'Truly outrageous': Trump shocks world with Gaza takeover comments

this is a lot to take in I mean I I especially like the president everyone I have spoken to loves the idea of the US owning this territory though he didn't say who everyone was I mean for all we know it was Jared ianka and and Trump himself put into perspective um all of this what do we need to know tonight yeah Steph uh well first of all to your point I also was struck by that uh jark Kushner actually did publicly speak last year in recent months uh in ways that hinted perhaps uh pred

this uh breathtaking uh and really outrageous proposal from Donald Trump it didn't come from nowhere in that sense Jared Kushner definitely has talked about this in terms almost more akin to that of a real estate uh Mogul assessing a piece of land than someone who understands the complicated history and the tragedy of the the two million people who live there the tragedy of the war with Israel it's as if uh both Krishner and his father-in-law stripped that out of the equation I think what Donald Trump said tonight it you know obviously is uh probably one

of the more breathtaking things we've heard him say uh it is uh certainly not previewed in anything he said on the campaign Trail although he suggested in his remarks that he had been contemplating this for months he said uh that he had spoken with many people who approved of this idea uh and yet it seems seems like he hasn't probably talked to a lot of people to socialize this I noted that prime minister Netanyahu uh was complimentary of Donald Trump but he did not explicitly endorse this idea I think many Republicans uh not to mention

Democrats would have a hard time swallowing anything like this uh it seems that Donald Trump has turned from an America First isolationist into an imperialist almost overnight in the last two weeks stunning Jeff can we talk about all 2 million Palestinians this idea they should go elsewhere H how who has who has thought this one out what are they going to pack their suitcases and go where well good question Steph and I don't have the answer and and and really neither did President Trump tonight when he was asked about it he said that they would

go to other countries that there would be enclaves or areas in other countries uh that the Palestinians would be able to go to but you know we need to look at history and we also need to look at how how the Palestinians have fought to stay exactly where they are if they wanted to leave this is an option that they probably would have had before President Trump proposed it today a couple other points to your broader question um one I spoke to a historian before coming on air with you tonight uh who said that historically

he can only think of one other president who had made a similar move and that was Andrew Jackson and the American Indians he called it ethnic cleansing he also pointed out uh president president Trump's increasingly now expansionist view of the world in addition to Gaza which is the news of the day he has also called on annexing or bringing on Greenland making Canada the 51st state and taking back control of the Panama Canal so he's as Susan said certainly not an isolationist which is largely the policies that his supporters support that his supporters backed uh

when they were voting for him and the The Proposal that he's making tonight would have an enormous impact on the region and on the people who are living there now Hagar I know Donald Trump has a very good relationship with the Saudis or he would say that MBs is Jared kushner's biggest investor but how is Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries going to take in this news tonight well they're not gonna they're not they're certainly not going to like it and you're right about focusing on NBS because uh his very first phone call in office

president Trump's was to NBS so by having that and by having by the way as well Netanyahu be the first official visit he's sending a message that he wants to reset those relationships and he wants to prioritize them and prioritize a deal but I can tell you very clearly as as somebody who who has followed very closely and understands what happened when the PLO went to Jordan in 1970 what happened when the PLO then moved to Lebanon in 1974 and and you had attempts to overthrow the monarchy in Jordan a civil war that broke out

and lasted 15 years in Lebanon and then the Palestinians the PLO in Kuwait who welcomed Saddam Hussein and allowed him to go there there's not going to be a very strong welcome there's a lot of trepidation and that's why Egypt and Jordan were very reticent to take refugees Palestinian refugees which by the way I have to add I thought was morally reprehensible of them not to take them at the time to take them temporarily but they didn't because they were afraid that they would be placed there permanently and because they were afraid of what that

could lead what kind of turmoil that could lead to later so don't think they're going to like this plan at all but when Trump was asked did Egypt and Jordan say they would take Palestinians Trump said no but they will and so he's going to use us Aid probably to twist their arm into taking some refugees even if it ends up being temporarily wow uh lean Donald Trump would not rule out sending American troops into Gaza we all know he campaigned as an anti-war candidate he talked repeatedly about not getting involved with foreign conflicts tonight

that feels like it's changed yeah a lot has changed after Donald Trump's press conference today alongside Netanyahu so meanwhile while he is shutting down the usaid program he is which Gaza is a recipient of and also saying that he is no longer going to be a part of unra the aid program from the United Nations which also Gaza is a big recipient of now Donald Trump is saying that he is going to colonize Gaza so still spend in American dollars but in a very very different way now this is causing lots of questions to say

the least that's an understatement of what exactly Donald Trump means what's he specifically going to do are there going to be condos Trump Tower condos um that gin are going to be able to afford in Gaza that Palestinians are going to be able to afford in Gaza um and the alarm else ringing around Capitol Hill especially among Democrats of course but even some Republicans who are saying hey I thought we were not going to start continue this American expansion expansion and imperialism and uh and going to spend American dollars in the United States and so

this is just you know the latest of what has been a wild two plus weeks since Donald Trump has been inaugura haar any reaction tonight from the Palestinians well they were iMed there was immediate outrage from Palestinians both abroad and here you saw for example rashita clave come out her sister come out and you know against this but I also want to make sure you know the thing is I'm in Washington right now by the way I've been here for a few days I've been talking to uh Folks at the White House folks across the

government and and there seems to be also a little bit the the president Trump may have pulled a fast one here because it doesn't doesn't seem that that folks were expecting this when Steve witkoff went to Gaza and he's one of the first US officials to go there in a very long time he said it was uninhabitable which it is uninhabitable and wanted to see the Palestinians there live temporarily somewhere in dignity while Gaza was being rebuilt and that is what I was what I was told and that's what I it seems as though people

uh that was what seemed that that that was the message when Trump said that he wanted to quote clean out Gaza and move Palestinians to Egypt Andia that that's possibly what he meant and so I'm not it's not very clear that this is that anybody expected him to say this and that there is a strategy there and I want so I want to be careful in you know how serious was he in this I know that he was pressed I know he he emphasize this and I don't want to be naive about it but I

also sometimes wonder if that ambiguity if he's trying to play that in in to Curry favor for himself in negotiations and so that's the one thing I would caution against I don't know Susan do you think Donald Trump pulled a fast one here because let's go back to the first thing you said it was almost exactly a year ago I think it was February 15th at Harvard when Jared Kushner made those comments about Gaza saying it would be a very Val it would be a very valuable land to develop uh uh so this idea of

sort of the the Riviera for the Middle East Donald Trump didn't dream this up now Jared Kushner has been planting the seeds for over a year that's right Stephan you know I was really struck by the fact that Trump was reading from prepared remarks if you notice in that press conference he was looking down he was reading out phrases uh specifically related to this he Then followed up uh in the questioning he said an ownership stake so this wasn't something that he made up on the fly in this press conference it's not clear how widely

he socialized this around his own government never mind uh with foreign governments so it's not clear that it's an actual formal proposal and certainly it wouldn't be the first time in Donald Trump's history that he's put something truly outrageous out there because what he really wants to do is to start a conversation or perhaps to distract us from the extraordinary assault uh on his own government that he uh and Elon Musk and others are in the middle of carrying out right now so certainly it has the the the benefit for him of distracting us we're

having this conversation about a US military takeover of Gaza that seems wildly improbable and very unlikely ever to occur so I do think we should be calling this uh you know to a certain extent we should be saying listen this is uh not only an outrageous and Brazen proposal uh but highly highly unlikely ever to come to pass and uh you know really inconsistent with the kind of steady uh you know leadership that you would imagine from any president president of the United States it's it's it whether he uh thought of it this morning or

a year ago uh it's a pretty it's a pretty remarkably brazing thing to say well good news Su we got 45 minutes left in this hour and we are not getting distracted so let's talk about what's happening uh Jeff you have reporting today about Trump's latest plan for what he's going to do with the Department of Education I.E dismantle at least some of it tell us yeah more than some of it Steph I think his plan and he talked about it in the Oval Office today when I was there with the White House pool is

is to shutter the department he said specifically that he had told Linda McMahon who is his pick to be Secretary of Education that he wanted her want she's confirmed to basically put herself out of a job I spoke to a White House official who said that there will be some stages to this operation as it were uh there's going going to be an executive order that will kick off 90-day review the president said he would work with Congress and he'll have to work with Congress because he can't just close a cabinet agent a cabinet department

or an agency uh without Congress intervening or or or passing a law to allow that probably that's not going to happen because he would need to have 60 votes in the senate for it to but he can certainly start the process and that's what he's looking to do with his executive order when it comes out later this month