Hey guys, how are you?
What's up?
Well, look, I had a final productive day in Israel. Today I was mostly focused on meeting with the Ministry of Defense in Israel, understanding the security situation of the ground in Gaza, and obviously meeting with some of our military personnel as well. I mean, the whole purpose of this trip was to really try to understand how to make the peace stick, how to move on to phase two successfully.
And a big part of that is just understanding what would be necessary to police and secure Gaza so that on the one hand we could provide stability and hopefully some humanitarian assistance to the Gazans, but on the other hand, ensure that Hamas is unable to threaten Israel. So, it was a productive trip. I appreciate the Israeli government for hosting me. I really appreciate all the folks from Central Command in particular who are trying to make this piece stick.
It's very important for our country, and I think that we're on a very good pathway. It's very early, but it's a good start.
Do you feel like you were able to make any progress towards phase two of the president's peace agreement during this trip?
Well, I do, and in fact, not just me, but the entire team. I know Marco is going to arrive in just a couple of hours. Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are in Saudi Arabia, and then I believe right now they're actually in the UAE trying to marshal support for the International Security Force. It's very early, but I do think that we've made a lot of progress in understanding what the composition of the ISF would look like and understanding what would be necessary for it to actually be effective.
And then just to understand how Central Command is going to work, with the troops are going to actually be on the ground. Again, no American troops on the ground, but American troops supervising and mediating the piece, understanding what that relationship would look like. That's really what I was here to do. I think we did make some progress.
I'm going to go back home and continue to work on it.
So what, Vice President, did you get any clarity on how the Israeli government and other partners plan to disarm Hamas? Obviously that's a key sticking point moving forward in this process.
Well, look, our hope of the administration is that the International Security Force is going to now take the lead in disarming Hamas. That's going to take some time, and it's going to depend a lot on the composition of that force. There are certain countries who I expect will be quite good at it. There are other countries that can play a role, but I don't think are going to be quite as useful.
But a lot of that depends on which forces actually come to bear and how we're actually able to implement this phase two of the peace plan. I do think that we're in a good place. I mean, for all of the difficulties and all the problems right now, I think we can say with confidence that Israel's respecting the ceasefire, Hamas is respecting to ceasefire.
There are exceptions. There are little exceptions that break out here and there, that would be expected when these two parties have been at war for two years. But so far, the ceasefire is actually holding. The peace is actually holding, and now we're trying to figure out how to make it stick over the long term.
Can you talk about the reconstruction plan? Jared Kushner, in the press conference with you said there was some consideration of giving funds to areas not controlled by Hamas. Is there a dividing line? Do you have any details about what that reconstruction plan would look like at this point?
Yeah, I mean, right now, look, there are two basic areas of Gaza. One area is, I don't know, maybe you've got 100,000 200,000 Gazans living in that area. It is largely Hamas-free, not perfectly Hamas-free, but it's largely secure. And then you have what we're calling the red zone, which is where you still have significant Hamas presence.
It's still quite dangerous. We think that we can start reconstruction of the areas that are free of Hamas very quickly. We think that we could potentially get hundreds of thousands of Gazans living in that area very quickly. But again, this is all still pretty early. But that's the basic idea. Take the areas where Hamas is not operating, start to rebuild very quickly, start to bring in the Gazans so that they can live there so they can have good jobs, and hopefully some security and comfort too.
And any timeline on what "very quickly" means? Is that weeks, months?
Well, I think that we could actually have tens of thousands of Gazans moving into Southern Gaza, where again, you have the Hamas-free zone in the next couple of months, and then 10s of thousands beyond that. I think the hope is to rebuild Rafa over the next two to three years. And theoretically, you could have half-a-million people live in a rebuilt Rafa.
But again, it's going to be sequencing. You're going to have first some people and then more, and then hopefully in a couple years, a half-a-million people living in security, living in comfort, and also living in a situation where they're not threatening their Israeli neighbors.
Was this your first time meeting with Netanyahu one-on-one?
That's a good question. I have to think about that. No, I've met with Netanyahu. I've met with the Prime Minister one-on-one in Washington, certainly the first time I've ever met with him one-on-one in Israel. But we had a good conversation.
And when was the last time that the US spoke with Hamas? I know that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had spoken with them directly when they were trying to get phase one over to cross the finish line.
Yeah, I mean, look, I actually don't know the answer to that question. We can always pick up the phone and call Hamas, at least through an intermediary if we want to. But most of our communication has been with our Gulf Arab friends and of course with the Israelis about what this international security force is going to look like.
That is not primarily a Hamas conversation. That's a conversation between us, the Saudis, the Emiratis, the Qataris, and other folks who are going to be involved in this in one form or another.
And what was your message to Netanyahu yesterday? There's been some concern among US officials that they worry he's not fully committed to the ceasefire deal and there's fears that he may pull out. Was there any stern warnings from you about that to the Israeli leader?
Well, we're fully committed to the piece deal, and that's what the United States policy is, and that's going to continue to be United States policy. I mean, my message was just do whatever you can to work with us to actually make this piece stick. Look, it's not going to be easy. These two sides, there's a lot of hatred.
They've been fighting a very brutal war over the last couple of years. Yeah, I thought it was interesting a couple of days ago when you had a Hamas sniper kill a couple of Israeli soldiers, and then the Israelis responded. You had a lot of people saying, "Well, the piece is going to fall apart." Look, if this piece sticks, you are going to have these little breakouts of violence.
Our message to the Israelis has been, "Help us build this piece." Obviously the Israelis have their own interests, but we're going to keep on trying to work with both them and the Gulf Arab states to make this piece stick. Again, nine days into it, I feel pretty good about it.
Did you get any pushback from the Prime Minister? Was there any tension there? It seems like you're maybe alluding to this idea that you have to really send that message. Did you get a sense from Netanyahu that there's some uncertainty there about his commitment?
I think between friends, private conversations are always best when they're kept private. I'll continue to talk about what I think is in America's interest and what America's policy should be. But right now, I feel like the Israeli government is committed to the ceasefire, is committed to the peace plan, but we're going to keep on working with them and everybody else in the region to make sure it sticks.
Did he rule out any countries providing troops explicitly? There was some talk about Turkey and you just said some countries were going to play different roles.
Again, I wouldn't say that he ruled it out. He obviously has strong views on some countries as negative, strong views on other countries as positive. Of course, the United States has its own perspective. We're going to work with everybody in the region and make sure that piece sticks. There's going to be some give and take there, there's going to be some disagreement between various countries, but we think that we have the beginnings, still early, but we think we have the beginnings of an international security force that can make the piece stick.
I'll take one more question.
While you were here in Israel, former White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, made some comments suggesting that your wife, the Second Lady, needed to be saved from you. How do you feel about comments like that being made while you're here with the Second Lady?
I think it's disgraceful, but of course the Second Lady can speak for herself, and I'm very lucky to have a wonderful wife, and I know, or at least I hope that my wife feels the same about me. But we are very lucky to have this journey, or I should say I'm very lucky to go on this journey with a very loving wife.
We're going to keep on serving the country together, and I'm honored to have Usha by my side on this trip in particular, but always. Thank you, guys.
What concern about the West Bank? Sorry.
Yeah, go ahead. We'll do, yeah.
[Inaudible] on the West Bank boat yesterday that took place while you were in the country?
Oh, yeah. That was weird. That was weird. I was sort of confused by that now. Now, I actually asked somebody about it and they told me that it was a symbolic vote, some symbolic vote to recognize or a symbolic vote to annex the West Bank. I mean, what I would say to that is when I asked about it, somebody told me that it was a political stunt that had no practical significance.
It was purely symbolic. I mean, look, if it was a political stunt, it was a very stupid political stunt, and I personally take some insult to it. The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel. The policy of the Trump administration is that the West Bank will not be annexed by Israel. That will continue to be our policy, and if people want to take symbolic votes, they can do that, but we certainly weren't happy about it.
Thank you.
Thank you.