're running a marathon or just a few errands. Seriously, you know that song that makes you want to go fast? Bombus running socks are like that. They wick, sweat, help you keep cool and fight blisters. And it's not just running. They make specialized pairs for hiking, tennis, golf, you name it. They even make socks that can make international flights bearable. Yeah, we're talking Bombas compression socks to help curb aches and keep those legs energized for all the sightseeing ahead. Plus, with wedding season in full swing, you're going to want to see their ruffle and dress socks. That'll make you the best dressed guest. Best of all, they don't just feel good, they do good. One purchased equals one donated to someone who needs it. You can also order Bombas abroad. That's right. Along with the US they now ship internationally to over 200 countries. Love Bombas socks. I have them. Emily's got them. The kids have them. They come in all kinds of different colors. Good. Nice, fun patterns on them. And they're comfy.

[Tommy Vitor]

It's a little hug for your foot. You know what I mean?

[Ezra Klein]

There you Go.

[Tommy Vitor]

There's something nice about.

[Jon Favreau]

Thanks. You brought it home.

[Tommy Vitor]

It just gives your foot a little squeeze. It feels good.

[Jon Favreau]

If you want a hug for your feet, you gotta try Bombas.

[Tommy Vitor]

That's right.

[Jon Favreau]

Head over to bombas.com and use code CROOKED for 20% off your first purchase. That's B O-M-B-A S.com code CROOKED at checkout bombas.com and use code crooked.

[Amir Tbone]

Did you know that parents rank financial literacy as the number one most difficult life skill to teach? Meet Greenlight, the debit card and money app for families. With Greenlight, you can set up chores, automate allowance and keep an eye on your kids spending with real time notifications. Kids learn to earn, save and spend wisely. And parents can rest easy knowing their kids are learning about money with guardrails in place. Sign up for Greenlight [e-mail] podcast.

[Tommy Vitor]

I'm excited to welcome to the show my friend Amir Tbone. He is a reporter for Haare. He's the author of the book Gates of Gaza, a Story of Betrayal, survival and hope in Israel's borderlands. Amir, great to see you.

[Ezra Klein]

Hey, thanks for having me.

[Tommy Vitor]

As usual, terrible circumstances, but great to see you. I wanted to talk with you about this horrific humanitarian situation in Gaza. Why a deal to end the war has been so elusive. Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu's legal and political challenges and his relationship with Trump, among other things. But first, I did just want to help listeners understand kind of who you are and your perspective on these issues. You have been a harsh critic of Netanyahu, You've been a critic of the war, but you also spent eight hours, I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, hiding from.

[Ezra Klein]

Yeah, but.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, yeah. In a safe room on a Kibbutz on October 7th. So this is very, very personal for you. I mean, can you just tell listeners a little bit about your experience?

[Ezra Klein]

Well, first of all, it's important for me to say that October 7th, for me is very personal. October 7th is the day that started this nightmare, started this terrible war, this disaster, catastrophe that we've been dealing with for 662 days now. And because my family and I, we live in a community, small kibbutz, right on the border with Gaza, on the Israeli side of the border, within the internationally recognized borders of Israel. Our community was attacked by Hamas on October 7, 16. Sixteen of my neighbors, personal friends of mine, people I would see every day, were murdered and killed. On that day, another seven were kidnapped into Gaza. And one close friend of mine Omri Miran, father of two young girls, is still held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza today as we speak, separated from his wife and two young daughters, like I said, for 662 days. So this is the background, and I come to this issue from what I describe as a liberal Zionist perspective. I'm a proud Israeli, proud Zionist, and I can tell you that in the early weeks and months of this terrible war, I thought it was terrible, but necessary. Today, I think it's much more terrible, and also that we have to end it and that we really should have ended it many, many months ago, and that the fact that it is still continuing, it has brought so much suffering and despair. And, you know, I look at it with great frustration because the war's continuation. This is what's keeping the hostages over there in the tunnels of Gaza, including my friend Omari. This is what is causing all the suffering in Gaza and in Israel. It's time to end it. And this is the reason I'm talking to you, my friend. Honestly, I mean, I love seeing you, Tommy, but this is the message I want to send through to people. We really need to put an end to this.

[Tommy Vitor]

I think it's a very important message. So, you know, the images that have been coming out of Gaza are horrifying, especially quite recently. I mean, there's these images of starving children. There are these massive crowds of desperate people just trying to get food. There's all these reports of mass casualty incidents after the IDF or security contractors fired on the crowds of people who are just trying to get food. Can you help us just explain or understand how the aid distribution process got so bad? Especially what the Gaza Humanitarian foundation is and what it is supposed to be doing.

[Ezra Klein]

This is going to be a bit of a long answer, but trust me, it's important for understanding and putting all the pieces together. So in mid January 2025, half a year ago, right around the time that the transition from President Biden to President Trump was taking place, a ceasefire agreement was reached in Gaza after 15 terrible months of war. And that ceasefire agreement had several components. One of them was the release of Israeli hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners. Another was a partial evacuation of Israeli forces from some areas of Gaza. And another one was pushing up the amount of aid that goes into Gaza. And at the time, the mechanism was that the aid would come through different UN agencies and humanitarian organizations. And that ceasefire was supposed to have two phases. Phase one, 60 days, release of 33 Israeli hostages, like I said, partial withdrawal, Palestinian prisoners. And then there was supposed to be phase two, which was supposed to include the release of all the remaining Israeli hostages in return for a complete withdrawal from Gaza of the Israeli military and a formal end of war agreement. Agreement. And in March 2025, Prime Minister Netanyahu decided that he doesn't want this deal anymore, even though he signed it. And he decided to renew the war in Gaza, break the terms of the deal. He tried to offer a new kind of agreement, which is a weird thing to do, right? You sign an agreement putting up, you know, and I'm not here to advocate in any way for Hamas, these are monstrous terrorists. I told you about my own background with them. But we signed a deal. And to try and impose new terms in the middle of that deal being implemented is not something you would usually do. Hamas didn't accept the new terms that were supposed to be basically a prolonging of the temporary ceasefire instead of ending the war. And then what Netanyahu did, apart from renewing the war, he said, we are going to put a blockade on Gaza. We're going to stop all aid from coming into the Gaza Strip. This was in March. He said it on the record, in Hebrew at the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. He said, we're going to stop all the aid from coming in. Now, at the time this happened right after the two month ceasefire, so there wasn't any shortage of food or aid in Gaza, because during those two months that there was no war, you had hundreds of trucks coming in every day from Israel, from Egypt. But once this blockade started, you had a clock that was beginning to tick tock, the humanitarian clock. For how long will the supplies that came into Gaza during the ceasefire actually last for a territory with 2 million people and a territory that most of the agriculture and the food production and the fishing and everything else that used to exist there in order to feed people, a lot of it doesn't exist anymore because of the devastation of the war. And around May, the clock was, you know, ticking very fast. And there was a real concern that you would have severe food shortages and hunger. And that's when this new player arrived on the scene. The Gaza Humanitarian foundation, an organization that was set up from the best of my understanding in Switzerland. And now there is an invasion investigation going on over there about the origins of this. And it involves a lot of people from the United States. It is led by someone who's a prominent evangelical leader with strong ties to some political figures in Israel. And this organization says, we are going to take over the aid distribution in Gaza. We're going to take it from the un and we're going to run this. And they set up four aid distribution centers in different parts of Gaza. Now, think about it. It a territory of 2 million people getting all their food from four locations. How is that even supposed to work?

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, I heard the UN had like 400 some.

[Ezra Klein]

And I'm not saying the UN system was great or perfect. And, you know, there is something that we all here in Israel have been saying and watching and hearing that Hamas would steal the supplies that came in through the UN and then sell it on the black market in Gaza.

[Jon Favreau]

And.

[Ezra Klein]

And this was a huge problem. But the idea that you would replace the UN system with all its flaws and all its problems with these four distribution sites, to me, from the beginning, it sounded impossible. And these distribution sites became the sites of horrendous scenes of crowds packing and pushing and shoving to get to whatever food was being distributed. And those firing incidents and shelling and, you know, these contrasting claims that Israel says Hamas was killing these people to keep them away from the GHF distribution centers, and other eyewitnesses, including Israeli soldiers, saying, well, we were given orders to open fire in the vicinity of the distribution centers. It just became a total disaster. And people didn't want to go there because they were afraid for their lives after hundreds of people got killed. And the humanitarian situation, instead of improving via the presence of this humanitarian foundation, it only got worse and worse and worse, until in the last few weeks, even officials in the Israeli military and government began to warn that we are facing the prospect of hunger, of starvation in Gaza. And this became an international issue. And a lot of pressure was being placed on Israel from the us, From European allies. Now, remember, the whole point of this policy of blocking all the aid from coming in and then bringing in this American foundation to run the aid distribution, supposedly in a way that wouldn't reach Hamas's hands. Right. This was the selling point of GHF as presented by Israeli and American officials. The whole point behind this, this was to pressure Hamas to compromise in the hostage negotiations, accept Netanyahu's terms for a partial agreement. Because what Hamas wants, they keep insisting to go back to the January ceasefire terms, which is all the hostages for end of war. And what Netanyahu says, no, I'm willing to do a partial agreement, temporary ceasefire, some hostages come back, and then I renew the war. So the whole point of this effort to block the aid and then to impose the aid distribution through these four apocalyptic distribution centers was to get Hamas to compromise. Well, guess what? Tommy, we are now at the end of July. Okay, it's four, it's going to be five months soon. Hamas hasn't compromised. We haven't had any hostage deal, any breakthrough. Only one living hostage came back during this entire period. Idan Alexander, the American Israeli dual citizen. He was released as part of a separate side deal between the Trump administration and Hamas. So this entire thing, not only is it creating terrible consequences on the ground and people are dying, it didn't serve any strategic or national security goals for Israel. The opposite. What Hamas started doing is that they saw where this was going and they used it in order to turn the world against Israel. And now Israel is being accused of starvation and keeping food away from hungry children. And this caused Hamas to harden its positions in the negotiations. They feel emboldened. And over the weekend, after so many people warned and so many people raised red flags, the Israeli government began to change course again in kind of a panic mode. Usual behavior for Netanyahu. And now they're trying to bring more and more aid into Gaza, which is good. I mean, this is the right thing to do. But you ask yourself, what was it for this entire thing, what purpose did it serve?

[Tommy Vitor]

And look, I agree with you. There are these sort of temporary cease not ceasefires in place. There's pauses in place in the fighting.

[Ezra Klein]

And now they begin to do it like 10 hours a day. And again, you know, think about it from an Israeli perspective, Tomi. For 10 hours a day, we're stopping the fire in large parts of Gaza. And it's not part of a hostage release. This is like, from the Israeli perspective, the ultimate failure, right? The whole argument was, we'll renew the war so we get back the hostages. And of course it was a lie. The way to get back the hostages was to continue the ceasefire from January. But look what's happening now.

[Tommy Vitor]

And just to point out, like, look, there's also Israelis are allowing some airdropping of supplies, which is just completely insufficient. Not gonna work during the Biden administration.

[Ezra Klein]

It's a show this doesn't solve. You need truck, trucks, truck.

[Tommy Vitor]

You need tons of trucks.

[Ezra Klein]

10 airplanes is like one truck. Just to give people a perspective in terms of the amount of aid.

[Tommy Vitor]

Right? It's totally insufficient. And also the time to prevent starvation is weeks ago. People are now at a state of such severe malnutrition that it can be irreversible. And what it is going to require is an exponential surge of aid, because the deaths we are starting to see are the weakest, the most frail people, right? People who are sick or young or elderly, and there is very likely to be a wave of deaths next if there isn't a massive surge of aid.

[Ezra Klein]

This is true. But I don't want this to discourage anybody with influence from pushing aid in, because if you push enough aid, you can still save a lot of people. And by the way, also from the Israeli perspective, flooding Gaza with food and supplies is. Is better than the rationing that was created under ghf. Because what Hamas is doing, when they steal some of the food and some of the aid, they're selling it for a lot of money on the black market in Gaza. And food is being sold for ridiculous prices in Gaza, and then they use that money to pay their fighters, their terrorists. If you flooded Gaza with such amounts of food that the prices would grow down, Right. If you bring down the price of wheat, the price of bread, the price of fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, cigarettes, whatever, you bring it down by flooding the area. So Hamas, whatever they get their hands on, they wouldn't be able to sell it for so much money. So, again, this is, you know, just. It's a stupid policy and it created horrendous consequences on the ground and we have to reverse it. We have to reverse it. And the time to do it, like you said, was weeks ago, but. But now at least it's being done.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah, I think both of us fully support flooding aid in, but, you know, longer term, I mean, like you mentioned, there have been these two ceasefires. One ended in March after Israel resumed military operations. You and I could get into all the details of, like, you know, sequencing of, you know, hostage releases versus prisoner releases and aid distribution and, you know, where both sides want the IDF to pull back to in these, in the process. But I really feel like. Yeah, but I really just feel like it boils down to one massive difference that can feel unbridgeable, which is Hamas wants to negotiate a permanent end to the conflict, and Bibi Netanyahu does. Not because he worries it would collapse his government, but also because I think a lot of Israelis, I think, understandably, would view that as a quote, unquote, win for Hamas. Is that accurate? And if so, like, what is the pathway to bridging that gap?

[Ezra Klein]

I think in this war, you're not going to have, at least in the Gaza theater, you're not going to have a real winner because Israel lost so much on October 7th and the people of Gaza lost so much since October 7th, and both sides continue to lose so much every day that this is just a disaster. For everybody. You can argue that Israel won the war with Hezbollah in the north. You can argue that Israel won the war with Iran. And I think those are correct interpretations of what happened in both theaters. I think there is a tendency to exaggerate the magnitude of the victory. And I am always on the side of caution and not being arrogant and not underestimating the enemy and underestimating the desire for revenge that comes after humiliation. But I do think, overall, you can say Israel won the Lebanon and Iran front. I think the Gaza front. The promise of victory over there is fantasy. And we are losing every day because we're losing soldiers there. You know, an entire generation of young Israelis that, you know, these are people who were kids, like, 18, on the verge of enlistment when October 7th happened. They're losing their friends and. And so much over there. And we have the hostages still not coming back. Our reputation as a country is just destroyed as a result of the events of the last few months. It's tearing our society apart and the moral consequences and the questions that rise from it. This is something that we will have to contend with perhaps for years. At the same time, to say that Hamas won anything. I mean, look what. What. What they brought upon Gaza. Yeah, look what, what, you know, entire cities have been erased because of what they did on October said. So I don't think this is a question of victory or loss. I think. I agree there's a lot of politics involved here. But at the end of the day, you need to make a deal. You get all the hostages out, end the war, start rebuilding the IDF, because our military took a serious hit on October 7th. We lost a lot of soldiers since October 7th to death and injury and PTSD. We have some burning internal problems inside Israel that have to be fixed. One of them is the question of who serves in the army, who is exempt from military service. This has been a big political question here in Israel because certain segments of Israeli society that have a lot of influence in the Netanyahu government are exempted from service, and it's extremely unfair towards those who do serve. So. So we need to focus on these issues instead of chasing the last Hamas fighter and the last AK47 and the last rocket launcher in Gaza amid the rubble and the destruction there. And as we are destroying our own society and our global reputation. And this is what's at hand here. And I think most Israelis understand it. I think a lot of Israelis who supported the war in the early months of it, and I include myself in that group today, they are convinced that we need to make a comprehensive deal to finish it.

[Tommy Vitor]

But the challenge remains, right, that Netanyahu maybe does not want that deal, largely because he has this coalition of far right ministers and they could collapse his government. Right.

[Ezra Klein]

I think it's important, Tommy, to explain in just a minute or even 45 seconds, Israeli politics are very different than American politics, right? In the U.S. s, the president is directly elected. S are the senators, the members of congress. You know, you choose a person for a job and they have a term. In Israel, we have parliamentary politics, which means you vote for a party, and then from those parties that make it into the parliament, you need to build a ruling coalition, because you never have a scenario where one party actually has an outright majority. You need different parties to cooperate. Netanyahu's governing coalition relies on far right messianic fanatic elements that oppose ending the war, oppose the hostage deal. They almost resigned because of the previous hostage deal, even though it was a temporary partial ceasefire. And they are threatening to pull the plug and bring down his government if he actually makes a comprehensive deal. And this is a frustrating situation because most Israelis, in return for all the hostages, will support ending the war. But this minority government, they're literally a minority government now because they don't even have a majority anymore in the parliament. They lost it because of other political issues that got in the way. They are dictating the continuation of this war and these, you know, the daily grind and death of soldiers and suffering of the hostages and the catastrophe in Gaza. And by the way, it's also impacting the border communities, like Mikey bustling. A lot of families are not coming back, not going back to live in the kibbutz until the war ends. People don't want to bring their children back into a war zone. So this is creating so much frustration, and it is driven mostly by political interests of one man who wants to remain in power.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah. And so look, there's a question, I think, in the US of how to bring about political pressure on Netanyahu to force him to change. Because when Biden was in charge of, there was this mantra from the White House you hear all the time that you need to hug Bibi to get him to do what you want. And that meant never disagreeing with Netanyahu, publicly giving Netanyahu political cover at the UN Funneling weapons to the Israeli government. And look, full disclosure, like that kind of hug Bibi. Shit drove me crazy. I thought it was a terrible approach then. I think it's a terrible approach now. Now Trump is in charge of the relationship. I would argue that Gaza had a huge impact on the 2024 election. Now, Trump, interestingly, has been more willing to break with Netanyahu on certain issues, like, you know, the Houthi rebels. Like, we don't get all the details, but willing to. Yeah, yeah, he's been willing to kind of give Netanyahu the Heisman on certain issues. Gaza has not really been one of them, with the exception of that first cease fire. But let's say that like the Trump or the next president or the U.S. congress, they really wanted to pressure Netanyahu. What steps could the US Government take that would actually matter?

[Ezra Klein]

I want to say something specifically about Trump. President Trump is very popular in Israel because of the attacks in Iran that he conducted, which were viewed by most Israelis as something that significantly improves the national security of Israel because of some things he did in his first term as president, when he moved the embassy to Jerusalem and, and recognize the Golan Heights as part of Israel and things like that. Abraham Accords. And also because of that first ceasefire deal in January, because President Biden tried for many, many months to reach that ceasefire and bring back those hostages. And I want to give credit to President Biden for the first ceasefire and hostage release deal, which happened in November 2023. That deal brought us back 100 living hostages from Gaza because remember, on October 7th, Hamas kidnapped 250 people, including women and children and agricultural workers from Thailand, who are not even Israeli. And so Biden's deal brought us back 100. But then the January deal, I gave a lot of credit to President Trump for reaching it, because after that first agreement, Biden failed to get another deal for 14 months until Trump came in and boom, it happened. And that also gave him a lot of popularity. President Trump could easily use that popularity among the Israeli public to go out and say, it's time to end the war in Gaza, it's time to make a comprehensive ceasefire deal. Enough with this. Excuse my French, but, you know, bullshit of temporary deals, partial deals, five hostages today, five hostages two weeks from now, two hostages 50 days from now. You know, we'll discuss the end of the war during the negotiations. No. Why does it have to be so complicated? Because that's what Netanyahu and Ron Dermer want. If Trump came out and said, it's time for a comprehensive agreement, end the war in Gaza, release all the hostages in one, you know, put them all on one bus, okay? 20 of them, including my friend Omri Miran, are alive. Put them all on one bus. 30 are assumed to be dead. Put all their caskets on another bus and bring them to Israel and finish this nightmare and have a plan for the day after. In Gaza, Hamas will have to give up the governing powers. There will have to be a different Palestinian government there. You have an Egyptian, Saudi, Emirati plan just on this issue that with some tweaks and corrections, can be accepted by Israel and can be a good solution and can create better security. Trump can get it done just by the fact that he's so popular in Israel that it would be difficult for Netanyahu to face up and confront him over this. But he refuses to do it. And instead, what he's doing, he's adopting Netanyahu and Dermer's temporary partial ceasefire plan. You know, this idea of a 60 day ceasefire. Several hostages will be released in the beginning, another few hostages will be released after 50 days. The rest of the hostages will wait for the 60 day mark and you will have negotiations in between. And Netanyahu is even insisting in the negotiations that the aid into Gaza will keep running through ghf, this organization. And you know, I ask a simple question, Tommy. Are we getting everything mixed up, up? I thought, based on what Netanyahu said, that the purpose of GHF was to pressure Hamas to compromise in the hostage negotiations because they will not have access to the aid or whatever. Why are we instead pushing off the hostage deal in order to keep in place ghf? That's just twisted logic. Trump could cut that entire kind of Gordian knot in a second. He just needs to decide that he wants to do it, and he will get a lot of credit for it internationally and I believe also in the United States. I think most Americans, as far as they follow this war, they just want it to end because they think it's tragic and heartbreaking. And he will also get a lot of credit for it in Israel. But he needs to decide that he wants to do it. As long as he keeps allowing Netanyahu and Dermer to set the terms of the negotiations, everything is going to remain stuck.

[Tommy Vitor]

Well, and also I would say, you tell me if I'm wrong. He didn't really help matters by promoting this plan for the full ethnic cleansing of Gaza and turning it into a resort town, which is ludicrous on its face in a war crime and crime against humanity. But it's also normalized that position in the government.

[Ezra Klein]

That plan is not going to be helpful because now you have the far right in Israel say, well, why should we make a hostage deal if we can get this plan from Trump. And the military in Israel says this plan is a fantasy that is never going to be executed. And then the ministers in government tell the generals, no, you just lack imagination. And it's become a sticking point that is getting everything again stuck in place. And Trump, again, he has the leverage to put an end to this nightmare. He really does. But he needs to decide that he wants to do it.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah. And one other challenge here, which is that, you know, Prime Minister Netanyahu is on trial for all kinds of corruption, accepting gifts, giving favors to, you know, powerful people for media coverage, bribery, regulatory.

[Ezra Klein]

Favors, breach of trust. That's basically the allegations.

[Tommy Vitor]

And the gist is, for folks listening, he needs to stay in power, he thinks, to keep himself out of prison. And so that keeps his lock on the government even more white knuckled.

[Ezra Klein]

It's helpful as a defendant to have the schedule of a prime minister. And he's been using it to avoid the trial almost on a weekly basis. I have to go to Washington. I have an urgent phone call. I have urgent business related to the war. And he skips testimony after testimony after me. And that's, that's a big part of it.

[Tommy Vitor]

So, you know, as you mentioned, Mir, the world is. Global opinion has shifted enormously, you know, against Israel, just given the scenes we're seeing and the stories and just the horrific death toll in Gaza. And one recent example is, you know, French President Emmanuel Macron recently announced his plan to recognize Palestine as a state. France is the first G7 country to recognize, recognize Palestine. Now, in practice, this doesn't magically create a Palestinian state, but it could lead to more countries following France's lead. It puts diplomatic pressure on Israel. What is the reaction to this move by the French bin in Israel, of.

[Ezra Klein]

Course, the government is against it and also most of the opposition, because once another country takes a diplomatic initiative against your country, and that's how it's perceived by most Israelis, everybody comes out against it. But also at the same time, this is more of a symbolic move. I think the real problem for Israel is the shift in public opinion that legitimizes a move like this. There's a reason why France decided to do it now and why Britain is considering to do it. And there's been talk about Canada, Australia, other countries. There is a shift against us in global public opinion. Everybody knows it, everybody feels it here in Israel. And this is the big problem. The step that Macron took is a reflection of the problem more than, or you can say a phenomenon of the problem for Israel, more than, you know, significantly in itself changing so much in reality. And this is another reason. I wouldn't make it the first or even the second or the third reason, but it's another reason to strive to end the war because we are losing very bad. We're bleeding in terms of the country's reputation every day that this continues and that plays into the hands of Hamas and all of our other enemies. And we have enemies. Okay. Israel is not, it's not Switzerland. Okay. It's surrounded by people who don't like our country. And right now we're playing into their hands because we are. Yeah. Every day losing more and more support. And this is one example of it.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah. And I, I fear that this war is just a, a driver of global anti Semitism, which is obviously a centuries old problem. It's not just the Holocaust, it dates back farther.

[Ezra Klein]

But anti, Semitism, you know, never needs reasons. But I do think that on a generational level, this war is going to cause problems for Israel and for Israelis and tragically also for Israelis who are not supportive of this government, who are not supportive of its actions. But for someone who's stupid and hateful, you know, will become immediately affiliated just like. Right. Not every American necessarily supports everything that the Trump administration is doing. But, but this is something, this is going to be a problem for a long time. This again, another reason to put an end to it.

[Tommy Vitor]

Yeah. And unfortunately, I think potentially a problem for America and Americans because we are rightly seen as Israel's full throated partner. Makes sense in this war. So look, finally, Amir. Anyone listening to us? It is easy to feel hopeless about not just what's happening in Gaza. I think as a parent, it's hard not to see those images and just imagine what it would be like to be a mom or dad and not be able to protect your kids. Right. Like it breaks you in a way. And it's also, it's hard not to feel hopeless about the hope for a Palestinian state or the broader, you know, that the, that Israelis and Palestinians could live in side by side in peace. Your government is run by terrible people. My government is run by terrible people. Is there anything you are seeing as someone on the ground in Israel who is, is coming at this from far left in Israel? People. Yeah, well, the peace. One of the horrible irony is the wrong word. I don't know. One of the horrific things that happened on October 7th was so many people were murdered. Yes, yes. People most committed to peace were many of the ones targeted on Kibbutzes Right. So again, another reason to feel hopeless. Is there anything you are seeing that gives you some sort of hope?

[Ezra Klein]

I think, you know, right now I agree with you, man. It's really hard to find hope. And the situation is really, you know, just kind of despairing. But I'm very close to some of the families of the hostages and including family of my friend Omri, but also other families that I know from different circumstances, their struggle, including, for example, the struggle of John and Rachel Goldberg. Pauline, who lost their son, her. She was kidnapped by Hamas on October 7, and he was murdered last year. Last summer, when Israeli troops got close to the tunnel where Hamas was holding him together with five other hostages, and they were executed so that the soldiers wouldn't get them. The the struggle of those families that they've been leading for now, 662 days to end the war, save their loved ones, and stop all the killing, to me, it's a source of inspiration. I don't know how they find the strength to get out of bed and continue fighting, Whether it's families that still have a loved one held by Hamas or people like John and Rachel who lost their son, but they continue to fight for others. But when I see them doing it every day, I tell myself, okay, I can't quit. I have to keep speaking up and writing and saying and talking to anybody who would give me a platform, including yourself, to advocate for this. Because if they have the strength to do it, who am I to sit on the sideline lines? Yeah.

[Tommy Vitor]

Well said. Well, Amir, thank you for doing the show. Everyone should read Haaretz. I. I'm told I always say it wrong, but I'm doing.

[Ezra Klein]

You got it right this time.

[Tommy Vitor]

And also by the Gates of Gaza, a story of betrayal, survival and hope in Israel's borderlands. Just a truly unbelievable story about everyone. Just buy it, read the book and thank you for doing the show.

[Ezra Klein]

Thank you, Tommy. And let's hope for good news.

[Jon Favreau]

That's our show for today. Thanks to Amir Thibon for coming on. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Talk to everybody then. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad free or get access to our subscriber discord and exclusive podcasts, consider joining our friends of the pod [e-mail] friends or subscribe on Apple podcasts directly from the Pod Save America feed. Also, please consider leaving us a review to help boost this episode and everything we do here at Crooked. Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our producers are David Toledo Emma Illich Frank and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Churlin is our executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kanter is our sound engineer, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt de Groot is our head of production, Naomi Sengel as our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Haley Jones, Ben Hefcoat, Mia Kelman, Kiril Pelaviev, David Toles and Ryan Young. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.

[Amir Tbone]

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[Jon Favreau]

The world is on the brink. Wars, contentious elections, disinformation spreading at warp.

[Tommy Vitor]

Speed, and Donald Trump at the center.

[Dan Pfeiffer]

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[Jon Favreau]

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[Dan Pfeiffer]

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[Jon Favreau]

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