The President's Daily Brief
PDB Afternoon Bulletin | January 17th, 2025: Israel's Ceasefire With Hezbollah Risks Collapse & US Supreme Court Upholds TikTok Ban
Fri, 17 Jan 2025
In this episode of The PDB Afternoon Bulletin: First, as momentum builds behind finalizing the breakthrough ceasefire agreement in Gaza, advisors to President-elect Donald Trump have reportedly warned Israel not to let their fragile truce with Hezbollah in Lebanon collapse. Then, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling Friday upholding the law requiring China-based ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok by Sunday or face a ban. President Joe Biden has already said he won’t enforce the ban, leaving the fate of the popular app in the hands of President-elect Donald Trump. 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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the current situation with Israel's ceasefire agreement?
As momentum builds behind finalizing the breakthrough ceasefire agreement in Gaza, advisors to President-elect Donald Trump have reportedly warned Israel not to let their fragile truce with Hezbollah in Lebanon collapse. The warning comes as senior Israeli officials have indicated in recent days that the Israeli military will remain in southern Lebanon beyond the current 60-day ceasefire.
Leaders in Jerusalem have been highly critical of the Lebanese army, saying they're not moving fast enough to deploy their forces to a buffer zone along their border with Israel, according to an exclusive report from the Jerusalem Post.
The remarks have raised concerns in Washington and within Trump's transition team, particularly given the fact negotiators just finalized a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, something that took some 15 months of bloody conflict to achieve.
Trump's senior national security advisors reportedly conveyed their warning earlier this week, simply telling Jerusalem, quote, we don't want the ceasefire agreement in Lebanon to collapse. Officials in Washington are nervous that failures in Lebanon could throw the entire region back into chaos.
As a reminder, Israel reached a limited truce with Hezbollah on November 27th to stop hostilities for at least 60 days. The deal requires the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon and for Hezbollah to retreat north beyond the Litani River in southern Lebanon.
In Theorie, by January 26, the only groups allowed to be present south of the Latani River are the Lebanese military and UN peacekeeping forces. But Israel and Hezbollah have repeatedly accused each other of violating the terms of the agreement and have engaged in a number of tit-for-tat strikes since the ceasefire was implemented.
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Chapter 2: Why are Trump's advisors concerned about Hezbollah?
The Israeli Defense Minister recently said Hezbollah has yet to dismantle all of their weapons and terrorist infrastructure south of the river. And he says they haven't withdrawn their fighters. He has warned, quote, if Hezbollah does not withdraw beyond the Latani River, there will be no agreement.
Turning to the other ceasefire, the Israeli Security Cabinet officially voted Friday to approve the truce agreement with Hamas in Gaza. And the full cabinet is expected to sign off on the ceasefire later today.
While the diplomatic breakthrough came on Wednesday, its ratification in Israel was briefly delayed after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hamas on Thursday of making last-minute demands that went back on some of their promises. But that hurdle has been now cleared, meaning the ceasefire should go into effect on Sunday.
As we've been tracking here on the PDB, the initial six weeks of the three-phase agreement will halt fighting and see Hamas release 33 Israeli hostages, including American nationals, in exchange for Israel, freeing 1,000 Palestinian detainees who were not implicated in the 7 October 23 terror attacks.
The Hostages will be released incrementally, starting with three on Sunday, followed by weekly releases until all 33 are freed. Additionally, Israeli forces will begin gradually withdrawing from densely populated centers and facilitate the return of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza.
The second phase would include a permanent ceasefire and Israel's complete withdrawal from Gaza, though it's going to be a long road to reach that stage, particularly given ongoing infighting within Jerusalem's halls of power. The National Security Minister announced Thursday that his far-right party will withdraw from Netanyahu's ruling coalition if this ceasefire deal moves forward.
He staunchly opposed to any negotiations with Hamas, even if they free the remaining hostages in Gaza. Other hardliners within Netanyahu's governing coalition have also threatened to resign over the ceasefire, potentially threatening his party's majority in Israel's parliamentary body.
But for now, Netanyahu is plowing ahead, and an official for his party hit back at hardliners on Thursday, stating, quote, anyone who dissolves the right-wing government will be remembered as an eternal disgrace. Coming up next, we'll discuss the US Supreme Court's ruling on TikTok and what it means for the future of the popular China-based app in America. More on that after the break.
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Chapter 4: What is the timeline for the ceasefire with Hamas?
Welcome back to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Slater filling in for Mike Baker. After much anticipation, the US Supreme Court handed down their ruling on TikTok today, upholding a bipartisan law requiring China-based ByteDance to divest its ownership of the app by Sunday or face a ban from US markets.
ByteDance, TikToks Parent Company, hat so far refused to sell the popular social media app. In a unanimous decision, the court sided with arguments made by the Biden administration that the app left the communications and data of Americans vulnerable to foreign adversaries, namely China, according to a report from CNBC.
As a reminder, the law in question, dubbed the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversaries Controlled Applications Act, passed with widespread bipartisan support in Congress last April, and it was then signed into law by President Biden. The act gave ByteDance until January 19th, 2025, to find an independent buyer for TikTok or be removed from American app stores. The 19th is Sunday.
It's a rather unprecedented situation. A US law has never previously targeted a social media company for shutdown, let alone one as large as TikTok, which is estimated to have some 170 million users in America. But the Justice has said that the US government was justified in signaling out TikTok, given its connections to China's CCP.
Saying the app is, quote, scale and susceptibility to foreign adversary control, together with the vast swaths of sensitive data the platform collects, justifies differential treatment. As we've covered previously on the PDB, TikTok has long drawn scrutiny over its ties to the CCP, accused of being used by the regime to spread disinformation to United States users.
Under Chinese cybersecurity laws, the company is also required to share all user data with the CCP upon request, potentially allowing the communist regime to mine the data of Americans. ByteDance was challenging the constitutionality of the law on First Amendment grounds, but the court was not having it when they can balance national security concerns.
The Supreme Court's opinion stated, quote, there is no doubt that for more than 170 million Americans, TikTok offers a distinctive and expansive outlet for expression, means of engagement and source of community.
But Congress has determined that divestiture is necessary to address its well-supported national security concerns regarding TikTok's data collection practices and relationship with a foreign adversary. Now, despite the Biden administration's support for the law last year, President Biden has since had a slight change of heart.
He had reportedly been exploring options in recent days to keep TikTok available in the United States, should the ban proceed. Biden apparently faced pressure from leaders in Silicon Valley, who have argued that the law is a threat to free speech, according to a report from The Washington Post.
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