A cease-fire deal between Israel and Hezbollah, brokered by France and the United States, is not the exact one Biden was hoping to be touting as a capstone to his presidency. Playbook co-author Eugene Daniels and National Security Daily's Eric Bazail-Eimil discuss the agreement's impact on the region and why the president is still looking to end hostilities in Gaza. That, and the rest of the news you need to know today. Plus — happy Thanksgiving!
POLITICO Playbook Daily Briefing
November 27, 2024: After Hezbollah ceasefire, what's next for Israel?
Presented by Tobacco-Free Kids Action Fund. Good morning, everyone. I'm Playbook co-author Eugene Daniels. It is Wednesday, November 27th. One day out from Thanksgiving, y'all, turkey, macaroni and cheese, collard greens. So delicious, so exciting. Here's what's driving the day. Incoming Trump Chief of Staff Suzy Wiles announced yesterday that the transition had finally signed a memorandum of understanding with the Biden White House, which clears the way for coordination with the federal agencies they will soon take over. The Trump team's unprecedented delay in signing these agreements had alarmed former officials and ethics experts as we told you on Monday. They warned it could lead to conflicts of interest and leave the new government unprepared to govern on day one. A quick one to keep your eye out for today is that the government is expected to submit its sentencing recommendation in Hunter Biden's Delaware gun case. Also, Israel and Lebanon agreed to a ceasefire last night, which began at 4 AM this morning. This ends 14 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. The ceasefire deal was brokered by France and the United States, but it's not the one Biden was hoping for. As a capstone to his presidency, he is still hoping for an agreement to end hostilities in Gaza. Joining me now to talk about all of this is co-author of Nat Sec Daily, reporter Eric Basil Amil. Eric, good morning, sir. Good morning. Thanks for having me, Eugene. Thanks for coming on. I mean, kind of a big week before you guys in the national security space. First things first, were you anticipating that Hezbollah and Israel would come to a deal? It feels like this was a shock to a lot of folks. There were some indicators that we were getting much closer to a deal between Israel and Hezbollah. Amos Hoxstein, who's the special envoy, his role is about energy, but he's been dispatched by the White House to address the Lebanon crisis since the war broke out in the Middle East in October of last year. He personally flew out to negotiations last week and met with Israeli and Lebanese officials. So we had an indication from that that they were getting closer. And then there was the steady trickle of reports over the weekend and on Monday that some degree of a deal was being negotiated and worked out and that the Israelis were on board with this. So we weren't entirely shocked when Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu he went out and spoke yesterday around one o'clock Washington time and said that he was going to put a proposal to the Israeli cabinet for a vote. We had kind of seen some indicators, still the fact that the confluence of circumstances happened, especially after the election, that was a little bit more surprising. The White House, I've talked to some folks on the NSC. I've talked to some folks within the White House and kind of around the administration. You have obviously been doing that even more than I have over the last couple of days. They see this as a win for the White House in the last weeks of Joe Biden's presidency, right? They've been working on this for months. They also have a sense that this is going to help them get a ceasefire deal with Hamas. Walk me through why they believe that and do you think they're right? There's definitely a school of thinking that has started from the beginning of this conflict, right? That Israel was just way too overextended, especially when fighting really intensified this fall. They've been fighting Hezbollah at the Northern border since October 8th of 2023. But since the conflict really escalated in September and October, there's been real concerns that Israel dealing with Hamas and the Gaza Strip, dealing with Iran and its proxies generally in the region in places like Syria and then strikes from Yemen, and then also having to deal with Hezbollah and Lebanon, right? That it wasn't going to actually lead to any one solid outcome and that they were just going to be sowing the seeds for a bigger regional war. So in this way, the thinking shifted within the administration that they needed to get a deal with Hezbollah and they needed to end the fighting in Lebanon so that Israel, one could have the ability to regroup and that is something that the president and senior administration officials have indicated that they're going to be able to focus specifically on ending the Gaza war, addressing the threat of Iran. The prime minister himself said that in his remarks. So from a strategic perspective, the thinking had shifted that they needed to end this. And more importantly too, Hezbollah and Hamas, they're both arms of Iran. And there was definitely a linkage there that the administration was keen to try to break. And when senior administration officials that I spoke to yesterday, what they were clearly indicating was that now that that linkage has been broken, that Hezbollah has defected in the stag hunt and that they have gone and signed this deal or maybe won't be opposed to this deal that the deal has been reached to clarify. They still haven't exactly said they're going to be on board. They're part of the negotiation through Lebanese government because they're part of the Lebanese government. So it's important to give some caveats there. But this deal makes it easier for them to put pressure on Hamas. And the way that it was explained to me is that Hamas is now on an island, right? That they thought that this kind of regional war will continue and blow up and then they would have like the cavalry would be coming. That seems to be the opposite of what's happening. So I guess there are some complications here, right? You don't know who is negotiating for Hamas. We don't. You and I don't. Someone knows. As Sin War has gone, there's all these complicating factors to get them back to the table. But it does seem like they're on an island. Does that make it easier for the United States and its allies and the folks that are doing this negotiations that now we can get something done? And is it possible to get it done before Biden leaves office? We're talking weeks here, not months. That's the million dollar question, right? But the administration clearly thinks that this is going to at least add to the pressure that they can go back to. For weeks, they haven't, right? They were kicked out of Qatar. Now many of the leaders are in Turkey. And Turkey hasn't necessarily volunteered itself to be like the new mediator. It's really unclear like what state like the talks are even going to be if they resume at all before the Biden administration leaves office. But they're certainly going to try to give it another push and see if they can advance this. Middle East mediators and analysts that I've talked to joke that these things either go slow or even slower, right? Like there's only two speeds for these kinds of things. And we'll see, right? Certainly the administration would want to close this deal off. It would get the next administration much closer to a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia and Israel, which is a priority for both the Biden camps and the Trump camps. It's been stated for both of they want to try to achieve that and integrate Israel more into the region. And of course, you know, to alleviate the humanitarian suffering, right? This is a priority for the administration. But it's really just going to come down to how much Hamas's new, very embattled leadership, you know, how much they read into their odds. Do they think they're going to get a better deal now than they are in a couple of months? Like, do they think that Israel has the will to keep fighting? And the truth is this new crop of leadership, they're very hard to read. It's very hard to get a sense of where their heads are at. In that vein, Donald Trump likes to be unpredictable, especially when it comes to a foreign policy. Do we have any indication about how he would handle this, right? He has said like, it would be over very fast. Like he said the same thing about Ukraine and Russia. We know that, you know, possibly not the case, but will Israel or Hamas, who will get a better deal under a Trump administration? Or should they just go ahead and get it now? You know, the Israelis have acted under the supposition for a while that Trump will be easier on them. And we'll just give them like a much longer leash to launch military operations and, you know, to go after this. But at the same time, you know, Trump has also said that he wants this to end very quickly and he won. And he doesn't want to have to deal with the cost of this because this does carry a political cost. One that he himself will have to experience if he wants to do any kind of diplomatic projects in the Middle East. So it's tough to say exactly how they would differ in terms of the peace process. Certainly on the support question, they've already expressed how they would be much, much more proactive in supporting Israel materially. But when it comes to the facilitating the diplomatic role, I mean, a lot of it's still just out of their control. I mean, they've they're going to appoint a special Middle East peace envoy, Steve Whitcough, who has a direct line to the president. And we'll see what effect that has. So far, I will say, though, you know, allies of the president elect, they've been very favorable towards the steel, Mike Walts, Senator Lindsey Graham. They've praised the steel and the Biden administration officials I spoke to yesterday said that they have been talking to the Trump people about this. The Trump campaign was the Trump transition team. Excuse me, they were informed about this. And the president, you know, has wanted to ensure that there is a smooth transition. So I also know the Biden administration leases verbally promising they're going to do everything they can to make sure that when the Trump administration inherits this, like, they're not just kind of left in a lurch and having to deal with too much of chaos. While I have you this week, Michael Walts, Trump's pick for national security advisor said that the administration is working hand in glove with the transition team on security is clear that Biden has made it clear like he wants this smooth transition. Those words were taken as a way to discourage it and for serious from seeing this as the time to test America, right? That there's some domestic politics happening here, but like, don't get it twisted. As you look at these next two months, what are the things you're going to be paying the most attention to as potential national security headaches during this transition? Check out the biggest one is China and Taiwan, just because in China in general, it's aggression in the South China Sea, in the East China Sea. That really is just the biggest bucket of uncertainty because while President Xi Jinping of China has already reached out to Trump and had phone calls and the reality is that the Biden administration struggled to manage that relationship for a good part. In the last year, things definitely eased, and there were clear lines of communication. But especially over Taiwan, things got tricky. The partnership between Russia and China, though it has had some strains, it's still very strong. And especially if Russia loses ground in the next couple of months now that the United States has lifted usage restrictions on Ukraine, or we start to see just Ukraine's posture get better, the posture of US allies improve. It's unclear how China might respond to that. I doubt that that might mean direct provocations towards war, but it could mean small incremental build-ups in the raising of the temperature, and that makes the map much harder to deal with. And of course, with the war in Ukraine, we never truly know how Putin is going to escalate threats, how much longer Ukraine has. So those are the biggest variables of uncertainty. The Middle East will probably continue in the same way. It's continuing. But the real notes of uncertainty over the next couple of months, and where adversaries could play some interesting games, definitely purchase the war in Ukraine and China in Taiwan. Eric Bazzallamil, thank you, sir. Co-author of "Natsick Daily." Good luck. Hopefully it's quiet over the next couple of days in your world. I pray. I pray. Thanks for coming on. Thanks. And for your schedule today, the Senate and the House are out. President Joe Biden is in then-tucket for Thanksgiving. The music in today's show was composed by the mysterious breakmaster, Cylinder. Colin Tansill-Sudith is our podcast producer. Andy Reese is managing producer. Mike Debonis and Zach Stanton are our editors. And I'm Eugene Daniels. Playbook debriefing will be off the rest of the week for Thanksgiving. Have a great holiday. Everyone stay calm so we can all enjoy a couple of days off. And we'll talk to you here on Monday. Did you know over 1.6 million kids use e-cigarettes? Nearly 90% use flavored products. Almost all of which are illegal. That's right. Thousands of illegal, kid-friendly vapes are available in stores right now. They're hooking kids with fun flavors, more nicotine than ever, and even built-in video games. Some vapes have as much nicotine as 20 packs of cigarettes. The FDA and other agencies must protect kids by removing illegal products from stores and stopping them from pouring into our country. To learn more, visit www.tobaccofreekids.org.