The President's Daily Brief - Special Bulletin: The October 7 Attacks Set Off Three Years of War. What's Next?

Episode Date: October 11, 2026

October 7, 2023, changed Israel forever. Three years later, the consequences of Hamas' devastating attack continue to reverberate across the Middle East. Mike Slater joins former CIA officer Mike Baker to examine the events of that day, the wars and political upheaval that followed, and how Israel's strategic position has changed. What lessons have been learned, and where does Israel go from here?

Hey, Mike Baker here. This week marks three years since the October 7th terrorist attacks on Israel. I recently sat down with the most excellent Mike Slater for a wide-ranging conversation about the attacks, the political and military fallout, and how the past three years since those attacks have fundamentally reshaped Israel in the broader Middle East. Check out the podcast, Politics by Faith, with Mike Slater. I hope you enjoy the interview. Let's go to the great Mike Baker host of one of the top. podcasts and the entire nation, the president's daily brief. Mr. Baker, how are you, sir? I do it well. Thanks, man. Great to see you again. Thank you. I'm glad you're here. Thank you. Let's just go back, three years. Remind us of some aspects of this attack, the actual physical attack, how it happened, and what did Hamas do that maybe they've never done before,

how did it catch Israel so off guard, things like that. Take us back three years. Yeah. Well, I think what they did that was most important from their perspective, right, from Hamas' perspective, and Yaya Asim was a big part of this, was that they spent a lot of time prior to 7 October creating this narrative that Hamas didn't really want to continue to this hostilities. They didn't want this war. They just wanted a better life and could, you know, could we just all hold hands? It wasn't quite that simple. But the message they were sending, for really for a couple of years at least was this idea that I think it's a new day

and that lulled the Israeli government security services I would argue into kind of this sense that the threat isn't what it used to be and we saw that in a way because we started to see you know a lot of infighting political infighting in Israel and typically they're so worried about existential threats, outside threats, that they don't spend a great deal of time, you know, publicly fighting politically, right? They try to keep that tamp down to the degree possible, right? They obviously have it.

But anyway, so you started to see more of this infighting, which meant they had more time to think about themselves rather than worrying about Hamas. And that, I would say, is the number one thing that Hamas did that enabled 7 October. Very interesting. I've never heard that for. you would think because of social media and everything

that and we can see more of war than a normal person maybe you've seen before that we'd be more horrified by war but it's interesting I almost feel like people have become more numb to the evils of war how brutal was what happened three years ago oh it was it was ganges con it was it was Vikings landing on the beach

It was horrific, right? And this video of it. But yet today, because we've all got ADHD, right, because also apparently it's okay to be somewhat anti-Semitic, you know, that's kind of been set aside. And they don't remember what happened. And yes, it's terrible when it dies and civilians die and have a lot of Palestinians died since then.

Yes, you know, how many would have? Probably not very many if Hamas hadn't decided to do this. That was their plan. They wanted to turn this upside down, right? Because they understood what would happen. They understood how Israel would respond. They knew this was going to happen. They didn't care that their own citizens would be killed.

That's why they put their command centers underneath hospitals and weapons depots underneath schools. They don't care. And we've forgotten that because of the passage of time. You know, it's like the 25-year anniversary of September 11th. We just, you know, a lot of people were like, oh, is it September 11th? How about that? Yeah, yeah. And so I want to ask that.

So, Sinwar, who was the leader of Hamas, who planned this whole thing, do you think he miscalculated? Like, if he were to look back on this, would he be like, oh, thank goodness we did this? Or, oh, man, I really blew it. That was a bad idea. No, he was, you know, he was what he was. He knew, look, there was no misunderstanding. They've been at this game with Israel for decades. They understood what they were getting into. And the brutality with which they conducted the 7 October attacks was designed.

It wasn't as they just said, well, let's see what happens. We'll send some of our soldiers across the border and see, you know, how it goes. It was planned. It was designed. There was architecture around it. I don't think, yeah, I would be, you know, and, you know, I would, you hate to wish anybody dead. I don't really hate to wish anybody dead. There are people that deserve it. He was one of them. Tremendous amount of blood on his hands as a terrorist and a leader of Hamas. So I don't think he would be surprised at where this went.

I think if you had pulled all the dozen citizens, if there had been a way, there's not, of course, but if there have been a way to poll them, surveyed them, without Hamas being aware of how they cast their vote, they would have said, are you crazy? That's what you're thinking about doing? You're going to go do that, and you're going to then create this conflict that's going to destroy Gaza?

Absolutely not, but that's not how it works. Hamas is in control. I would argue that in the parts where Israel hasn't occupied, they still are in control. They refuse to disarm, and there is no international peacekeeping force. a bit of a farce. So, yeah, I know I sound cynical, but the whole thing is a mess. Look, not that, you know, not the conflict in the Middle East isn't always incredibly complex and layered and

messy and horrific. And again, it doesn't discount the fact that it is awful that civilians have been killed, right, in this conflict. Of course not. That is a problem. And yes, there should be transparency around the Israeli defense force and how they conduct their operations. But this whole thing kicked off because Hamas wanted it to kick off. So on that point, what do you say to the people who criticize all this because it's genocide? Israel's creating genocide. They've been committing genocide all this time. What do you say to that?

Yeah, we throw genocide around like we throw the term Nazi, right? I mean, it doesn't have any meaning anymore. They're not committing genocide. They've killed a large number of people. They've destroyed a large part of Gaza in their pursuit of destroying Hamas. Is that genocide? No. Genocide is the intent to destroy an entire civilization, right?

That's not what's happening here. So they actually do make the effort to plan surgical strikes. They actually do make the effort to warn civilians before there's an operation. You don't do those things if you're intent on genocide. So maybe all those people who are horrified by the, killing and that's not wrong of course they can be but come up with a different term because you're misusing the definition of that word yeah sorry uh three years later now with military responses lebanon and and gaza and some other places too of course iran um militarily speaking

where would how would you assess uh israel's success in in response and in the moment Yeah. Well, it's kind of a hot mess, isn't it? That's why you have me on, Mike, because I give analysis like that. Yeah. Look, the Gaza situation has almost, in a sense, right, it's been because of the Iran conflict, it's been pushed to the periphery, and it shouldn't be. It needs to be resolved. Can it be? I don't know. They've been working on this for some time, just like they've been working on issues. related to Hezbollah and the Houthis and others. And so I think Israel has stepped back. I think they've taken a breath. I think what they're doing right now, they're waiting for the upcoming elections. And they've also been kind of pressured by the U.S.

not to get involved to, you know, however you want to refrain from, you know, a major conflict at this point. So Israel, I think, look, they significantly degraded Hezbollah. They significantly degraded Hamas. They significantly have degraded

the Iranian regime leadership. But has that solved any of those problems? No, they're still there. And in the scope of things, it's all dog years in the Middle East. I mean, it's like we think in short bites out there, things

progress very slowly but persistently. And so we'll be revisiting a lot of these issues, not that we're not already need deep in them, but they'll be further conflict. Chesbullah, that situation, the Lebanese government has no control over Chazbollah, you know, so the U.S. can talk all it wants about negotiating with the Lebanese and coming up with a new plan, but they're negotiating with the Lebanese government. The government has no control over Chzbollah. So those negotiations, you know, it's nice to have communication. It's nice to have

diplomacy, but I'm not putting a lot of stock at it. and the Iran conflict, that's a whole separate mess. Mike Baker, he's the host of the president's daily brief, one of the top podcast in the entire country. Mike, appreciate it. That was cheery, wasn't it, Mike? That was cheery. God, I'm never having this guy back on.

By the way, what are you doing this weekend? Listen. I'm going to go drink now. It is what it is. It's the truth. It's the reality. And that's what we call for more than anything. Mike, be the man.

Next time we chat, it will be more about sports and fun stuff.