Breaking News from Pod Save America - BREAKING: Trump Announces Ceasefire Between Israel and Hamas

Episode Date: October 9, 2025

Tommy & Ben break down the news that a deal between Israel and Hamas have signed off on the “first phase” of a Gaza ceasefire deal. They dig into what we know so far, the many things we don’t, how we got here and why it took so long, and why it’s important to temper relief with caution. Get 50% off your new system. Visit https://simplisafe.com/crooked. There’s no safe like SimpliSafe®. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, we got some big breaking news Wednesday night. According to a post on truth social from President Trump, Israel and Hamas have agreed to, quote, phase one of his ceasefire deal. Let me read that entire truth social post to you, Ben. I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first phase of our peace plan. This means that all of the hostages will be released very soon. And Israel withdraw their troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a strong, durable, an everlasting peace.

All parties will be treated fairly. This is a great day for the Arab and Muslim world. Israel, all surrounding nations and the United States of America. And we thank the mediators from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, who worked with us to make this historic an unprecedented event happen. Blessed are the peacemakers, Donald J. Trump, president of the United States of America, in case you forgot his title. Okay, so Ben and I are recording this just minutes after that true social post.

We're going to try to walk you guys through what is in this agreement and what is not in it as compared to the 20-point peace plan that Trump announced last week. So it does seem like there's a big concession in here right at the top from Hamas in that the IDF is not required to fully withdraw from the Gaza Strip. Ha'arad says the IDF will withdraw from most cities, but not Rafa. And just to agreed upon lines, they will not depart entirely. Some reports say the hostage release will happen on Saturday or Sunday. Presumably that's just the living hostages. The bodies of the deceased hostages may take more time for very grim reasons, like because they were buried under the rubble or because Hamas.

has lost track of the bodies or the people who knew or they were were killed in the fighting. So that's a complicated piece of business. Israel will release roughly 2,000 Palestinians. It's holding captive in prisons or military camps. The bulk of the captives will consist of Palestinians taken from Gaza after October 7th. And we'll include all women and children. This deal does not include other Palestinian prisoners. We can get to that in a minute.

And then drop site news reported that Israel under this deal agrees to a little. allow about 600 trucks of aid into Gaza per day. That's about the level of aid that was getting in in the last ceasefire that was signed in January. And we're seeing that Trump might actually go to the Middle East as soon as this weekend because he wants to bask in that sweet, sweet Nobel Peace Prize glory. So, Ben, we just learned all this news. We're kind of processing it as we go. But what's your reaction to the initial reports? Yeah, I mean, I think for people who listened to the last podcast, it's kind of in line with the world. talking about in that this is obviously great news for the hostages who are going to be able to

be returned into their families on the Israeli side. It's great news for the people of Gaza that they will no longer be under bombardment and that aid will get in really life-saving aid given the circumstances that they've been under. Many Palestinian prisoners also released, right? So obviously that's good news for them. I think, you know, at the same time, like, we have to be very clear that this does not necessarily resolve what happens after phase one. You know, the word I take the most issue with in the Truth Social Post is everlasting because we still don't really know if the IDF is going to remain in Gaza. We still don't know if Hamas is going to demilitarize. We still don't know who's going to be running Gaza.

And there are many things that could, you know, disrupt this or derail it in the days and weeks to come, you know, whether that's somebody not making good on the terms of even phase one or whether that's just profound disagreement over the future of Gaza, the future of FAMAS, the future of these really presence in Gaza. So again, like very good news. In line with the kind of last time there's a phase one, I mean, there have been two of these now where there was essentially a prisoner exchange that was agreed to that allowed. for aid to get in and allowed for some relief. But I don't know that we can say that, you know, the war, the bombardment, the ethnic cleansing, the, you know, that that's all over yet because we just don't know yet. We have not heard details, which I think suggests that, you know, this is the part they were able to reach agreement on. Yeah. So Hamas is out with a statement. I think this is via

Greg Karlstrom, the economist, confirming that they have accepted the ceasefire plan and they are basically relying on Trump to guarantee and to compel the Israeli government to abide by its terms. Netanyahu put out a statement. He says, A great day for Israel. Tomorrow, I will convene the government to approve the agreement and bring all our dear hostages home. I thank the heroic soldiers of the IDF and all the security forces, thanks to whose courage and sacrifice we've reached that day. I thank Trump, yada, yada, yada. So, you know, it sounds like he still has to go through some official processes and get his government to officially approve the agreement. but I can't imagine Netanyahu would allow this thing to get announced without knowing that he can get that done. But to your point then, I mean, like, let's talk about what's not happening in this deal.

So the IDF, they're not only not fully withdrawing from Gaza. None of the language I've seen in what's been released so far says the bombardment will stop, the airstrikes will stop, the combat operations will stop. I hope that is the case, and it's sort of assumed here, but it's not written out. There's also no language preventing ethnic cleansing, which we saw, you know, we all were glad to see in the 20-point plan that Trump released last week, but it's not in this phase one agreement. I wish it were. The Hamas has not agreed to disarm. Remember, 0.6 of Trump's 20-point peace plan had Hamas committing to peaceful coexistence and decommissioning their weapons for amnesty. Presumably, that's a phase two conversation, but it's not in phase one. as you mentioned earlier, Ben, the original deal reportedly included releasing like 250 Palestinian sentenced to life in prison.

Palestinians especially want a guy named Marwan Bargudi, who is a really important leader in the Palestinian movement. He was sentenced to five life sentences in 2004, but Netanyahu has promised not to release him, so that could be a sticking point. There's nothing about economic development. There's nothing about an Arab stabilization force to keep the peace. Nothing in here about a Palestinian state. Nothing in here of poor Tony Blair gets.

the job. You know, everybody's worried about that guy. Again, all of this could be part of phase two or phase three or phase four fucking hundred. Who knows? But when Trump goes out and says, like, give me the Nobel Peace Prize because I did peace in the Middle East and solved a 40,000 year. Like, how long will the conflict be? Do you think by the time we get to the Nobel speech, a million year conflict? But we also need to watch the implementation. So it just, you know, look, I'm very, very happy about this. I want the hostages home. I want the bombardment to stop. I want aid to get in. But I'm just, I'm worried about all the things that could go wrong. I am too. And I think I think we just have to be realistic about that because, I mean, a few comments. The first is,

there's no reason this deal could have been reached months ago, you know. This has kind of always been on the table. There's not really any military objective that Israel's been achieving the last several months regarding, you know, Hamas. Hamas still exists, by the way. I mean, one of the original purposes that BB stated for the war, Netanyahu was the destruction of Hamas. Well, they agreed to the deal like they're still there, right? And they still have military force. And so it does make you feel like why couldn't we have done this earlier? But put that aside, it's done. That's great. Insofar as to give Trump credit, it does feel like he squeezed Israel more than they've been squeezed recently, particularly after that strike on Qatar, which

really upset the whole region. And so it does feel like Trump put more pressure on Israel than we saw, say, Joe Biden put on Israel, or we saw Trump put on Israel over the first few months that he was in office. The big question remains, will he continue to put that kind of pressure on Israel? Or will Netanyahu, you know, hopefully get the hostages back, but then say, well, now the hostages are back. And, you know, I have a problem with my right wing. Probably the far right of his coalition is not going to like this. And then he finds some reason to kind of resume military operations. And so that's the kind of cloud hanging over this. It also feels like pressure was put on Hamas. And I'm not sure that that's Trump pressure. I mean, you saw Egypt-

Arab countries, yeah. Exactly. And Turkey, right? Turkey and Qatar are generally seen as the countries with the biggest influence over Hamas. Feels like they really pushed them to get this. done. The Rafa piece is interesting. So the IDF is, you know, said it's going to stay in Rafa. That's to control the border crossing. So that's effectively maintain a blockade on Gaza. So that does not indicate that they're willing to relinquish any kind of control over every single thing that gets in and out of the Gaza Strip. And so that tells you that this is more like a freezing of the conflict for now than it is like a resolution of the conflict. And I do think, you know, we've given Trump some credit, I think what's kind of irresponsible here is,

you know, normally, you know, and I've been, you know, Tommy, you were there for one of the Gaza's ceasefires. I was there for two guys of ceasefires. Some caution is merited in the rhetoric, you know, like, and the reason is that you want to keep the pressure on the parties. You know, this is a good first step. We welcome this, but more has to be done and we're going to implement it and we're going to put pressure on the parties to implement it. I kind of worry that the end zone dance that he's going to do that may even include a trip to the Middle East and kind of an audition for the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, which I think is coming up right around the corner, you know, may kind of serve to diminish how much real work remains to be done

diplomatically and how many things could continue to go wrong here. So it's not that we're being pessimistic. It's that we're being realistic here about what was achieved and what wasn't achieved. and that ability and willingness of the United States to continue to put pressure on the Israeli government is going to be very important if you want to get past phase one in the same way that Qatar and Turkey and all those with some influence on Hamas and the Palestinian people themselves will have to kind of keep the pressure on their side. So again, a good day, but probably not quite the scale of world historic Nobel, you know, Nobel, you know, grand slam achievement that Trump is going to be telling us all it is incessantly over the next couple of days.

Yeah, this isn't, you know, the Good Friday Agreement. It's something far short of it, but is long overdue and is a good thing if it saves a lot of lives. This video is brought to you by Simply Safe Home Security. Simply Safe is the new way to keep your home safe. Typical security systems only react once someone is inside your home. Real security stops a crime before it even starts. With Simply Safe, the moment.

someone steps onto your property, AI-powered cameras detect threats while they're still outside your home and alert real security agents right away. To get 50% off your new system, go to simplysafe.com slash crooked. That's simplysafe.com slash crooked for 50% off. There's no safe like SimplySafe. Yeah, I'm with you, Ben. I mean, look, Hamas is a terrorist organization. What they did on October 7th is evil and unjustifiable. And it's goolish to say, but their largest source of leverage throughout the last two years has been holding onto these hostages. They made a major concession, as you said, under enormous pressure from these Arab countries to give up the hostages without a firm commitment that the war was over and are now

going to have to rely on Trump to guarantee that Israel follows through on those commitments. That's a big bet, you know? Remember that like, remember Trump kind of lied to Iran and said, you have X more days to negotiate and then brag that it was all a head fake to allow the Israelis to bomb them and kill all of their leadership. So that would be in the back of my mind. I worry about Trump kind of losing focus once the big announcements and the headlines go away. And Bibi Nanyahu finding some way to kind of like swarm his way out of this deal. And, you know, suddenly the aid slows down and the bomb airstrikes start again.

And there's some justification for it and life on the ground for these gardens is still awful. But, you know, look, it's a major calculated risk, one that Hamas felt obligated to take, one that Netanyahu felt obligated to take. It doesn't seem like any of them necessarily wanted to take this deal, but they were forced to. Yeah, it's interesting. Neither of them seem that happy in their statements, you know. Like Netanyahu's first statement was kind of terse. Hamas kind of grudgingly acknowledged they'd agreed to this, which is a bit worrisome, right? It shows you that, you know.

But look, that's how diplomacy is sometimes people have to be dragged to an outcome. I think another thing for people to watch here, because everybody's looking at the different phases of this 20-point plan that involves everything from Tony Blair running Gaza to, you know, reconstruction and a Palestinian state at the very end of it. I'm more interested in our, in addition to aid trucks, are diplomats and journalists going to be able to get into Gaza? Are they going to start to clear rubble?

Like the kinds of things that you would be doing if the war was over would involve it not being in this kind of frozen hermetically sealed state that Gaza's been in, you know? Literally just getting an accurate body count, like a beginning to clear, as ghoulish as it sounds to say and horrible, but like clear bodies out of the rubble to get hospitals running again. Like are those kinds of things going to take place? If they're not, if in the days and weeks to come, we don't see some kind of, I don't want to say normalcy, because Gaza's not going to be normal for many years, but some kind of increased presence beyond just some aid trucks. That's going to be a red flag for me that maybe this thing is just frozen in place until Israel choose to resume some form of military operation. So look, I mean, we'll learn a lot day by day here. The first step is going to be literally just the return of hostages is complicated.

We've seen that be difficult in terms of just the logistics of getting people to the border there with Israel. The question of whether Israel, you know, the release of policy and prisoners is usually a simpler thing on their end, but they obviously have to follow through with it. Whether they're pointing fingers at each other and beginning to accuse each other, whether one side thinks the other side is not living up with the terms. There's a lot to look for here beyond just Trump, you know, parachuting in potentially and receiving. receiving a Nobel Peace Prize, at least in his mind. Especially like what the, look, there's extremists in both camps, right? There's obviously literal terrorists in Hamas. But then there's like extremist right-wing zealots like Itzmar Ben-Gavir and Smotrich,

the finance minister who will do everything they can to blow up this deal and we'll have to watch what those individuals do. And, you know, horribly, historically, people like that have managed to destroy peace agreements. Yeah, like to your point, Ben, what Israel wants. out of a deal or out of this conflict generally, right was to get the hostages back and then to neutralize Hamas as a threat. Now, obviously, like, Hamas is not eradicated,

but I don't think they're in any way a threat to Israel as in their current form. What you were talking about for people in the Gaza Strip, I mean, this is a generational reconstruction project. This is like nearly every single structure, all the plumbing, water pipes, like power lines, everything you could possibly think of has been destroyed. Schools, hospitals. Yeah, like all basic infrastructure. And so you're right. Like it will be a huge red flag if a year from now, there are just

nicer, newer tents littering the Gaza Strip, but no actually, no like well-funded effort to actually rebuild it. I think that is a recipe for long-term disaster for people in Gaza, but also for Israel, because that is like the breeding ground for a group like Hamas. Well, yeah. And I think in the intention side, right? The intention of getting the hostages back and destroying Hamas were stated objectives, but you started to see Beebe himself start to talk about, you know, they'll never be a Palestinian state and threatening annex to West Bank even, and then Smotrich and Ben-Javir is starting to talk about resettling Gaza and ethnically cleansing Gaza. So what will be put to the test going forward is

what are these really intentions? Are the Israeli – because if these Israeli intentions, were to just essentially, you know, deal a gigantic boat to Hamas and get the hostages back, they should be fine. If their intentions are, we want Gaza, we want that land, we want to ethnically cleanse this area, and we also want to start to annex to West Bank, we'll know, you know. So in a way, what happens after this phase one is going to hold a mirror up to Israel's intentions. And then on the Palestinian side, whether Hamas is willing to kind of relinquish power to

some Palestinian technocratic authority in Gaza, whether they're willing to demilitarize, we don't know that yet either. So we'll have a mirror up to that as well. Thus far, we've gotten to phase one. It gets harder with each step beyond this. And, you know, especially when neither side wanted to negotiate phase two the first time, especially the Israeli side. Like, they got the hostages out, there was some matrix flown in, everyone was content to just leave everything as as it is and not, you know, keep going. And that's the concern, right? Is that once they get those hostages back, you know, something triggers and resuming some

kind of operation there. Or, you know, I don't, I mean, Hamas is probably is in part also just feeling like they need to regroup. But whether they literally regroup as the kind of terrorist organization they were, whether they kind of regroup within the context of handing off of authority to some other kind of Palestinian government. We don't know that yet either. So again, like good day, but let's take this one step at a time.

Yeah. So news of this deal started to leak kind of throughout the day on Wednesday. There were various like U.S., Israeli, Arab officials telling news outlets that they were close to a deal, that it could happen tonight, that it could happen in 24 hours. And then things got very interesting during a roundtable conversation that Donald Trump was hosting about Antifa, Ben. That was a real thing. it was uh it was like Trump and like uh fucking christy gnome

and Pam Bondi and they were like Pam Bondi was saying that they wanted to treat Antifa like they do the cartels like exactly what we talked about on Tuesday so I guess I guess that does mean killing them Trump was bragging about killing off our First Amendment rights when he banned flag burning so it was a great little event but it got interrupted rudely by secretary of state Marco Rubio who like kind of whispered to Trump and then handed him a note, and then Trump kind of read the note and then said this. Let's watch. They're smart, but they're not smart enough. They, oh, my microphone's broken. They're smart, but

they're not smart enough. They have been covered by these liberal cities for so many years. And that's why we're all working with Treasury with all these different departments to find the criminal conspiracy. Okay. I'm just given. Yeah, I was just given a note by the Secretary of State saying that we're very close to a deal in the Middle East, and they'll get a need me pretty quickly. So we'll take a couple of more questions. I would bet you money, Ben, that that whole thing was staged. And they were like, here's what we're going to do, Marco. You're going to come up to him with a note during the thing.

An AP photographer got a picture of Rubio's note. It said negotiators needed to were, quote, very close. And Rubio asked Trump to, quote, approve a truth social post soon so you can announce deal first. I just love that like everything's getting announced via truth social. I don't know, Ben, you know, Antifa round tables. We got little errant notes getting photographed by the AP. I guess is how we do business these days. Look, I'm with you.

I'm happy. I just want the war to end. I want the bombardment to stop. I want the hostages home. I don't believe the rest of it's going to happen, but we'll see. I don't. Yeah, I mean, I just don't feel good about anything beyond what we feel good about today. And even that spectacle, I mean, you and I were commenting that the timing is auspiciously before the Nobel Prize announcement.

I mean, like, that's a real consideration, I'm sure, for Trump. I do want to know, like, in that audio we heard, I guess the they are really smart. I don't know if that means all of us in the non-fascist camp. Not that we're Antifa, please, Steve Miller, we're not in Tifa. We just don't like fascism. But yeah, there's a kind of theater of the absurd to this. And look, I mean, like I said, like he definitely seemed like he got pissed at Nanyahu and squeezed him a bit when he was in D.C. That's good.

That's good. And we all wish Joe Biden had done that. As we said, for the greater part of a year on this podcast. So if you think we're being, yeah, if you think we're being too hard on Trump, you'll listen back. Something that Joe Biden wouldn't do, which is actually squeezed BB and be a little tough with him. But at the same time, this just feels like what Trump is actually. after is like that is that that that that's that slashy announcement that two social posts that that you know

photo op in the middle east kind of like in alaska the photo op of Putin and there's all this work underneath of it you know and for him to say we've been everlasting peace and it's unprecedented like no not really like if you got your 20 point plan done yes yeah and so people need to just have you can believe two things at the same time you can believe that this is a positive thing that happened, but that it's not like the end of the conflict. It's by definition not the end of the conflict. Yeah. We don't know the future of Gaza, don't know the future of the West Bank. We don't know the future of Hamas. So it's just taken one step of time. It's great that they got this done. I'm incredibly grateful to President Trump for actually putting pressure on that in Yao because you're

right. That is clearly what changed and what needed to happen. And then these Arab countries put a lot of pressure on Hamas to make some concessions. And I'm so, so glad it happened. Frankly, it's crazy that it took this long. Like it's insane. This war should not have gone. This should have happened a year and a half ago, all the way back in the middle of Biden. It's genuinely shocking. Like every Israeli military insecurity and intel expert was saying that they'd exhausted the military value of this war. Everyone in Israel wanted the hostages back. People were being starved to death.

Like it's just insane that the international community let this go on so long. So I do think that's just worth noting because it's fucking outrageous. And historians will study this period of time and how like the world just ignored this slaughter as it happened. that said, you know, so grateful to Trump for getting it over the finish line. The rest of that plan is ambitious, to say the least, and the implementation and execution will require a lot of dedicated focus. I don't have a lot of faith in him being the guy who can pull that off in part, Ben, because as we were talking, Favreau sent through a note in our Slack. It's an image of a Wall Street Journal story that talks about how, remember the September 20th tweet from Trump where he was like, Pam, he addressed it to Pam Bondi and basically demanded that she prosecute FBI director Jim Comey and complained about how

it's killing our reputation and credibility. Remember that? Turns out it was a, turns out he thought it was a DM. He made a DM. Well, you know, I'm not the last thing I'd say, because it's important what you just said, that let's not feel too good about this when this should have happened a long time ago, you know, like how many people died, how many kids died, how much suffering, was there. I mean, this should have happened by now. You know, we should be further down the phases. And so that's on everybody. You know, that's on certainly on Netanyahu and his government. It's certainly on Trump and Biden. And, you know, it's certainly on Hamas. It's not on, you know, the people of Gaza or the hostage families in Israel, who are the victims in all this. And

let's just keep that perspective here before we, you know, anticipating the like TikTok stories about how this got done. Like, you know what, this, everybody knew what this deal was. You know, this is the same deal that has kind of been on the table that both sides have had an impossible time getting yes on since like early 2024, you know. So glad it's here, but in addition to it being a first step, it's also late. Yeah, it's very late. Okay, well, that's what we know for now. We're going to wrap this one up. Thank you for watching this POTS of the World episode on YouTube. We're trying to do more of these when there's breaking news. So please subscribe to POTSafe the World on YouTube. It's free. And it also helps us get people who are

searching for political news good factual information from a progressive perspective. So thanks for watching and talk to you soon.