Jonathan Schanzer
Appearances
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
Well, look, first, let's just acknowledge that the president's Gaza-Lago plan was not a plan. I mean, it was an idea. Wait a second. That's fantastic.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
Trademark it immediately. You have my support. Okay. All right. As soon as we're done here, I'm going to go send it in. But yeah, I mean, Gazalago was not a plan. It was a notion, if that, right? Definitely not even a full-baked idea. But here's what it was. The president tore a page out of his own book, The Art of the Deal.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
You throw an idea at the other side that is just preposterous, that they can't accept, that you know they're not going to accept, and they get outraged. And then finally, when they're done being outraged, they come back to you with something that's maybe a little bit more in line with reasonable, whereas before maybe they weren't even ready to talk at all.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
And so what's just happened is we started actually the real conversation. The real conversation is that the Arabs came back and made a suggestion of a five-year process in Gaza, $53 billion fronted by the Arabs. Here's the thing that's not realistic. All this so far is workable, but what they won't do is decide on the fate of Hamas.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
No Arab country right now wants to go as far as to say Hamas needs to go. They can't come back. We have to kick them out and never let them return.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
none of them are profiles in courage. Let me just put it that way first. Very few of these countries are going to come out independently and promote ideas that we would consider to be bold, courageous, brave. Look, there are a couple of countries that have stepped out of line.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
The UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, I think they took bold and courageous steps back in 2000 when they signed the Abraham Accords with Israel. In the past, Jordan had its moment, Egypt had its moment, but most of these countries are weak.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
They're run by strongmen who don't want to risk angering their populations, nor do they want to risk getting into a spat with the Iranian regime if the regime there decides to start turning its sights on these somewhat weaker Arab regimes. So yeah, you're not going to see a lot of
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
bravery from these folks these are not profiles in courage but again I think that this has started a conversation I think it's important that Trump and Israel and everybody else fire back and say hey thanks for starting the conversation that's not good enough here's why come back to us when you're serious about dealing with Hamas because that's a serious problem that needs to get dealt with
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
Yeah. And look, I'll just say that, you know, I think the president keeps doing this, right? Yeah. You know, he's created quite a flap with Ukraine, too. Came out, shocked everybody by basically saying, you know, not going to deal with this guy. He's not ready for peace.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
You know, and what he did is he forced Zelensky to come back and agree to a mineral deal that might actually ultimately protect the territorial integrity of Ukraine, benefit the United States and put us in a different position. Now, I'm not going to tell you that it's all going to work out perfectly, and I'm not going to tell you that he had it all planned in advance.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. But this is kind of the way that this president operates. He'll throw something out there. He will create outrage. He will create a huge flap. And everybody focuses on what exactly that one thing was that they can't stand or they can't live with. And meanwhile, another conversation begins that actually may be beneficial. Now, it all can still fall apart.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
And again, I'm not telling you that all this was done exactly by design, but this is the style of the president. That's what we're watching now on multiple fronts.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
Well, it's interesting because we've been watching this play out. I think this is the fourth time that the president has issued an ultimatum to Hamas, threatening to unleash hell on them. Look, what he's already done is this. He's given the Israelis everything they need in order to completely destroy Hamas. He's given them those 2,000-pound bombs, those MK-84s.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
Sure. Well, look, there's two countries that have been pressured to consider taking in refugees. One of them is Jordan. And I got to tell you, I'm not surprised that Jordan said no, and I am not sure that I would want Jordan to say yes. This is a pivotal country in the region.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
I don't love everything that they do, and I think a reckoning is needed between Israel and Jordan and the United States, because I don't think Jordan's been a particularly grateful recipient of American aid, and I don't think they've held up their end of the bargain as it relates to Israeli-Jordanian peace. But they're 85% Palestinian, and they also have another one to two million Syrian refugees.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
This is not a country that can afford to have more destabilization and to have a greater influx of refugees. That's Jordan. Now, Egypt is another story. It's one of the most populous countries on earth.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
But at the same time, here's the thing, the Sinai Peninsula, which is the area that abuts the Gaza Strip, not very densely populated, certainly could be a place that could house Palestinians, especially if other countries like the UAE or Saudi Arabia or even the US helped to foot the bill, kept them there, didn't let them integrate into mainland Egypt.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
And treated them like welcome guests and allowed them to stay there until such a time that the Gaza Strip was ready to be repopulated. I could imagine that being okay. What we're hearing though from the Egyptians is absolutely no way, no way this happens, no circumstance whatsoever.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
And a lot of that is just, this is sclerotic Arab world thinking dating back to the 1950s, where every Arab state basically said, we are not taking in Palestinians. We want them to stay where they are, even if it means that they stay there in misery, to make them living symbols of the Arab world's opposition to Israel.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
This is some seriously demented thinking that has brought us inexorably to where we are today. In other words, it kept the entire region on a war footing because they insisted on keeping this misery at a high level. This has to end, and I actually think that Egypt should play a role here. I think you mentioned before that Qataris should take in some of these refugees.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
I think the Turks, who are also sponsors of Hamas, they should take in refugees. The Iranians should. The Malaysians should. Every one of these patrons of Hamas should be forced to take in, I don't know, a half million, a quarter million, whatever it is, to pay penance for the war that they helped to create.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
I think that's where the Arabs wanted to head. I think the Israelis have another idea. I think Trump doesn't really care which one prevails as long as a deal gets done. And so let's see. Let's see what kinds of creativity gets kind of injected into the equation here. And I do think creativity is going to be what's important. The Arabs are not terribly creative here.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
I think Trump is more than happy to be creative. The Israelis just don't want to be saddled with this burden alone. They don't want to pay for this. And they certainly don't want to allow for Hamas to stay. I think they'd be fine with letting all these other people stay as long as they're not culpable. that they're not responsible for what happens to them.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
He's replenished a lot of the other arsenal that they had depleted over a course of time where the Biden administration was refusing to replenish. So the Israelis are made whole militarily. They now have the political backing of the president. The president says he wants to see all the hostages released and he wants Hamas out of the Gaza Strip.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
And as long as things get rebuilt in such a way that keeps Israel safe for whatever happens next. And I think that's, you got to understand that's Israel's big motivator here. This isn't, it's never been about collective punishment. It's never been about anything other than getting Hamas out of there so that Israel knows that it can live
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
peacefully without worrying about thousands of rockets or thousands of murderers coming across the border and slaughtering citizens who were going to a rock concert.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
You know, it's actually pretty simple. The Israelis have offered six weeks of additional calm. They basically said, look, we just started Ramadan. You want quiet, you want food, you want medicine, you want, you know, all the things that you want to keep your population happy. We want that too. Just keep quiet. And then after that, give us two more weeks of quiet until the end of Passover.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
That's what they told Hamas. Now, the big question now in my mind is, does Hamas agree? Right? Because Israel's ready. If it needs to, it'll go back into Gaza and it can start fighting this war again. And they're ready to do it now because they're not ready to go to phase two of a hostage deal, at least as it was written, because that would mean leaving Hamas in place.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
That is something that, I mean, this government in Israel will not abide by that. There is no chance that Bibi Netanyahu will agree to that. So they offered something else. That plan, that extra six weeks, Trump, Witkoff and others, they're behind it now. That means that everything's aligned. The only thing that's out of alignment right now is Hamas itself.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
And that I think has a lot to do with the pressure that we just saw the president put on the group. He's threatening hell if they don't work with the system that he's created. And I think actually, that leverage may yet work.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
It won't solve for the war long-term, at least not yet, but it might buy us another six weeks of quiet, calm, and maybe during that time, we can see some additional plans come into place, more negotiations that might take things in a better direction.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
So right now there's very little else that the president could do to tip the scales in Israel's favor. What he has done, though, and we've just learned about this over the last 24 hours, is he has actually dispatched Steve Witkoff and his team. This is the president's envoy to the Middle East. He's negotiating directly with Hamas.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
My pleasure. And you can feel free to sell that Gazalago t-shirt. That's all you.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
I don't know what they're talking about behind closed doors, but I think it's fascinating that he's talking to them with one of his staff, and then he's tweeting at them saying, I'm going to destroy you if you don't do what I ask you to do. So this is hardball that we're watching in play. I'll be fascinated to see what happens.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
I think Hamas is ready to fight this thing to the finish, but I think that would be disastrous for Gaza. I would welcome a Reagan-esque plan like we saw in Lebanon, where Hamas is put on a boat or a plane. The top leaders are sent out of the Gaza Strip, never to be returned. that would be the ideal outcome.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
That way, Israel doesn't have to keep fighting and we can start to think about maybe what happens in Gaza when the fighting finally stops.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
Yeah, I mean, let's be real here. We've been negotiating with terrorists for a long time. I mean, we negotiated our own defeat in Afghanistan under Joe Biden, and we continue to negotiate with Iran, the world's largest state sponsor of terror. I mean, I think the United States has given up on this. This was a principle first introduced into American foreign policy under Richard Nixon.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
It, I think, held for a time, has not held for quite a long time since. I mean, we have indirect negotiations with Hezbollah that are ongoing. I mean, we don't hold ourselves to this. I think it's interesting that the conversations are happening. But the only thing that I would say that it's positive about this is that it does look like, again, that the president's playing hardball.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
with his envoys. And I think that's really, if you're going to negotiate with the terrorist group, you should be baring your teeth and threatening to destroy them. That's the kind of negotiation I can endorse.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
Yeah, there certainly is a danger. And I think, you know, we may have actually reached that point where Hamas is saying, you already gave the Israelis what you said you were going to give them. I've already seen your threats. Not sure what else you can do to us because we're effectively destroyed anyway. So you know what? We're going to go back to the fighting just to stick a finger in your eye.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
And that's actually quite possible. But I got to say, you know, like I said, the Israelis have everything they need in order to win this battle. I will warn, though, that whatever fighting does take place in Gaza, it will not be easy to watch. Because when you think about it, Hamas is already, I mean, they started at, let's say, 35,000 fighters. between five and 10,000.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
Most of these guys are new recruits. They're young men in track suits who probably don't even know how to fire their AK-47s properly. They are not hardened fighters. They're gonna get shellacked on the battlefield. I think that is fairly safe to say. The Hamas doesn't have any above ground infrastructure. Most of that underground infrastructure is not usable.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
Sure, they probably have some missiles left, some rockets, None of those are going to be particularly effective against Iron Dome. I just don't see how they think they're going to win this thing. You get a sense that they're willing to fight and die for the cause and maybe try to inspire future generations of hatred against Israel, the United States, the West.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
That may be their strategy, but this could be rather grim to watch.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
Yeah, I mean, look, that was part of their play before, right? I mean, the Hamas strategy was, I think, twofold. One was to try to draw in the rest of the Iranian axis, so get Iran and the militias in Syria, the militias in Iraq, Hezbollah, the Houthis, get everybody fighting and, you know... in their mind, destroy Israel. That obviously didn't happen.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
We saw a lack of unity, a lack of discipline, a lack of planning. So that failed. So you got a chance that maybe they could try it again with whatever fronts are left, although most of those are weakened proxies of Iran and probably have less of a stomach right now than they did the last time around.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
Then you get to the question, as you raise, of trying to wield public opinion, international opinion against Israel. I'm not sure right now that it would work as well. I'm sure you're going to have bleeding hard liberals from Europe just joining the bandwagon of slamming Israel and working with the UN. But the big difference maker right now is the Biden administration was at least
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
buying some of it, or they weren't rejecting all of it. Trump is not going to have any of it right now. I think he's made it clear that he doesn't place any stock in the UN. He doesn't have a particularly good relationship with the Europeans right now. That's, of course, largely due to what's been going on in Ukraine and Russia. But the idea that
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
that Trump would care about what any of these actors might say, or that Israel... I mean, Israel's long stopped caring about this. You just get a sense that this war continues in accordance with Israel's plans. And I think that's what I would expect right now.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
There are, of course, unintended consequences with any war, and I would say Israel still needs to watch for a combined attack by some of these proxies that we've talked about, maybe even Iran itself. That's a danger. Maybe there are some other surprises that come out here.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
But again, I would say that if you look at things on balance, Israel came out stronger at the end of this first phase of the fighting, ending sometime in January. And they have only, I think, gotten stronger since Trump came in. And I think the Iranian axis looks weaker. I can't imagine Hamas is looking on and saying, yeah, we got this.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
So, it's an interesting question because the way that Hamas always worked is that you had these sure counsels. where different leaders from different parts of the Middle East were weighing in, and they were kind of almost democratic. I don't want to take that far, right?
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
But they have leaders in Gaza, they have leaders in the West Bank, in Lebanon, in Iran, in Turkey, in Malaysia, in all these different places, and they would all weigh in on particular issues, major decisions undertaken by the terrorist organization. On October 7th, it really does appear that it was Yahya Senwar, the head of Hamas, the guy that hatched this plan in the first place and launched it.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
He was the guy who was driving all of this. And then once the war began, he was the guy that was making all the decisions because at the end of the day, if he didn't want to stop fighting... He wasn't going to stop fighting. If he wanted to keep going, he was going to keep going. Today, the guy that's making those decisions is his brother, Mohamed Sinwar.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
And he still has, I think, a great deal of control of whatever is left of the Hamas fighting force. I don't expect him to last very long, but I do think that the center of gravity remains in Gaza primarily. I do think that Iran has a lot to say about this, but how much communication they're able to have with the fighting force, that's an open question.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
These are the sorts of things that I question right now, and I don't really know how to answer. The other part of this equation is the Qataris. And I do think that there, the Qataris are running interference for Hamas. They're the ones who are saying that certain proposals are unacceptable, even if they're not even sharing them with the Hamas operatives that are there.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
And I actually think that it's for this reason, among many others, that the U.S., when this crisis is over... We need to have a serious accounting of whether we want to continue to treat Qatar as an ally. I think we should strip them of their major non-NATO ally status. I think we should consider removing the Al Udeid air base from Doha. It's our largest air base in the Middle East.
The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
I just don't think this is a regime we can trust because I think they're trying to tip the scales in favor of Hamas through these negotiations.