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PDB Afternoon Bulletin | February 11th, 2025: Trump Threatens ‘All Hell Will Break Loose’ In Gaza & U.S. Starts Venezuela Deportations
00:11:12
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- [00:12]
Mike Baker
It's Tuesday, the 11th of February. Welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. We'll start things off today with President Trump issuing a serious, significant ultimatum, I guess. Is there any other kind of ultimatum to Hamas, warning that if hostages aren't released by Saturday, all bets are off and, quote, hell will break loose later in the show. A big win for the White House. Venezuela, obviously a longtime adversary of the US has accepted its first deportation flights, sending nearly 200 Venezuelans back home. But first, today's afternoon spotlight. President Trump is drawing a hard line with Hamas, issuing an ultimatum after the group suspended its planned hostage release. Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, Trump said, quote, as far as I'm concerned, if all the hostages aren't returned By Saturday at 12:00, I think it's an appropriate time. I would say cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out, end quote. Now, when asked for specifics on what exactly he meant by, quote, hell, the president kept it vague, saying only that Hamas, quote, will find out what I mean. Now, Hamas, unsurprisingly, wasn't thrilled with the remarks. A spokesman for the terror group, oh, they've got a spokesman, Sami Abu Zuri, told AFP that Trump should remember that there's a ceasefire agreement in place and, and that threats, quote, have no value and only, quote, complicate matters. Apparently, Sammy the terrorist has forgotten that this whole tragic mess started with Hamas slaughtering over a thousand Israelis and taking 251 women, children, babies and men hostage. Now, that is, frankly, what complicates matters. Now, as we reported yesterday, Hamas halted its upcoming hostage exchange, which was set to take place on Saturday. The group accused Israel of breaking the ceasefire deal specifically by blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza and preventing Palestinians from returning to the north. Israel has denied those claims. Frankly, a possible scenario here is that Hamas has suspended further hostage releases. Well, because the hostages are the terror group's only remaining leverage, and there may well be internal dissent and disagreement among Hamas leaders over just how to proceed. There's also the sad possibility that they simply don't have any more live hostages to release or don't have actual control over them, since other groups, including Islamic Jihad and various family criminal groups within Gaza, also took some of the hostages. Now, hopefully neither of those things, of course, are true, but it's important to consider every potential situation when evaluating Hamas actions. While Hamas is objecting to Trump's threats, Israel is fully backing them. The Israeli security Cabinet released a statement saying that all members support the US President's demands for the release of the hostages by noon on Shabbat. The statement also praised Trump's revolutionary vision for the future of Gaza. And speaking of Gaza's future, the UN has put a price tag on what they think it will take to rebuild the enclave after 15 months of war. A new estimate from the UN says reconstruction will cost over US$53 billion, with $20 billion needed in just the first three years. There's no word yet on how much of that would be pocketed by UNRWA and Hamas leaders. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called the destruction in Gaza a humanitarian catastrophe and warned that a full assessment of the damage isn't even possible yet, given the current conditions on the ground. All right, coming up next, a major policy win for the White House. Venezuela, a country that's, well, hardly a US ally, has accepted its first deportation flights, sending nearly 200 Venezuelans back home. I'll have those details after the break.
- [04:25]
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- [04:57]
Mike Baker
Welcome back to the Afternoon Bulletin. The first deportation flights carrying nearly 200 Venezuelans who entered the US illegally, touched down in Caracas on Monday, marking a major victory for the Trump administration. The return of these migrants, long resisted by Venezuela's socialist government, signals a perhaps a thaw in US Venezuelan relations, one that the White House touts as a breakthrough in its broader immigration crackdown. The two planes, operated by Venezuela's state run airline departed from Fort Bliss, Texas, Monday, landing in Caracas hours later. The flights come after months of diplomatic wrangling culminating in a deal brokered by Trump envoy Richard Grinnell, who traveled to Caracas last month to finalize the details. Grinnell announced the flights on X, stating two planes of illegal immigrants left El Paso today headed to Venezuela, paid for by the Venezuelans. Now, for years, Venezuela refused to cooperate and accept deportation flights even as its citizens flooded the US Southern border in record numbers under the Biden administration. The impasse briefly broken under then President Biden in October 2023 has since hardened again. Until now. A White House post on X framed the development as a political win, stating, quote, repatriation flights to Venezuela have resumed. Make America safe again, end quote. Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro welcomed the flight, so that's nice. Though he framed them as a broader push for international cooperation rather than a concession to Washington. The Venezuelan strongman stated, quote, this is the world we want, a world of peace, understanding, dialogue and cooperation, end quote. But even as the first flights landed, Maduro's socialist regime pushed back against U.S. claims that members of the Trender of Agua or TDA gang used the migrant route to infiltrate the U.S. dismissing the allegations as, quote, ill intentioned narrative against Venezuelans. The deportations are part of a larger effort by the Trump administration to curb illegal immigration. Just days before the flights, a group of Venezuelan migrants was transferred to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, where they were reportedly held separately from the 15 prisoners charged with planning the 11 September terror attacks. Well, yeah, that, that seems like a logical thing to do. The flights also follow a series of agreements secured by Secretary of State Marco Rubio with El Salvador and Guatemala, ensuring that those countries would take back their citizens and accept other deportees from the US Following Grinnell's visit to Caracas, Trump announced that Maduro had agreed to accept, quote, all Venezuela illegal aliens who were encamped in the US including gang members of tda, end quote. And that the Venezuelan government had committed to funding the repatriation flights. As part of the arrangement, Caracas also released half a dozen American citizens who had been detained in Venezuela. And that, my friends, is the PDB Afternoon bulletin for Tuesday 11th February. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me@pdb the first tv.com and of course, as you've no doubt seen on roadside billboards and on those banners that get pulled along by airplanes while flying over the beach. If you want to listen to the show ad free, just become a premium member of the President's Daily brief by visiting pdbpremium.com it honestly couldn't be any simpler. And frankly, pound for pound, you won't find a better value in the world of news and information. So check it out. I'm Mike Baker and I'll be back tomorrow. Until then, stay informed, stay safe, stay cool.