| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
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unidentified
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Earlier today, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts addressed the graduating class of Georgetown Law School and had a conversation with the School's dean, William Trainer. | |
| You can watch that tonight at 9 Eastern on C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at c-span.org. | ||
| Mike said before, I happened to listen to him. | ||
| He was on C-SPAN 1. | ||
| That's a big upgrade, right? | ||
| But I've read about it in the history books. | ||
| I've seen the C-SPAN footage. | ||
| If it's a really good idea, present it in public view on C-SPAN. | ||
| Every single time I tuned in on TikTok or C-SPAN or YouTube or anything, there were tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people watching. | ||
|
unidentified
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I went home after the speech and I turned on C-SPAN. | |
| I was on C-SPAN just this week. | ||
| To the American people, now is the time to tune in to C-SPAN. | ||
| They had something $2.50 a gallon. | ||
|
unidentified
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I saw on television a little while ago in between my watching my great friends on C-SPAN. | |
| C-SPAN is televising this right now live. | ||
| So we are not just speaking to Los Angeles. | ||
| We are speaking to the country. | ||
|
unidentified
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It isn't just an idea. | |
| It's a process. | ||
| A process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles. | ||
| It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted. | ||
| Democracy in real time. | ||
| This is your government at work. | ||
| This is C-SPAN, giving you your democracy unfiltered. | ||
| Joining us this morning is Paul Salim. | ||
| He's with the Middle East Institute, the Vice President for International Engagement. | ||
| He's also the author of Thinking Middle East, the Substack newsletter. | ||
| Let's begin with your analysis from the Middle East Institute website, the first two months of Trump 2.0 in the Middle East, hard push for elusive breakthroughs. | ||
| What are they? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, hi, Greta. | |
| It's great to be with you and hello to everybody following along. | ||
| President Trump identified a number of goals in the Middle East. | ||
| One of them was to end the ongoing wars. | ||
| Before he took office, there was a ceasefire in Gaza and there was a ceasefire in Lebanon. | ||
| The ceasefire in Gaza has since unraveled. | ||
| Obviously, he also wanted to secure shipping in the Red Sea. | ||
| And towards that end, he has escalated military attacks against the Houthis in Yemen and gotten a ceasefire agreement from the Houthis, at least not to attack U.S. shipping. | ||
| The two big goals that he wants to achieve, one of them is a historic U.S.-Saudi-Israeli agreement, which would include Saudi-Israeli normalization and would be a continuation of the Abraham Accords that he achieved, that President Trump achieved in his first term. | ||
| That is not yet advanced. | ||
| The second big goal he wants to achieve is a breakthrough between the U.S. and Iran to stop its nuclear weaponization program and perhaps turn a new page. | ||
| Negotiations have started there, but they have not reached an end point. | ||
| His visit starting tomorrow to the Middle East, hence, is being watched very closely in the region. | ||
| President Trump departing this morning for that first Middle East trip of his second term. | ||
| It was supposed to be his first foreign trip, before an impromptu trip overseas for the Pope's funeral. | ||
| Paul Salem, the Washington Post front page, frames the trip this way: Trump's Mideast focus is business. | ||
| Your thoughts? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, certainly, yeah, certainly a big focus of the Trump administration and President Trump himself in all matters has been about economics and largely reviving the U.S. economy as best he can. | |
| Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries are extremely wealthy countries. | ||
| They have a lot of capital to invest. | ||
| They have a lot of energy resources. | ||
| And certainly a big part of prioritizing a trip to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf is to increase and multiply the economic deals between those countries and the U.S. Saudi Arabia has already pledged close to a trillion dollars. | ||
| The United Arab Emirates has also pledged something close to that amount of investments in the U.S. | ||
| These will be over many years. | ||
| That includes weapons purchases as well as other things. | ||
| So certainly business is a big part of it. | ||
| And that definitely includes future sectors like artificial intelligence and emerging technology. | ||
| The U.S. needs Gulf energy, Gulf capital, in order to multiply its capacities in its tech and AI race with China. | ||
| So that's definitely a big part of it. | ||
| The president leaving today, as we said, from the White House, he travels to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. | ||
| Paul Salem, why those three countries? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, those are the big, I would say, economic players in the Gulf countries. | |
| Those are the big three. | ||
| Saudi Arabia is the biggest of all of them. | ||
| That's both economically and politically. | ||
| It was Trump's first destination in his first term, and it is his first official destination in his second term as well. | ||
| Saudi Arabia is a big energy producer, spending hundreds of billions of dollars in various sectors. | ||
| Also, Saudi Arabia is effectively the leader of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which is a council including the six Gulf countries. | ||
| So Saudi Arabia is kind of the boss or the main country. | ||
| Saudi Arabia is also the host or the place where Mecca and Medina, the two holy sites of Islam, that's where the sites are. | ||
| So Saudi Arabia also carries a very large credibility and weight in the Muslim world, which is 1.5 billion people. | ||
| So if President Trump, beyond the business deals, wants to talk about peace between Saudi Arabia and Israel, certainly getting Saudi Arabia on board would be a great breakthrough. | ||
| Paul Salem, CNN was reporting earlier this morning that starting with President Obama, President Trump during his first term, then Joe Biden, and now in the second term of President Trump, those leaders all have told the Middle East leaders that to do business with the United States, they need to clean up their own backyard. | ||
| What efforts have been, what does that mean, and what efforts have been made? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I'm not sure that President Trump necessarily is carrying that message. | |
| In his early couple of years, President Biden had a lot of criticism of the Gulf countries, but that kind of faded away after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. | ||
| President Trump, I don't think is carrying that message per se. | ||
| His main sort of mission is one, to conclude a lot of business deals, including the artificial intelligence and emerging technology deals and space exploration deals that I mentioned. | ||
| Secondly, he wants to discuss the possibility of a normalization with Israel. | ||
| That will require concessions from the Israeli government in Gaza and the West Bank. | ||
| I'm not sure Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is ready for that. | ||
| And the third issue is the ongoing talks between the U.S. and Iran to get the views of the Gulf countries, to get their input as to how those talks might go and end up. | ||
| And finally, I would say a big issue and a new one is the new regime, the new government in Syria, which the U.S. has not really engaged with yet, but Saudi Arabia and other countries in the region are urging the U.S. to engage with that new government. | ||
| We are talking about the Middle East ahead of the President's trip this week. | ||
| It's a four-day trip, and we'll take your questions and your comments on it. | ||
| Here's how you can join the conversation. | ||
| Democrats, 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| You remember, you can text if you don't want to call at 202-748-8003. | ||
| As Paul Salem was talking about on the President's agenda is investment opportunities between the U.S. and Middle East countries. | ||
| There's also the Iran nuclear talks, talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia, many Middle East policies on the table. | ||
| Paul Salem, what will you be looking for when the President lands in Saudi Arabia? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, he has been sort of teasing an announcement for a few days. | |
| He's been saying that he's going to make a very, very major announcement. | ||
| Now, it's not clear what that's about, but there's some speculation that it might have something to do with the Middle East. | ||
| Obviously, if there is a major, major announcement happening before he leaves for Saudi Arabia, that would be something we'd follow closely. | ||
| I am right now in Beirut, Lebanon, in the Middle East. | ||
| I will be flying tomorrow to Saudi Arabia. | ||
| I'm not involved in any of the meetings, but I'll be there at the same time. | ||
| So certainly watching closely. | ||
| I think what we would be watching for is the nature and the depth of the deals that are going to be announced from those various countries. | ||
| We would be watching with interest any updates from the U.S. team and the U.S. president on how they see the talks with Iran going and what the expectations of success might be. | ||
| The most maybe complicated and difficult challenge for President Trump would be to try to advance the possibility of peace and normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. | ||
| As I said, I think President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu are not exactly on the same page on that issue. | ||
| So I think Arab leaders will be looking to see what President Trump has to bring on that. | ||
| Why are they not on the same page? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Prime Minister Netanyahu leads a very right-wing government. | |
| Opinion in Israel is extremely divided. | ||
| As you know, if you've been following Israeli politics, many in Israel have favored ending the war, getting all the hostages home and ending the war in Gaza. | ||
| Prime Minister Netanyahu and his government have favored a continuation and now an escalation of the war, which puts the lives of the hostages at risk. | ||
| Of course, it's a very difficult decision, giving Hamas, given that Hamas is still in place. | ||
| On the West Bank, Prime Minister Netanyahu and his right-wing government have offered no concessions towards the Palestinians in order to facilitate a deal with Saudi Arabia. | ||
| And if Prime Minister Netanyahu were to offer concessions, his government would likely fall and he would no longer be prime minister. | ||
| He might face legal issues because of his own personal legal issues. | ||
| So he's in a very different political situation than President Trump is. | ||
| Paul Salom is our guest here with the Middle East Institute. | ||
| He's the Vice President for International Engagement. | ||
| He also writes a Substack newsletter called Thinking Middle East. | ||
| Sharon in Silver Spring, Maryland, Democratic Caller. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi, I would just like to say the only business that Mr. Trump is interested in in the Middle East is the Trump Grifting Company. | |
| They are a disgrace. | ||
| Give us a break. | ||
| And if that airplane comes to Washington, then no more taxes paid by any American. | ||
| Let him cover it since he's stealing from all of us. | ||
| Grift lives in the cabinet and in the Trump family. | ||
| Disgraceful. | ||
| He should be impeached and thrown out. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Those are Sharon's thoughts there in Silver Spring, Maryland. | ||
| Paul Salem, the front page of the newspapers this morning about this offer from the Qatari government to give the president a 747 jet that he could use while president, and then it would be given to the Trump presidential library. | ||
| What does the Qatari government want in exchange? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the Qatari government has had long and deep relations with the U.S. government. | |
| The main military base of the U.S. in the Middle East is in Qatar. | ||
| Qatar relies on the United States for its security, essentially. | ||
| You know, this would be one additional way in which Qatar is buying favor with President Trump himself, with the Trump administration, in their view, with the United States. | ||
| It is the case at the same time that the Trump organization, Eric Trump, was just in the Middle East cutting deals. | ||
| And that certainly has raised a lot of eyebrows. | ||
| I know back in the United States, maybe in the Middle East, that's more like business as usual. | ||
| And I think Middle East leaders understand that President Trump, they know how to deal with him. | ||
| And part of that is making sure they give him a warm welcome, cutting business deals for organizations as well. | ||
| What are some of those business deals that the Qatari government has cut with the Trump family? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I've been just following it in the press. | |
| You see in the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal. | ||
| I think there's a golf course, Trump golf course being built in Qatar. | ||
| There's a tower and kind of a development project in the United Arab Emirates. | ||
| I'm not sure what private projects they are in Saudi Arabia. | ||
| Saudi Arabia obviously is a big investor in LivGulf, and that has had a long relationship with some of President Trump's golf courses. | ||
| So certainly there are relationships there. | ||
| And what about cryptocurrency? | ||
| Does the United States have an official policy agenda there in the Middle East? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I wouldn't be the person really to ask on cryptocurrency. | |
| The main issues that the Middle East is engaged with the U.S. administration, I would say, and this started during the Biden administration, is for the Gulf countries to build up their capacities in artificial intelligence, which means building data centers, processing centers. | ||
| Those data centers and processing centers require a lot of energy. | ||
| In order for the U.S. to compete with China, the U.S. doesn't have the capacity to ramp up its energy production enough over the next 10 years. | ||
| So it needs some of those centers to be in the Gulf countries, maybe other friendly countries around the world as well. | ||
| And those Gulf countries have the energy right there. | ||
| They also have the money to put into these processing centers to hook up with U.S. artificial intelligence networks. | ||
| So that's really where the AI and technology issue is most connected between the Gulf countries and the United States. | ||
| Cryptocurrency is still a very new thing in the Middle East, and it has not really been clear what the arrangements or agreements between the U.S. and Gulf countries might be on cryptocurrency. | ||
| Let's get to calls. | ||
| John in McFarland, Wisconsin, Independent. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hello. | |
| Going back from the issue you just mentioned, where Trump has announced that he wants to focus on business now. | ||
| We see a few weeks ago, Netanyahu or a couple weeks ago, Netanyahu announced that he would not be leaving Gaza now. | ||
| Whereas about February 11th, in a meeting with the King of Jordan, Trump announced that we would be taking, holding, and cherishing Gaza. | ||
|
unidentified
|
These are some pretty wild swings. | |
| But I think we've missed an opportunity because the media didn't really analyze this and didn't go into what the implications of these various schemes were. | ||
| In the early 2000s, Martin Endik wrote a series of articles about making Palestine a U.S. trust territory. | ||
| And the main reason for that is because it would establish an absolute security atmosphere for peace talks. | ||
|
unidentified
|
There are many other positive possibilities there, and there are some difficulties involved, of course. | |
| But I just wanted to point out how the media squanders these op and the Congress, these opportunities, time and again. | ||
| And I'm not saying that it's necessarily the best way to go, but it certainly should be discussed and it should be understood. | ||
| It would help people understand better the whole history of Palestine and Israel and the relationship as it stands today. | ||
| Okay, John. | ||
| Mr. Salem, your reaction. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the issue of Gaza and the West Bank are the two critical issues and any advancement for the Palestinians and any establishment of a Palestinian state. | |
| President Trump's announcement a few months ago that the U.S. would take over Gaza and that he would evacuate all the refugees was met with, I would say, shock in the region. | ||
| But I think what a lot of people missed is that he took the issue of Gaza away from Prime Minister Netanyahu and, in a sense, put it in his own pocket, indicating that in the near future, if there were to be discussions between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. and Israel on a final settlement for the Palestinians, that Trump inserted himself as a main negotiator over the fate and future of Gaza. | ||
| Now, this is another area where Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump are on different pages. | ||
| As the caller indicated, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced about 10 days ago that Israel would be going back fully into Gaza and reoccupying Gaza or most of Gaza for the long term. | ||
| So, you know, it makes the situation much more complicated. | ||
| The issue of the U.S. taking over the security of Palestine or a Palestinian entity has been floated from time to time. | ||
| But I think given where, you know, U.S. public opinion is, where Israeli public opinion is, I don't see that necessarily as a realistic solution. | ||
| The U.S. has been offering itself as a guarantor, as a broker to try to get this deal done. | ||
| Nothing, not much progress was achieved under President Biden. | ||
| I think President Biden basically followed Prime Minister Netanyahu's lead. | ||
| I think President Trump is trying to make a breakthrough, but he certainly will have to come up with a clear vision and push it through both on the Israeli side and on the Arab side and propose something that is dignified and sustainable for the Palestinians and provides security for the Israelis. | ||
| Before the president heads out for the Middle East, he's holding a news conference this morning at the White House with the Health and Human Services Secretary. | ||
| That is expected any minute now. | ||
| You'll be able to watch live coverage of it over on C-SPAN2, c-span.org, or our free video mobile app. | ||
| Let's go to Pat in Keyport, New Jersey, Republican. | ||
| Pat, you're next. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Thank you. | |
| My question is about Turkey. | ||
| What role would Turkey play, particularly with Iran? | ||
| If the president is looking for a breakthrough with Iran, what kind of relations do they have? | ||
| And what is the status of Turkey's relations with the Gulf countries? | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| That's a very good question. | ||
| Turkey would not have a direct role in U.S.-Iranian talks and the outcome of those talks. | ||
| A country that actually might have a role might be Russia. | ||
| In the first agreement that President Obama achieved, Russia played a role in helping manage the Iranian nuclear sector and taking away enriched uranium and promising to provide uranium down the road. | ||
| So there could potentially be a role for Russia in that. | ||
| Turkey has maintained working relationships with Iran. | ||
| They have energy relationships. | ||
| They are not enemies. | ||
| They are not hostile. | ||
| If the U.S. needed an additional mediator, an additional sort of voice to chime in, I think President Erdogan could do that. | ||
| Turkey's relationship with the Gulf countries themselves used to be very bad, but in the past years they have improved tremendously. | ||
| There's now common investment and common projects between Turkey and most of the Gulf countries. | ||
| Where Turkey could play an important role is in the new order and the new government emerging in Syria. | ||
| It was Turkey that backed the group and backed the person who led the group that eventually took over power in Damascus, Syria. | ||
| That leader, that president, Mr. Sherak is his name, has promised to move Syria forward. | ||
| He's met with many leaders of the region. | ||
| He's met with many of the European foreign ministers and defense ministers. | ||
| The U.S. has not fully engaged in Syria yet. | ||
| Turkey could be very helpful in managing that engagement. | ||
| If Syria moves forward, that would be a great step forward for the region in general and reduce security risks and greatly increase economic opportunities. | ||
| Turkey also playing a role in, or at least location-wise, between Ukraine and Russia. | ||
| The Ukrainian president said he would meet personally with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Turkey. | ||
| Why Turkey? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Turkey sits on the Black Sea. | |
| Obviously, Ukraine and Russia are both on the Black Sea. | ||
| Any ship exiting the Black Sea, whether it's a Russian ship or Ukrainian ship, has to pass through Turkish waters and the Turkish security gauntlet. | ||
| So it plays an important role there. | ||
| Turkey as well has maintained good relations with the government in Kyiv and the government in Russia. | ||
| It holds some of the cards in those relationships and can be hence helpful. | ||
| It's a neutral country. | ||
| It is part of NATO, but it has not been aligned with the U.S. and the Western countries in an all-out backing of Ukraine. | ||
| So it's more of a neutral place where the Ukrainian and Russian leaders can meet. | ||
| Interestingly, another place that was proposed previously was Saudi Arabia, which is where President Trump is heading. | ||
| We'll go to Arizona. | ||
| Sarah is watching there. | ||
| Democratic caller. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes, good morning. | |
| I'm calling from the Navajo Nation. | ||
| I just have a comment with respect to President traveling to the Middle East. | ||
| I know that we have our challenges here, and this is regarding an economic trip, and how will that impact tribal nations across the board? | ||
| And I know that he is also getting a donation of a 747, a 400 million plus jet being donated by Qatari. | ||
| And I know a lot of communities across the country are very in a disadvantaged region just across the board. | ||
| And for a president to get a jet donated and the possibility of whether he's going to utilize that moving forward to another nonprofit or for-profit purpose, I think is not right. | ||
| I know that there's a lot of struggles across the board for these high-end people to be donating stuff and just leaving the poor to get any type of benefit. | ||
| So that was just my comment. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Mr. Salam. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I mean, I salute her and, you know, the indigenous populations of the U.S. | |
| I don't have an answer. | ||
| I don't think the Gulf countries, as they make the deals with the U.S., they're looking at the U.S. economy, broadly speaking. | ||
| They have always been very large investors in many, many sectors in the U.S. economy. | ||
| I'm sure those investments, obviously they're spread across the 50 states of the U.S. | ||
| But I don't have details as how they might affect native nations in one state or another. | ||
| But I would say that, you know, the general investment and trade between the Gulf countries and the U.S., all in all, is a good thing for both economies. | ||
| It leads to job creation, it leads to growth. | ||
| But beyond that, how it affects one group or another in the U.S., one would have to look at the domestic details of that. | ||
| Paul Salem, here is Steve from Tampa, Florida in a text to us this morning. | ||
| Do you believe the part of President Trump's trip is to reinstate, reinstitute the idea of Saudi Arabia joining the Abram Accords with Israel? | ||
| You touched on this, but remind our viewers about the Abraham Accords and where does it stand? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, the Abraham Accords were a set of agreements that normalized relations between Israel and four Arab countries in Trump's first term. | |
| Those countries were the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco. | ||
| The president was rightly very proud of those achievements and vowed when he won the election and while he was running for a second term that his ambition in his second term would be to bring Saudi Arabia on board. | ||
| As I mentioned, Saudi Arabia is a very influential country. | ||
| It's the biggest economy among the Arab countries. | ||
| It's one of the biggest economies in the Muslim world. | ||
| And it is the, you know, it houses Mecca and Medina, the two holy cities. | ||
| So President Trump figures if Saudi Arabia agrees to normalize with Israel, that would open the doors for other states in the Arab world and the Muslim world to normalize as well. | ||
| But as I argued, and as President Trump and his team knows, for Saudi Arabia to do that, Saudi Arabia has been very clear that it requires from the Israelis an end to the war in Gaza and a solid pathway towards Palestinian statehood. | ||
| That's something, as I said, that the current Israeli government has not said yes to or embarked on. | ||
| So that's where President Trump's challenge is. | ||
| But he has vowed that before his second term is over, he does want to achieve that breakthrough. | ||
| And I take him seriously in that attempt. | ||
| We'll go to Georgia. | ||
| Jack is watching there, Republican. | ||
| Morning to you, Jack. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, ma'am. | |
| And thank you for having this gentleman. | ||
| I would just like to ask, on getting the jet donated to him, does that not give him more leeway to go and help other nations and to try to keep peace? | ||
| And thank you, sir, for explaining all this. | ||
| But also, I wish other people would give the man a chance to do something to try to help other nations by helping other nations more, I would think, down the road would help us. | ||
| And I would just like to thank C-SPAN for giving people the opportunity to voice their opinion. | ||
| And thank you so much. | ||
| All right, Jack. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yep, thank you, sir. | |
| I mean, obviously, for the president of the United States to have a plane, obviously he already has one. | ||
| To have a new plane is probably not a bad thing for him to go about his business. | ||
| Obviously, the issue being raised, and it's being raised in the United States, where there is the emoluments clause and sort of a lot of legal issues about which gifts can be accepted by a president or a sitting U.S. official and under what conditions, I think that should be referred to a U.S. constitutional lawyer or something like that. | ||
| Otherwise, here in the Middle East, I mean, they're happy to give him gifts and to give the U.S. gifts. | ||
| Obviously, they want to buy influence and they want to have more of his attention. | ||
| So I understand it from their point of view. | ||
| You talked a little bit earlier about the situation in Yemen. | ||
| What is it currently? | ||
| How has the United States become involved during the first few months here of the second Trump term? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, Yemen, I mean, to try to summarize it, it's two things. | |
| First of all, Yemen is in civil war. | ||
| It has been in civil war for many, many years now. | ||
| And that has its own miseries for the population. | ||
| It's a big humanitarian disaster. | ||
| The U.S. under the Biden administration tried to mediate and negotiate an end to the civil war. | ||
| The more acute crisis from the U.S. perspective is that one of the groups in Yemen, which is the Houthis, which are a long-standing group in Yemen, which also happen to get a lot of Iranian support, have been bombing shipping in the Red Sea, bombing Israel itself ever since the war in Gaza erupted. | ||
| And that's really what the Trump administration has been reacting against, telling the Houthis to stop. | ||
| When they did not, it launched a very large and intensive military campaign against that group. | ||
| And over the past few days, the president announced that the group agreed to a bilateral ceasefire between the group and the U.S., not between the group and Israel, but between the group and the U.S. | ||
| The Trump administration is considering that a victory. | ||
| The Trump administration is also aware that if they have successful talks with Iran, that might also have positive effects on getting the Houthis to stand down. | ||
| We'll go to Jesse in Maryland, Democratic Holler. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hey, I have a question, Willie. | |
| donate a plane to Donald Trump. | ||
| Jesse, we're talking about a front page newspaper, front page of the newspapers this morning is reporting that the president is in talks with the Qatari government to give him the president 747 jet as Air Force One that would he would fly on while he's president, and then it would be donated to the Trump Library for his use after that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, so let's talk a little bit more about compromise, isn't it? | |
| If you accept the gift while he's in Paul. | ||
| All right, Jesse. | ||
| We'll go to Dave, who's in Goose Creek, South Carolina, Independent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, good morning. | |
| I had a question concerning, do members of APAC register as operatives of a foreign power? | ||
| Paul Salema? | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, I heard the question. | |
| I must say, I don't know the answer to that. | ||
| I don't know if they're registered as lobbyists or not. | ||
| That's a good question. | ||
| I'm out here in Beirut and in the Middle East, but I'm sure a lot of people in Washington would know the answer to that. | ||
| Mr. Salem, can you talk about the different approaches to the Middle East under President Trump versus his predecessor, President Biden? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, that's a very good question. | |
| I mean, what's remarkable is that President Trump has taken a dramatically different approach to domestic policy, obviously, than President Biden did. | ||
| And he's also taken a completely different approach to international economic relations with the tariff announcement that he's made. | ||
| And he's taken a very different approach to relations with Europe and Ukraine, with traditional allies in Asia. | ||
| So Trump has brought a sort of revolutionary different approach. | ||
| However, in the Middle East, he has not. | ||
| In the Middle East, Biden has been somewhat a continuation of Trump's first term, and Trump's second term has been a bit of a continuation of Biden's first term. | ||
| And what I mean by that, if you take the goals of Biden and Trump, they both supported Israel's right to self-defense in its war with Hamas, but they both have been urging Israel to find an end to the war with Gaza, to find an end to a war, the war with Hezbollah and Lebanon. | ||
| They have both wanted to achieve a breakthrough between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which would require statehood for the Palestinians, hence concessions from Israel. | ||
| And they have both wanted to reach a negotiated agreement with Iran. | ||
| So interestingly, whereas he's gone in very different directions in other areas, in the Middle East, it's a continuation. | ||
| I guess you could say it's a stronger continuation. | ||
| I would say he's been tougher. | ||
| He's been more aggressive. | ||
| He's devoted more time to it. | ||
| He hasn't yet succeeded, but he's now going to devote four full days of his attention to these issues. | ||
| And we'll see where that brings things. | ||
| A headline at the end of April from Reuters exclusive story by Mike Stone and his colleague Trump poised to offer Saudi Arabia over $100 billion arms package. | ||
| And Reuters reporting the U.S. is poised to offer Saudi Arabia an arms package worth well over $100 billion. | ||
| Six sources with direct knowledge told Reuters saying the proposal was being lined up for an announcement during the president's trip this week. | ||
| The offered package comes after the administration of former President Joe Biden unsuccessfully tried to finalize a defense pact with Rihad as part of the broad deal that envisions Saudi Arabia normalizing ties with Israel. | ||
| Paul Tsalem, can you talk about this? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, those are, I mean, in a way, slightly different things. | |
| Saudi Arabia has always been a major purchaser of U.S. arms, and the one you mentioned is no exception. | ||
| It is a big buyer of U.S. arms. | ||
| It's often complained that although the deals go through as deals, then getting them through Congress, getting them through the elaborate process between buying the arms and getting them delivered is often very difficult. | ||
| But you were mentioning the second part of your question is Saudi Arabia is asking for a defense act with the United States, which would be something like a defense treaty. | ||
| And for that to happen, that would require approval of the U.S. Senate. | ||
| And this is really what Saudi Arabia is asking for beyond the purchase of weapons, beyond the investment and so on. | ||
| It wants to lock in a kind of treaty arrangement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia that the U.S. would defend and would be involved in Saudi defense if it were to be attacked from Iran or any other place. | ||
| That requires, in order for it to pass in the U.S. Senate, most senators have said, well, if you normalize relations with Israel, then maybe we'll consider it. | ||
| We'll look into it. | ||
| So that's kind of the defense pact issue, which goes well beyond defense contracts. | ||
| We'll go to Franklin in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, Independent. | ||
| Good morning to you, Franklin. | ||
| Your question or comment about the president's trip to the Middle East. | ||
|
unidentified
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I think it's all a trip to enrich himself. | |
| He plans to build resorts over there. | ||
| He's getting a billion-dollar jet. | ||
| He wants to turn Gaza into a resort. | ||
| All this is just to enrich himself even further. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Franklin, we understood the point, Paul Salem. | ||
| How will this benefit the president personally? | ||
| And do we know? | ||
| Could it? | ||
| What is the benefit for Americans? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I mean, I do think both can be true at the same time. | |
| I think it's quite clear that him and his family have been seeking to benefit, you know, in many ways. | ||
| And this includes in their dealings with businesses in the Gulf. | ||
| It included things in China previously, in the United States itself. | ||
| That doesn't preclude the fact that I think he is also, and the Saudis and the Emiratis and the Qataris are working on major deals that go directly into different U.S. sectors, manufacturing, energy, oil and gas, wind, solar, artificial intelligence, technology, development in terms of housing and the rest of it, and infrastructure. | ||
| So I think both can be true at the same time. | ||
| But I do think that the relationship at the major economic level is big and is serious. | ||
| Paul Salem is the Vice President for International Engagement with the Middle East Institute. | ||
| He also writes a Substack newsletter, Thinking Middle East. | ||
| You can find his insights there. | ||
| Thank you for sharing them with us this morning. | ||
| We appreciate it. | ||
|
unidentified
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Thank you, Greta. | |
| Earlier today, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts addressed the graduating class of Georgetown Law School and had a conversation with the school's dean, William Traynor. | ||
| You can watch that tonight at 9 Eastern on C-SPAN. | ||
| C-SPAN now, our free mobile app, or online at c-span.org. |