Bulwark Takes - Trump Makes Shocking Proposal for Gaza

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

Sam Stein and Tim Miller discuss Donald Trump's press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu where he said he wants the US to take over Gaza Strip.

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apply. Hey, everybody. It's Tim Miller from the Bulwark. Well, I was having dinner. Donald Trump was having a press conference with Bibi Netanyahu, where I guess he announced that the United States is going to take over the Gaza Strip from Hamas. Why don't we actually listen to Trump in his own words, and then I'll get on the other side and we'll have Sam break it down for us. I also strongly believe that the Gaza Strip, which has been a symbol of death and destruction for so many decades and so bad for the people anywhere near it, and especially those who live there, and frankly, who's been really very unlucky. It's been very unlucky. It's been an unlucky place for a long time.

Being in its presence just has not been good, and it should not go through a process of rebuilding and occupation by the same people that have really stood there and fought for it and lived there and died there and lived a miserable existence there. Instead, we should go to other countries of interest with humanitarian hearts, and there are many of them that want to do this and build various domains that will ultimately be occupied by the 1.8 million Palestinians living in gaza ending the death and destruction and frankly bad luck the only reason the palestinians want to go back to gaza is they

have no alternative it's right now a demolition site this is just a demolition site sam um you watch this uh i've just been monitoring your twitter. Give me your sense for – is this a troll? Like was he serious? No. No, this is dead serious. I mean – Will he actually do it? Yeah, yeah.

We don't know if this is just him doing his negotiating thing and maybe Hamas will give up all the hostages now. But like this, even saying it out loud, let's put it that way, was a remarkable thing to witness. And I think people were in the audience were clearly audibly taken aback by the idea that the president of the United States just openly say, we will we will own this piece of land. Millions and millions of people, we will get rid of them. And we will build it. We will make it what he called the Riviera of the Middle East. As for how we will do that, I don't know. The details were scarce. He did say maybe one to a dozen countries.

Where were the Palestinians going to go? Did he say that? He said they're going to go to, yeah, they're going to go to different countries, maybe the Egyptians, maybe the Jordanians. You know, obviously none of those countries are interested in that. But he also, you know, he spoke about developing it. I mean, he wants to make it an oceanfront, seafront property. And, you know, he thinks that one to 12 countries will help pay for it. And he, you know, his whole rationale, and this is so, it's so ridiculous and contradictory for a variety of reasons, but his whole rationale was that we've done, you know, we've tried to have peace in this region before and it's an impossible. And I'm thinking way outside the box.

First of all, there's nothing way outside the box about thinking you could build a nation state in the Middle East. We tried that. We did do that. That's not new. We tried it. It didn't work. A couple times. Donald Trump famously said he predicted how bad Iraq would go.

But now he seems to have not learned that lesson and wants to actually just do it even to a different level, physically displace an entire population, bulldoze whatever is there and then build up some sweet resorts. What he said, world people, world people would go to. I guess he is – I guess the one caveat on – I've seen some people on social media being like this is an ethnic cleansing. I guess the pushback on that is that the claim is that the US Trump, probably Trump hotels, would go and build a bunch of condos, be very pretty, and then

they would be granted a right of return. I don't know if he actually said they would be granted the right of return. He said they could live there. Okay, you're right. I'm looking at the New York Post. New York Post might have been a little kind in their spin to exactly what he said. I noticed that's not in quotes. They can move back into my Trump condo, but for

like a generous condo fee. Let's be very clear about that. And if they want the one with the indoor pool, it's going to be a little bit more. So there are a lot of logistical issues with this. Oh, you don't think? Starting with one clip i've watched of him uh he was talking about um how you know we're gonna go in and clean it up there are a lot of uh

bombs you know that haven't gone off right it's a dangerous process like cleaning it all up uh you know and rebuilding we will take that on we'd in the United States. And then he's kind of like, we might have to send troops. And I'm like, well, then who is the we? Like, who is the we that's going in and doing the cleaning up if it's not troops? Is it mercenaries? Are we hiring mercenaries? It ain't USAID.

It ain't USAID. We just shut that down. That was too expensive. Are we borrowing the Wagner Group? We're borrowing the Wagner Group from Russia? USAID was too expensive. Are we borrowing the Wagner Group? We're borrowing the Wagner Group from Russia? USAID was too expensive, but building an entire nation in the Middle East and expelling a population and sending troops, that we can do on a cost basis. That's logistical. That's a good point. There's logistical questions.

There's the cost, which is going to be significant while Doge is trying to cut costs. There's also, from a political standpoint, the Trump claim that he was going to be the peace candidate, right? That it's all these other guys that have created the war, we're going to be the peace candidate. You know, maybe it's just me. I'm not an expert on the region. But I would say just on the surface, forcibly occupying land that is currently governed

by a terrorist organization is probably not the most likely route towards peace and i would think that there would be some some hamas sympathizers some isis sympathizers some others that would not be thrilled with the united states coming in and taking over that territory let me let me let me just like on an intellectual level about this because you know this i happen to write my thesis about israeli palestinian politics and there has been a hard line position that has undergirded right-wing israeli politics since the 1920s uh it's it was articulated by zia dab Zyadotinsky. He called it Iron Wall, which is essentially Israel was going to create an impenetrable literal iron wall. And because of its force, because it'd be so impenetrable, the surrounding Arab countries would never be able to get to them.

And they suddenly realized that Israel's existence was guaranteed and they would almost be compelled to have a peace deal. This proposal is well beyond anything like that. It is expansionism, it is colonialism, it is imperialism, somewhat on behalf of the Israelis, but really by the United States under the auspice of we're going to make a peace deal. And you could see Bibi standing there at the press conference, sort of like realizing that Trump was going way further than even he has gone. And he was like, well, you know, Trump sees this at a higher level and he's looking at all the angles. And, you know, we need to be serious in considering that.

But Bibi didn't commit to it because Bibi knows. Oh, really? Bibi wasn't all excited about this? So I guess I didn't get reading it on Twitter. He was diplomatically excited, praising Trump as a visionary who is thinking outside the box and so on and so forth. But he never was like, yes, I endorse this plan. And I think he knows that it's an asinine, insane plan and that it would do nothing more than spark waves and waves of terror, waves of destruction and death, open hostilities, insurrection. It would, you know, all the Arab countries would be opposed to it for obvious reasons. It would be a tenement to ethnic cleansing.

And Trump may want to say, look, we're going to give them great. We're going to spruce up their land and give them great condos. Yeah. But let's be real. Here's an actual quote. Let's let's actually play this this video. Peter. Would Palestinians have the right to return to Gaza if they left while the rebuilding

was happening? It would be my hope that we could do something really nice, really good where they wouldn't want to return. Why would they want to return? The place has been hell. It's been one of the meanest, one of the meanest, toughest places on earth. And right now it's, it's, I've seen every picture from every angle better than if I The President and I have been to the world's toughest, toughest places on Earth. And right now, it's — I've seen every picture

from every angle better than if I were there. And nobody can live there. You can't live there. So if we can build — if we can build them through massive amounts of money supplied by other people — very rich nations — and they'll be — they're willing to supply it — if we can build something for them in one of the countries — and it could be Jordan and it could be — they're willing to supply it. If we can build something for them in one of the

countries — and it could be Jordan, and it could be Egypt, it could be other countries — and you could build four or five or six areas. It doesn't have to be one area. But you take certain areas and you build really good quality housing, like a beautiful town, like someplace where they can live and not die, because Gaza is a guarantee that they're going to end up dying. The same thing's going to happen again. It's happened

over and over again, and it's going to happen again as sure as you're standing there, Peter. So I hope that we could do something where they wouldn't want to go back. Who would want to go back? They've experienced nothing but death and destruction. So, yeah. So, I mean, I guess, look, that's not exactly New York Post maybe misrepresented what Trump was saying there pretty clearly. Why would they want to return? The place has been hell. Notable there, if you look at Beebe's face, he's kind of enjoying, though, I mean, he might not be fully on board with Trump's plans, but he's enjoying Trump trolling his his and his foes here and doing so in a way that's pretty disgusting.

Well, if you're Bibby, it's like Christmas. Well, I guess Hanukkah, I should say. He basically he basically got through this entire war, ended up on the other side with a president who will not, you know, ever slap his wrist. And, you know, I'm actually going to give Trump a tiny bit of credit here because I think the hostage deal did come into fruition because, frankly, he put some serious pressure on Hamas to do it. But now that that's done, essentially, Bibi's got carte blanche.

And, you know, look, all those people who voted in the, on our election, because they're mad at Genocide Joe for how he handled this. I was waiting to get to this. Oh,

sorry. Yeah, no, let's do it. No, I'm excited. I just been holding back. Cause I was like,

what is happening in the Middle East? The actual substance of what's happening is more important than, like, whatever. Of course. But, like, you know, we can be very myopic here in America about this sort of stuff. But, like, it's hard not to have that the first thing you see. I mean, I immediately started receiving texts from some of my friends like friends like what about dearborn and it is i did show like a total naivete from the people that were voting for trump because they were mad at joe biden over what was happening in the middle east even if you had substantive disagreements or you thought what he was doing was criminal like still the op the given the options in front of you the

ones that were protesting joe were gleefully cover for Trump, were voting undeclared. This is what you get. And Trump also wasn't a secret. You can go back in our archive. I did a video on Jared Kushner saying that he was going to turn. Kushner was out there saying it, yeah. Great seaside property. That's what he said.

Turn guys into condos. And there's Trump now saying, I do see a long-term ownership position a long-term ownership position that's what trump said for the country i i i don't know if uh the folks that uh are were were protesting biden and campaign giving trump cover on this issue i have any regrets today but they probably should no they obviously should and my big thing is like will they protest trump like in what way will they protest trump i mean this is the thing that bugs me the most about the far left it's true about the sunrise and the gaza it's like you feel i get why they feel like they get the most attention for protesting democrats but the functional effect of that is helping trump

it always has trump isn't getting protested on this sort of stuff. Alright, last thing. It seems like you have some kids. I have kids screaming upstairs, jumping. They are not fans of what Trump said, but... You and I got on here over the weekend. We were talking about the worst things from the last week, and I was thinking Trump was going to stick it out on the tariff. You were correct. You were like, it was a bluff.

It's a bluff. It'll last four days, Max. It lasted even shorter than you said. It didn't even happen. It didn't even last four minutes. Trump gets this... doesn't even get a deal. It's a bluff. It'll last four days max. It lasted even shorter than you said. It didn't even last four days. It didn't even happen. It didn't even last four minutes. Trump gets this, doesn't even get a deal. It's all fake. It's all fake. It's just all WWE. It is.

Justin Trudeau is like, Mr. Trump, sir, you're so great that I'm going to send 22 Mounties to the Canadian border. And no more fentanyl will come over. He's going to name a fentanyl czar. Yeah. So, yeah. So, right. That's going to name a fentanyl czar. Yeah. So, yeah, so right. That's what I'm saying. So is Hamas, is Trump just going to call Hamas and they're going to be like, you know, we have a new fentanyl czar here.

We're going to send 30 of our best living soldiers to the southern border to help, you know, work for you. And now it'll be fine. Like, you know, and this is all just BS. Part of me thinks that's what's happening here. I'm not going to lie. You know, we always play this game. Well, is this real? Is this not?

Is this a negotiating tactic? Is this not? And yeah, sure. I mean, I think you have to play these games because that's, I mean, he's the president, you know? So yeah, I mean, maybe this is him just trying to like get more hostages released or get them to like make some concessions that BB wants. And they're doing a weird good cop bad cop because in this case bb would be the good

cop um and yet and yet to a degree it doesn't fucking matter because ultimately in doing this he treats a class of citizens an entire entire nation, frankly, of people as secondary, as objects, as insignificant enough that he would literally pick them up and move them, take their land away from them and build condos that he could then sell for a profit, probably. Probably, yeah. Long-term ownership position. Yeah, to diminish human beings in that way and to act like they're nothing but cattle is in itself a story.

So even if he is negotiating, I find that to be very telling of the type of presidency and human being that he is. Hard to argue with that. Sam Stein. Everybody else, subscribe to the feed. We're doing the deal. Unfortunately, we're stuck in here with him, but he's stuck in here with us, and so are you guys.

I don't think he's stuck in here with us. He's doing his thing. We're stuck with him. He's stuck. Everyone's stuck with him he's stuck everyone's stuck with each other all right uh subscribe tell your pals we'll see you soon