The President's Daily Brief - PDB Situation Report | August 30th, 2025: Why 600k Chinese Students Are A National Security Nightmare & Is Hezbollah Finished?

Episode Date: August 30, 2025

In this episode of The President's Daily Brief: President Trump sparks heated debate with his proposal to allow 600,000 Chinese students to study in the United States. Frank Gaffney of the Institute for the American Future joins us to break it down. Is Hezbollah finally down for the count? Lebanon is floating a plan to persuade the militant group to disarm, while Israel signals it might pull its forces back. We’ll get analysis from David Daoud of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com.Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief.YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Jacked Up Fitness: Get the all-new Shake Weight by Jacked Up Fitness at https://JackedUpShakeWeight.comCBDistillery: Visit https://CBDistillery.com and use promo code PDB for 25% off your entire order!Stash Financial: Don’t Let your money sit around. Go to https://get.stash.com/PDB to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money. Because behind every headline is a bottom line. Whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings, there's a money side to every story. And when you see the money side, you understand what others miss. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com. Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears. on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, and President Trump touched off a firestorm this week with a controversial decision to allow 600,000 Chinese students to study in the United States. That's right, 600,000. Frank Gaffney of the Institute for the American Future, joins us with his take. Later in the show, is Hezbollah finally down for the count? Lebanon is floating a plan to persuade the militant group to give up its weapons, while Israel signals it might pull its forces back. We'll get analysis from David Dove of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

But first, today's PDB spotlight. This week, the White House announced its plan to allow 600,000 Chinese nationals to study in the U.S. supporters argue the move is pragmatic. Universities depend heavily on the tuition paid by foreign students, and shrinking enrollments have left many schools struggling to stay afloat. However, critics are warning of the national security risks, and you know what? They're not wrong. The FBI has repeatedly cautioned that Chinese students and researchers are often used to gather intelligence, transfer technology, and expand Beijing's influence. Others say the plan could also limit opportunities for American students, particularly in elite science and engineering programs. So, you ask, is this a savvy negotiating tactic with Beijing

or a dangerous opening for China? Well, joining us now is Frank Gaffney. He's the former deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Reagan administration and the president of the Institute for the American Future. Frank, thank you very much for taking some time here. We're on the Situation Report. Mike, thank you. Let's start with this issue of the 600,000 visas for Chinese students. What do you think about it? I think the 270,000 that we have already issued to Chinese students is a terrible mistake. I was very heartened when in May, about three months ago to the day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced in the name out of Donald Trump that we were going to cut back on those visas and police up, you know, those who were not ones we wanted in this

country. The idea of, you know, bringing, I guess, 600,000 more, or maybe just, even doubling the number that we have seems to me to be a truly epic mistake because we know that the Chinese use these students in a lot of nefarious ways. First of all, they're hand-selected to come here. Typically, they're from Chinese Communist Party members. Families or otherwise are known to be, you know, with the program. They're sent here with the explicit understanding that under Chinese law, they must do whatever they're told to do by the Chinese communists. And that can mean everything from the theft of intellectual property to espionage, to smuggling

in dangerous pathogens, to subversion, perhaps even sabotage. And there's no way we're going to be able to keep track of all of these characteristics. So when you add the 270,000 and the, well, pick a number, I've heard as high as 100,000 individual, single, unaccompanied, that is to say, military-aged men that Joe Biden led in the country who are, I think, properly suspected of being People's Liberation Army soldiers. and then you talk about putting another 600,000 on top of that, you could have a million people, all of whom are in sort of the fighting age category demographic. And it's a formula for, I think, disaster. So I'm fearful that the president is going to reconsider this idea and revert back to the policy that Secretary of State Rubio announced just three months ago.

I know this is speculation, but do you think it's, is it that he threw this out there? I mean, oftentimes you'll get comments coming out of a Trump administration that, you know, are just being tossed at the wall to see what sticks at times. And, you know, sometimes it's for negotiation purposes. Do you think that this was with this increase in visas for Chinese students, was it just part of a larger game plan for negotiating with the Chinese over trade talks? Or, you know, Do you think he actually believes this idea that it's a way to fiscally shore up universities around the country because they tend to pay full freight when they come over? I just don't know. He has said the second is operating. The first sounds right. But whatever the motivation, I think he's got to reconsider this. And as you say, sometimes they just run the flagpole something and see if anybody's saluted. I think this is being pretty uniformly and on a bipartisan basis, you know, described as a very, very, well, actually, dangerous idea, not just ill-advised, but dangerous idea for the American people and for our country.

And I, you know, my hope is that the president will see that, you know, like cracker barrel, it made a mistake and, you know, tivet. You know, I did not see you using the cracker barrel analogy here, Frank, but I think it fits. It's good. But look, the problem here is, I think the general public, it's become more of a focus because of the Trump first administration and now the second administration, they have. have shined the light on the theft of intellectual property, economic espionage, the theft of R&D. The costs to the U.S. over the decades has been incalculable. We just, we don't know, we can't put a price tag on how costly it has been. And they've been very aggressive in a variety of ways, including the academic arena. I will say one of the very first things I did in the agency, I spent some 20 years on the operations side, one of the various first things I did was

work a case that involved a student, a Chinese student, attending grad school. And, you know, that was back when I could pass as a grad student, right? That's not going to happen any, you know? So that was a long time ago. And what they had done was they basically just sent them over to go to school. And he was associated with the PLA Intel apparatus we'd identified. And his job was just to get great grades in grad school after he graduated from undergrad. and that his job would to be get a job, right?

And they didn't really care, right? That's their vision is way down the road. So their thought was, get a job, get another job, eventually you end up a Raytheon. You know, maybe you'll end up at Corning. We don't know. But they were willing to put in that investment. And considering how many years ago that was, I don't think he's the only one, right? So whether they're cooperative contacts or they're coerced or their willing contacts

or their actual assets working with the Intel apparatus, They have been extremely aggressive using the academic arena for this. So I am 100% on board with your comments. I don't understand what the White House is currently thinking. I do keep going back to the idea that, well, maybe it is just a bargaining chip he's thrown out there and we don't actually intend to do it. But from your perspective, have you seen, I mean, I know that you mentioned the bipartisan pushback.

What I worry about is that not much happens in Washington, D.C., in a bipartisan manner, but are you seeing a stronger effort to push back against this? I know it's just been announced recently, but what are you seeing from your perspective? Well, I think at the moment it's sort of the commentariat that's been heard from because Congress is out of session. They'll be back next week, and I fully expect you're going to see. people raising ruckus about this. And just to go back to something you touched on, you talked about one piece of this, which is a very serious problem. And to provide, as I'm sure you're very well aware, to provide sort of round the clock eyes on an actual intelligence operative of the Chinese Communist Party inside our country, you've got to have round the clock.

shifts. That's at least three people, maybe four, maybe more. But a lot of infrastructure goes into that kind of monitoring. But that's when you've got an actual asset that you're trying to keep an eye on. When you're talking about people who, you know, may not be distinguished in any way that you're also supposed to be making sure don't get their hands on sensitive information, classified or simply proprietary or are otherwise engaged in, you know, activities that we must not permit in our country. This is a Herculian job. And when you talk about, you know, hundreds of thousands of these guys, again, to say nothing

of those professionals, we're not up to it right now. So we just have to make sure that we don't have a self-inflicted wound here. And I think that the Congress will almost certainly repudiate this. Now, they have a couple of legislative vehicles that are coming down the tracks. They've got to, by the end of the fiscal year, they've got to get some money in the bank to keep the government going. I think the National Defense Authorization Act, which would be a very appropriate vehicle, is first-order business in the Senate on the second of September. If there's not an amendment saying, no, we're not doing this, I'll be very surprised. And more to the point, I think the American people need to be heard from on this.

We're very much of the view that Donald Trump's instincts are generally good. I don't think there's a person in public life who's been more attentive to the Chinese communist threat than he has over decades. I mean, long before he entered politics. It's just that for whatever reason, and, you know, some speculation is, that this is kind of a personal favor to G who seems to have this as a very high personal priority. Sounds right. If I were him, I would want to get as many of these guys inside our wire as he can. But whatever the reason.

And again, one of the things that we know is operating with President Trump is he does not want us to be economically disadvantaged or compromised or compromised. or perhaps losing our lunch. This is one of the reasons, quite apart from the national security imperatives here, for trade, for competitiveness, for protecting the R&D that we do buy, as you know, that the Chinese are only too happy to contract out to us effectively

and then just steal and go right into production. You see all of these fifth generation fighters and other advanced weapon systems that look an awful lot like ours. Well, that's because they've just ripped them off. And it's an enormous cost savings and far faster to get stuff in the field than if you have to do it the way we do it. No, they've risen to where they are in the global stage through, for the most part, reverse engineering. They made a decision that they were going to buy it. bypassed decades ago. They were going to bypass all the heavy lift of research and development and just hoover up what they could. That's just a fact. Look, I'm not, and again, I think when we're

talking about the student issue, of course, what we're not saying, we're not saying every Chinese student is an asset or a cooperative contact of the Chinese intel apparatus or the CCP. That's not the point. The point is that they have been using them and there have been many instances of people just Google Chinese counterintelligence cases in the U.S. The FBI opened up a new counterintelligence case every day. And so the point here is that if you double that number that we currently have, of course the Chinese Communist Party, of course their intel operations are going to take advantage of that in some fashion because it's a now you've got a potentially deeper pool.

So I, you know, from our perspective, I know sometimes, Frank, we can talk like this and some people will roll their eyes and go, oh, you guys are being paranoid. I would just encourage people to do a little research into the issue. of theft of intellectual property in Chinese counterintelligence cases. I need to take a quick break, Frank, if I could. But we'll be right back with Frank Gaffney and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Reagan administration, now president of the Institute for the American Future. We'll be right back here on the Situation Report, stick around. Hey, Mike Baker here. Now, you've heard me talk about the great company jacked up fitness,

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Eye drops and work all day to prevent the release of histamines that cause itchy, allergy eyes. And the winner by knockout is Palladay. Paterday. Bring it on. Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Joining me once again is president of the Institute for the American Future, Frank Gaffney. Frank, thanks for sticking around here. I interrupted you during our last segment.

We were talking about the issue of the visas Chinese students. Please, go ahead. I just want to make one point. And you talked about it's not likely that every one of these students is an asset or will be used for espionage or whatever other reason. That may or may not be so. Every single one of them has a legal obligation, though, to be if asked. And more to the point, there are these things called overseas Chinese police service centers. They rolled one of them up in New York City, but they're estimated to be another seven, maybe eight of them across the country.

Their service, if you will, is to bring in any Chinese national or even first generation American. His family hails from China and put him in a room where they can see on a television screen a loved one in police custody in China. The message is very clear. You will do what you're told to do, or something bad will happen. to your loved ones. That's the kind of coercive capability that the Chinese communists have specialized in and will yield, wield rather, at will with any of these individuals who they feel can be of service. Yeah, no, absolutely. And we've talked about those so-called community centers, as the Chinese regime like to refer to them as here on the PDB in the past. And it is true. Their

toolkit is enormous when it comes to how they, they hoover up information, not just from the U.S., but from, you know, the West in general. They're equal opportunity when it comes to that. And they've got the mentality that says, and they have the resources that says we'll gather up everything and then we'll sift through it and decide whether it's of use to, you know, to our government, maybe to one of their supposed pseudo-state-owned enterprises. and so, you know, they've been aggressive for, again, for generations. And it's one of those cases where I think the public is just now, in part because, as you

pointed out, the Trump administration has been shining a light on it, they're just now starting to understand the depth of this problem. So, again, I agree with that. I want to shift off of the student visas, but the purpose of all of this, Mike, as you know, is to destroy this country, the whole unrestricted warfare of which. which, you know, Chinese students as spies is just one element. Yeah, no, they view this. Certainly she does and in his predecessors.

They view the Chinese regime as being at the top of the food chain. That is their, from their perspective, they're right. That is exactly where they want to be. And whether we like it or not, you know, that has put them on a war footing, in a sense, for quite some time. We just don't seem to necessarily understand it. Let me ask you about this. I want to switch. I want to stay on China, but I want to switch our focus.

The war in Ukraine and China and the role that they play. Why do you think the White House is reluctant? They slapped a 25% tariff on India, which is the number two consumer of Russian energy, China being the number one. So they went after India, kind of focused a light on them. them, but all they've been doing with China is talking about, well, there could be consequences, but nothing so far. Why the reluctance do you think? It's a great question, and I'm very anxious about it. I think it's a terrible mistake,

and especially if it's motivated, as my friend Gordon Chang has speculated, by the fact that President Trump has been persuaded that we must be concerned. concerned about the stability of the Chinese government, mustn't do anything that would endanger it, that would perhaps cause it to, you know, and permit a chaotic situation to emerge as it falls from power. my view is it is in the vital interests of the United States that the Chinese Communist Party do exactly that at the hands of the Chinese people. I believe our policy should be aimed at trying to help accomplish that because if we don't do that by going back to what you were just saying a moment ago, make no mistake about it left to its own devices. The Chinese Communist Party will continue to brutalize and oppress and. and, yes, murder its own people, and it will not treat ours any better. In fact, it will pursue our destruction as a nation and enslavement, colonization in due course.

It's a zero-sum game, and that's not because I want it to be. That is because that's what the Chinese Communist Party believes. As you said yourself, their rightful place is the Middle Kingdom, the center of the universe. They will pursue that until we're... gone unless they're gone first. And that ought to be our express policy. And I pray to God, I used to work for Ronald Reagan, as you mentioned. I play a very small role in his successful overthrow of the Soviet Communist Party. He set his sights on doing it. He pursued relentlessly a strategy for bringing it about. And it was arguably the greatest presidential legacy in

our nation's history, short of creating our own government. But I think Donald Trump has a choice now, and I think if he's opting, as I fear, might be the case for trying to appease Xi Jinping and to try to prop him up even. He'll be in the category of, oh, I don't know, the Richard Nixon's and the George H.W. Bush's and the Bill Clintons who saved the Chinese communists in the past and brought us to this present past where they're at our throats. And that unrestricted warfare we talked about, we have a series of, I think, really powerful webinars. You can find them all for free, about 200 of them at presentation. Your China.org, folks. Check them out. But bad as all of those are, those pre-kinetic, those not-explosive kinds of warfare, if you will.

We've now put the Chinese Communist Party partly thanks to the technology transfer that we've allowed, partly to the funding. financing via Wall Street with our money that we've allowed, we've now put them in a position where they have a shooting war option as well. And I fear they will exercise it if they have the latitude to do so. That must not be allowed. And I hope President Trump will choose the Reagan model, not those of those benighted predecessors who opted for the other. Frank, in the time that we've got left, Frank, China's support of Russia in their conflict with Ukraine, their invasion of Ukraine. From your perspective, how important has that been to Putin? This deserves a longer conversation. I hope we can come back and do it again. Sure.

I believe that the Chinese dictator Xi Jinping, greenlighted this war in Ukraine, has perpetrated what he needs to to keep it going in terms of funding Russia, in terms of selling it arms, in terms of enabling the chaos that it has precipitated. including distracting us, leading us out in terms of both finances and arms, I believe that it will continue interminably as long as Xi Jinping is there and sees that it is in his interest to do that. Don't take my work for it. The Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi has actually said, we don't want this war to conclude precisely because, and it keeps us away from checking them where we need to. And in a way, it weakens Russia. And look, I mean, they're not, you know, that's not a tight marriage.

That's a marriage of convenience. And so I think, and you're absolutely right. China, the regime will always ruthlessly do what's in their own best interests. Frank Gaffney, president of the Institute for the American Future. Thanks again for joining us here on the Situation Report and sharing your insight. All right. Coming up next, could Hasbolo finally be pressured into laying down its weapons? Lebanon is preparing a new proposal to persuade the group to disarm.

Well, Israel signals that it might scale back its forces. Those are big developments. David Doe from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies will join us for that analysis. Stay tuned. Hey, Mike Baker here. Now, let's be honest, right? Most of us, on occasion or often are tired or stressed or dealing with some kind of pain, right? I mean, especially pain after a workout.

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sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer. Welcome back to the PDB situation report. Lebanon is preparing to present a plan aimed at persuading Hasbelop to disarm. US envoy Thomas Barrack said Tuesday the proposal won't involve military coercion, but rather political and economic measures designed to encourage Hasbolo fighters, many of course funded by Iran, to put down their weapons. Israel is expected to submit a corresponding framework for a partial military withdrawal if Hezbollah complies. Now, it's a very unusual development. For decades, the group has been seen as

Lebanon's most powerful armed faction, unwilling to part with its arsenal. Still, financial strain, waning popularity, and Iran's old troubles could be changing the calculus. To break down what this could mean for Lebanon and the wider region, we're joined by David Daoud, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defensive Democracies. David, thank you very much for coming back on the Situation Report. I'm glad we didn't scare you away the last time. Now, it's been great every time. Glad to be back on.

Okay, let's start from the top with this. How important from your perspective are these developments regarding Lebanon? Well, look, I mean, I think what we're seeing is in some ways a momentous change, and in some ways it's more of the same old. Who could have imagined just a handful of years ago or even, last year that the Lebanese government would have taken a preliminary decision to disarm Hezbollah. It's pretty significant that this boldness has emerged. It's a testament to the weakened state that the organization finds itself in between the war with Israel, between the loss of its

lifeline through Syria with the downfall of Bashar al-Assad and the weakening of the Iranian regime with its recent war with Israel and decimation of most of its regional assets. So as well than a squeeze. And it has one card to rely on that it's pushing back on. Now, I like to say I'm not the confessor of Lovdi's president or the prime minister. I don't know what's in their heart of hearts. Pardon me, seals, I'll admit that this is the same old Lebanon that is trying to buy time with empty gestures and wait until, you know, international attention just moves elsewhere. We're talking to Hezbollah. We have to talk it out. We don't want to lead the Civil War. I mean, this is the talk that kept Lebanon from disarming Hezbollah for the 18 years between 2006 and 2023 when the most recent war erupted. We're starting. We're seeing a little bit of that that's still there. So it's problematic. But at the same time, there is more potential today for Lebanon to do something at any point in the past. So those two things are in competition.

Yeah, and so, I mean, I take from what you're saying that, because in the past, look, the Lebanese military didn't really have the ability to unilaterally disarm Hezbollah. That wasn't going to happen, right? I mean, the Lebanese military was very famously kind of, you know, second to Hezbollah. So it's more about the weakening that's taken place, certainly rather than any sort of change of heart or any, I don't want to sound too cynical, but this is not a, this is not a, about, you know, various factions in Lebanon thinking, we want to move in the right direction and do what's best for our citizens. This is more about an opportunity because Hezbollah has been hit so hard over the past year and a half. I think, look, the citizen is largely justified. I think there's partially that, look, when dealing with Hezbollah, when wanting to disarm Hezbollah, the question is always, it's kind of a calculus or a balance of pain. On the one hand, you have the trouble that you're going to have to go through to disarm Hasbola. And part of it is that you touched on, it's Hezbollah's military strength that's been degraded.

But the other part of it that hasn't been degraded, we've seen no indication that it's been degraded is Hezbo's vast Shiite support, right? They brought out, according to information international as the Lebanese consultancy group, about 900,000 people, maximum, minimum, almost 700,000 people to Nostrellas funeral, they swept the municipal elections, right? We haven't seen the massive uprisings of Shiites or even any uprisings of Shiites have any considerable number against Hezbole saying, hey, you destroyed our lives. we don't want you anymore. So that's still in Hezbollah's back pocket. And when you as the Lebanese have to go against Hezbollah, you're not just worried about the organization, it's military strength,

worried about that entire deep support base that could lead you to civil war. So that's on the one hand. So you have civil war on the one hand. On the other hand, you have the pain brought by Israeli military. The longer Hezbollah remained armed, the more provokes Israel, the more Israel going to attack.

There's going to be future wars. Now there's an additional factor, additional factors on the calculus of pain for Lebanon. It's the fact that the international community for some time now is saying, hey, we're not playing along with this anymore, right? Lebanon's economy collapses in 2019. Lebanon is desperate for funds. It's desperate for assistance. None of its traditional financiers are coming to help.

The United States is saying no international aid until there's overhaul of the system. The Gulf states are saying no money because we see Hezbollah. So you have to weigh these calculus of pain, which is going to be. be more painful for you to endure the lack of assistance and potentially more Israeli military pressure or to go toe-to-to-to-with-Hasbola. And that's where we are. It's that calculus of pain that's motivating the Lebanese more than anything. And what's going to push them forward or hold them back is which one weighs heavier on their decision-making. For the benefit of the viewers, can you give us in sort of short order? I know that's not easy. But give us a sort of an overview

of the complications of the Lebanese political scene, the various factions that are involved, and we don't need to go all the way back in history, but I think it would be beneficial for the viewers to understand exactly how complex it is there. Look, I mean, Lebanon is a country that is identity is still in formation. To speak of a unified Lebanese national identity, I think, is premature. The country is pieced together by a sectarian. power sharing system that allocates to each sect prerogatives, right? Protections, prerogatives, right? The Maronites get the presidency, the Sunnis get the premiership, the Shiites get the Speaker

of Parliament. And who specifically gets that among the, you know, from among that sect, which Maronite gets it, which Sunni gets it, which Shiite gets it, depends on, you know, it doesn't just go to the sect, it goes to basically these subsectarian feudal warlords, for lack of a better descriptor. And they take their sects share. And they have, have the interest of the sect, or at least they pretend to have the interest of the sector. That's what they sell their people on. This is what they're representing. So, you know, any decision because of that, because Lebanon is so delicately held together in that way, any decision must be made by sectarian consensus, must be made by getting all the agreement of all these subsectarian feudal

warlords to say, hey, agree on this. Now, when it comes to Hezbollah's disarm, it's a momentous decision. The Shiites, in this case, are, we don't know how big the demographic breakdown in Lebanon is because 1932 is the last census and even that's questionable. But we assume the Shiites, right, there's an assumption that Shiites are the largest sect or the largest growing sect. So if you're Hezbollah, you have a substantial number of these people in your pocket. The other part of the Shiite coin is Amal, right? This secular Lebanese analog to Hezbollah, but that's working in lockstep with Hezbollah. So right now, the government needs to make this decision. They need to have a Shiite voice. And both Amal and Hezbollah are depriving it of that Shiite voice.

So that leaves it complicated because in the Lebanese national psyche, a civil war that happened not that long ago, unlike our civil war here in the United States, there's still people of living memory you experienced and fought it. That way is on their mind. If you touch sect's prerogatives, you could lead to civil war. Do you think that Israel, is it your perception that Israel is serious about this idea that they could pull back from Lebanon, at least in part?

I think so, but I think part of my skepticism here, which leads to your cynicism, what the hesitation we're saying in the Israeli statement as congratulatory as it was, is that Lebanon has said a lot of nice things in the past. Lebanon has a habit of saying all the right things, but then doing nothing. And I think what the Israelis are saying is like, look, this is a momentous decision that you undertook. We acknowledge the gravity of the decision. At the same time, it's not an action, right?

This is very many steps short of an action because what happened, you know, the gun government tasked the LAF, the Lebanese army, with putting together a plan to be submitted later this week, maybe early September, about disarmament at the end of the year. That plan has not been put together yet. It's not been submitted to a cabinet vote. It's not been approved. And it has been turned into a governmental order to the LAS, is the government, the cabinet, the executive in Lebanon, to the LAF to disarm house below. So the IDF is saying, look, this is nice. Or the Israelis saying, this is nice, but we're not seeing action. And we need to see action. And then we can reciprocate with action. And I think that's a very, very fair thing for the Israelis to say,

especially in a way of Lebanon's history. Listen, we need to take a quick break. I want to pick up where we are right now and then move in a different direction as well. But David, if you stay with us, we have to take a quick break and we'll be back with more of David Doe and a situation report. Stick around. This podcast is brought to you in part by Stash. Now imagine investing without ever picking a single stock. Well, with Stash, the experts handle the hard part. for you. Stash isn't just another investing app. It's a registered investment advisor that combines automated investing with expert guidance, so you don't have to worry about figuring it out on your own.

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Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Joining us once again is Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy's David Doe. David, thank you for sticking around. We've been talking about the recent developments and potential for a real sea change in Lebanon. I want to shift a little bit. I understand you were in Israel not that long ago. Give us your perspective, if you could, on where things stand right now, both with the ceasefire that supposedly is on the table and is up for consideration and the IDF's potential move into Gaza City. Look, I mean, I was in Israel prior to all this, but I'd say the national mood has been for some time. Not everyone, obviously, but the predominant national mood has been shifted from a focus to total victory,

which we actually haven't heard a lot of even coming from the government to getting the hostages back. I think the Israeli public is tired of the continuation of the war. It's the longest war in Israel's history. It's having an economic drain, obviously. The IDF is not built for wars to last two years. it's having a social drain. The IDF is a conscript army. It's an army made up of reservists.

These people are coming back to job loss is economic. If they have businesses, the businesses are suffering. I read to PTSD, there's social fissures that this is highlighting between the ultra-Orthodox, who are not serving in the army, refusing to serve in the army, and reservists who are serving longer terms in the army now to make up for the IDF's manpower shortage. That's all on the one hand. On the other hand, you have where the government's consideration is that Hamas is refusing to surrender. It's that Hamas is refusing to give up its weapons, its control over Gaza.

And what this means is that Hamas is trying to set itself up for, A, claiming victory if the Israeli war effort ends, and B, setting itself up for regeneration in Gaza to continue threatening Israel again. I think that's a situation that Israel refused us to accept that another 10-7, even a potential 10-7, could happen in 5. five, ten years. So you have this problem here between the Israeli government and the Israeli public and between Israel and Hamas, where you have unbridgeable gaps. How fragile is Nanyahu's coalition, given what you've just described? Well, it's fragile for several reasons. One is the ultra-Orthodox conscription. We've already seen the withdrawal of the ultra-Orthodox parties, some of the government, some of the cabinet. And now, so this makes him more vulnerable

to the remaining coalition members. They said, you know, the ultra-Orthodox parties were drawn, but they said they're not going to endorse a no-confidence vote in the Knesset. So that keeps the government secure for now. But you've had Smotrich, Betel Smotrich and It's Amar Benvir, who were kind of the right blank of the government, much right of Likud, who are saying that if Prime Minister Netanyahu compromises on a ceasefire in a way they don't like,

they'll collapse the government. So it keeps that to Nathano, again, the withdrawal of the ultra-Orthodox parties left him more vulnerable to that kind of pressure. You don't see centrist parties, say, Benny Gans or Yeshatee, willing to come into the coalition to offset that. They said they'll support certain things from the outside. So within the coalition, he's more, Prime Minister Netanyahu is more amenable to the pressure of his right slank. We're insisting that the war continue, even though, again, unclear what the end goal is at this point. Yeah. This may sound like there may be a simple question, but if you could. What is, from the ultra-Orthodox, what's their justification for not engaging in participation in the idea?

Well, again, it's a multi-layered question with a multi-layered answer. Part of it is the question of the legitimacy of the state itself. Many ultra-Orthodox Jews believe that a Jewish state should not arise in the land of Israel until the prior coming of the Messiah. Some object to the fact that the state is secular and not religious. Others say we accept the state. We just want to, and it's legitimacy, we just want to live our lifestyle, which is to learn Torah all day, to study in Yeshiva all day, and that serving in the army is considered what they call detut d'uilat, right?

It's a cessation of the study of Torah. It would compromise the integrity of their religious lifestyle. There's a fear that it's sending one's children into the army will lead them to become secular and abandoned their particular ultra-Orthodox way of life. So it's a multi-layered concern, but one that the Israeli public and several Israeli governments, it's been a problem that's been boiling in Israel, bubbling in Israel since independence. It's part of the region why Israel doesn't have a constitution. And it's one that's been put off for so long, and now I think it's coming to a headway. Well, certainly. I mean, you know, you're talking about going on two years

with this conflict and the stress that that's putting on the reservists, that that divide becomes more and more clear and I would think disconcerting to those who are serving. I realize it's complex and I realize it involves, you know, religious issues and beliefs. So that's probably a minefield all by itself. Now, as far as, as far as a logical, you know, I, this is, is a speculative question, I know. And I, you know, that's what kind of my specialty is. But if Hamas is saying what they're saying, they've just come out not that long ago and said, okay, we, we're willing to, you know, go along with this latest ceasefire proposal. They've rejected so much about other potential plans. Are they just, is this just a ploy on their part from your

perspective? Are they, are they just reading the tea leaves and thinking, okay, if we say, now in light of the fact that the Netanyahu government has said, no, we're not, you know, we're going to do this operation. We're going into Gaza City. Well, clearly, you know, Hamas has been fairly clever over the years and sophisticated in their messaging. So if I'm sitting in the marketing wing of Hamas and I look over and I see Netanyahu saying, no, we are going into Gaza City. We are going to finish this fight. And you look at the population saying, you know, we're tired, we want to finish this. Then a logical position for Hamas that is to switch. and say, oh, well, we will accept a ceasefire. So, you know, are they serious about it, or is this

just another one of their narrative ploys? I mean, look, I again, I'm probably the ultimate cynic here, so I look at it as a narrative ploy as an attempt to put pressure on the Netanyahu government to end the war prematurely through presenting him as the impediment to a ceasefire. There's already this mentality among the protesters against the war in Israel, but somehow the decision of war in peace rests exclusively with Prime Minister Netanyahu. And he has a big part of it, but then again, there seems to be this, the interlocutor Hamas is forgotten. I just don't see a situation. Look, Hamas, it's not the IRA, right?

This is, this is, it's not an entity that is operating out of purely rational considerations. It's a religiously fanatical movement that views it as a, not just a political imperative, but a religious imperative, not to liberate a swath of territory, right? Not just to get Israel out of Gaza or Israel out of the West Bank, but to, and this is the distinction between the IRA and the British, they weren't fighting over exactly the same territory. Ireland could rise and Britain could still continue to exist. In Hamas's mind, Palestine and Israel are mutually exclusive. This is an ideological fixture. And I think for them to give up their weapons would be to give up the broader Palestinian cause and to violate the underlying religious

principles from whence their political ideology stems. So I don't see an organization like that giving up just because it's been beaten. I mean, you look at ISIS, you look at Al-Qaeda, these groups go into kind of hibernation periods, but they never really, they never really go away because the motivation is ideological. Yeah, no, that's a great point. And one I think that we sometimes miss because we tend to try to frame these things from our perspective in the West, right? Okay, well, well, what's an associating strategy? How would I deal with it? And you're right, you're talking about Fais. Look, if you consider Gaza City as kind of their primary or last stronghold for Hamas. I mean, if you want to, it's a simplistic way of putting it.

But if you do, then you look at the fighters that are there and you think, for the most part, they're in that age group that grew up almost from kindergarten being indoctrinated, right? That's a powerful thing. So I think your point is excellent, which is this is, you're not dealing necessarily with a rational adversary here. You can't put your Western values on them when thinking about strategy. And I think that confuses a lot of people when they hear Netanyahu talk about, we have to destroy them. Now, do the people that

are, like the hostage families coalition and those that are taken to the streets and protest and saying, we've got to stop this thing now, we have to accept the ceasefire? By definition, does that mean that they're fine with capitulating to Hamas and leaving Hamas operational and in charge?

I don't know if they view it that way. And look, can I, can I blame them if my child were being held in Gaza. Right. I have no idea what their, what their condition is, what, and I've seen other hostages come out in terrible conditions and heard horror stories about sexual abuse and so on and so forth. If we think, if we think that's limited to the women, then we are very naive about how these actors operate, torture and so on and so forth, starvation.

If that's my child, I, I'm not seeing anything after that. I'm not thinking about anything after that. It's, you know, and it's a purely emotional response, one that comes from, like, I guess, the most innate and basic instincts that a human being has. And I don't think anyone can fault them for saying, look, I just want my kid back. Whatever, whatever happens after, let it happen. I want my loved one back. And I think there's also this idea that, you know, get the hostages back and then you can continue the war through other means. A lot of people on that side of the ledger will point to, you know, the alleged ceasefire, and I emphasize alleged ceasefire that happened between Israel

and Hezbollah and Lebanon. And then Israel continues to degrade Hezbole, to attack Hezbole, they're saying, well, why can't we adopt a similar model in Gaza, get our hostages back, end the war, and then move to kind of a slow erosion of what remains of Hamas? And again, is that feasible militarily? Is that a smart strategy? Does it end up being the capitulation? Perhaps. But for the person who's desperately trying to get their loved one back, I don't think they're,

and you can't expect them to think that for it. Yeah, no, 100% agreed. I think that's correct. You know, sometimes. You know, obviously we're removed from this, and so, you know, we can tend to have these conversations on some theoretical level without the emotion involved. But that is, that's very true. I do like the idea of saying we're going to get a deal, get the hostages return, both living in debt. And then, but you can't, there is no medium to long term stability as long as Hamas and thereby Iran are involved in the governing of Gaza.

Is that something that despite their differences in terms of whether we take a ceasefire or we continue a military operation, is that something that most people in Israel can agree with? That Iran will return? What I mean is that. Yeah, well, what I mean is you can do most people still, despite where they think we should draw the line here and end the the conflict, would they still agree that there is no stability? or long-term peace if Hamas remains in charge in Gaza. I mean, even without that, I think the concept of long-term peace and stability isn't something that's in the Israeli lexicon nowadays, but especially, yes, especially if Hamas somehow makes its way back to power, close its way back up to, you know, regaining, regaining

its strength or the path to regeneration even, then, of course, there's no way to, Hamas has made it such that there is no compromise that can be reached between Israel and a Hamas-governance territory, be it in Gaza or the West Bank or elsewhere. I think most Israelis understand that, but I think the emphasis now is, look, you know, our soldiers are tired, the army's war now, we want our hostages back, international credibility and credit and support, is it the lowest that's been in Israel's history. You have countries less than right and not, you know, adversaries like Russia, but partners like France and the UK and Canada, friends of Israel coming out and saying, we're going to support a Palestinian state unilaterally. I mean,

this, you know, Israel could, from their perspective, Israel's winning the battle, losing this broader war for legitimacy, which is even more dangerous, in my opinion. So I don't think there's any illusion that, you know, Hamas will somehow moderate or become a responsible actor. I think those illusions died on October 6th, or on October 7th, rather. And it's just, it's just a calculus of what, you know, what's the worst of two options right now, of two bad options? I think, Yeah, I think Israel lost the international narrative shortly after October 7th, remarkably quickly, right, after the brutality of October 7th, in part because, again, I would argue that Qomaz is fairly sophisticated in understanding how to drive the various narratives. And then you get something like the Nasser Hospital strike, and it just compounds the problem. David, we got a lot more to talk about, but we have no more time.

So I'm hoping that you'll continue to come on back because there's a lot to unpack there in this region. That would be great. David Dowell, of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, once again, thank you very much for joining us here on the Situation Report, man. I'll see you next time. Well, that's all the time we have for this week's PDB Situation Report. Look, if you have any questions or you have any comments, or if you have humorous anecdotes or a limerick, do people still do liver? I don't know. Please reach out to me at BDB at thefirsttv.com.

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