The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | March 8th, 2025: Trump’s Ultimatum to Hamas & China’s War Warning
08 Mar 2025
In this episode of The PDB Situation Report: Donald Trump lays down the gauntlet, demanding that Hamas release all remaining hostages or face the full force of Israeli military power. With ceasefire talks stalled, what happens next? Jonathan Schanzer from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies joins us with his insight. Beijing fires back, warning that it’s ready for “any type of war” with the U.S. after President Trump reinstated tariffs on Chinese goods. How serious is the threat? Gordon Chang, author of Plan Red: China’s Project to Destroy America, joins us to break it all down. To listen to the show ad-free, become a pr 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 Beam: Visit https://ShopBeam.com/MIKE and use code MIKE for up to 40% off. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Full Episode
Welcome to the PDP Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right. Let's get briefed. We'll start things off with President Trump laying down the gauntlet. I mean, not literally, that would be kind of odd, but demanding that Hamas release all remaining hostages or face the full force of Israeli military power.
This ultimatum comes as ceasefire talks remain stalled. So what happens next? Jonathan Chancer from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies joins us with his insight. Plus, Beijing is hitting back, warning that it's ready for, quote, any type of war with the U.S. after President Trump reinstated tariffs on Chinese goods. How serious is the threat? Well, that's a good question.
And we've got Gordon Chang, author of Plan Red, China's Project to Destroy America, here with us on the Situation Report to break it all down. But first, today's PDB Spotlight. President Trump isn't messing around. There's no surprise there. He's telling Hamas that they have two choices. Release all the remaining hostages now or get ready for Israel to bring the hammer down.
This comes as negotiations for a second phase of the ceasefire have hit a wall with, frankly, no deal in sight. Trump made his stance clear, posting to Truth Social, quote, Release all the hostages now, not later, and immediately return all the dead bodies or it is over for you." He also blasted Hamas for keeping the remains of those they've killed, calling it sick and twisted.
The ultimatum came just hours after it was revealed that his administration has been talking directly with Hamas. That's an unprecedented move. And reports say Israel wasn't even looped in on those talks. So where does this all go from here? Jonathan Schanzer from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies is here with us now to break it all down. Jonathan, thank you very much for joining us today.
Hey, my pleasure. There's a lot to talk about here. Let's start with what appears to be an ultimatum from President Trump to Hamas. What do you make of that?
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.
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.
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.
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