TRUMP: PALESTINIANS TO BE ‘RESETTLED IN FAR SAFER AND MORE BEAUTIFUL COMMUNITIES’: As his Secretary of State and White House press secretary tried to sand the rough edges off President Donald Trump’s pronouncement that the U.S. wants to take ownership of the Gaza Strip and turn it into a jewel of the Mediterranean, Trump doubled down his desire to move the Palestinians out, and turn the seaside real estate into a Riviera-style resort.
In public remarks Wednesday, both Marco Rubio and Karoline Leavitt referred to Trump’s grand plan as a “temporary” relocation of the two million Palestinians who are now living among the rubble left after more than a year of war between Israel and Hamas.
“What he’s very generously, very generously, has offered is the ability of the United States to go in and help with debris removal, help with munitions removal, help with reconstruction, the rebuilding of homes and businesses and things of this nature, so that then people can move back in,” Rubio said during a stop in Guatemala.
“He has made it very clear, he’s been very vocal that he expects our partners in the region, particularly Egypt and Jordan, to accept Palestinian refugees temporarily so that we can rebuild their home,” Leavitt said at Wednesday’s White House briefing. Trump, though, continues to insist the Palestinians will have to go, a policy that some have argued amounts to ethnic cleansing.
“The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting. The Palestinians,” Trump said on Truth Social, “would have already been resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region. They would actually have a chance to be happy, safe, and free.”
“The U.S., working with great development teams from all over the World, would slowly and carefully begin the construction of what would become one of the greatest and most spectacular developments of its kind on Earth,” Trump continued. “No soldiers by the U.S. would be needed! Stability for the region would reign!!!”
OPINION: TRUMP REPUDIATES RUBIO’S ATTEMPT TO REPAIR GAZA FOOLISHNESS
‘THE DEFINITION OF INSANITY’: As the job of defending Trump’s “out there” plan for Gaza has fallen to his Cabinet, a common talking point is being employed, including by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, during his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the pentagon this week.
“The definition of insanity is attempting to do the same thing over and over and over again,” Hegseth said, taking questions from reporters while sitting across the table from Netanyahu. “The president is willing to think outside the box, look for new and unique dynamic ways to solve problems that have felt like they’re intractable. So, we look forward to more conversations about that, creative solutions to that. And as the man tasked with leading the Defense Department here, we’re prepared to look at all options.”
“The President has not committed to putting boots on the ground in Gaza. He has also said that the United States is not going to pay for the rebuilding of Gaza. His administration is going to work with our partners in the region to reconstruct this region,” said Leavitt at the White House. “it does not mean American taxpayers will be funding this effort. It means Donald Trump, who is the best dealmaker on the planet, is going to strike a deal with our partners in the region.”
MIDDLE EAST LEADERS IN PANIC OVER TRUMP PROPOSAL FOR US CONTROL OF GAZA
CRAZY LIKE A FOX? Because of the many obstacles that would appear to make the Gaza renovation plan a non-starter — including the flat refusal by Egypt and Jordan to accept waves of Palestinians, the resistance by the Palestinians to be evicted from their homeland, the time and cost such a project would entail — many analysts are comparing Trump’s audacious plan to President Richard Nixon’s idea of spooking the other side by coming off as crazy.
“I call it the Madman Theory, Bob.” Nixon is said to have told his chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman, as recounted by David Remnick in the New Yorker. “I want the North Vietnamese to believe I’ve reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We’ll just slip the word to them that, ‘for God’s sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about communism. We can’t restrain him when he’s angry — and he has his hand on the nuclear button — and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace.”
“We are on a path right now in Gaza to just rinse and repeat the same old scenario, which is to say, left to everyone’s own devices, left on the trajectory that things are now on, Hamas is, as Israel has, during this ceasefire, has been pulling back. Hamas is going to try and reassert control,” Dan Senor, former Pentagon official and foreign policy adviser to the Romney campaign, said in an appearance on CNN. “The international community is going to help rebuild Gaza with Hamas there. So, tell me exactly how that looks any different from what Israel and the Palestinian people got between 2005, when Israel withdrew, and October 7th of 2023. We’re on a similar trajectory.”
“So, I think the president is saying, ‘Guys, we got to come up with alternatives because we’re not going to just keep doing the same thing over and over,” Senor said. “I think what President Trump is doing is throwing out other ideas. Do I think every detail of what he laid out is going to be what we actually see? Who knows? What he is saying is … Let’s try something different. And part of that is putting pressure on these Arab countries.”
Good Friday Morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, written and compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) and edited by Christopher Tremoglie (@chriswtremo). Email here with tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. Sign up or read current and back issues at DailyonDefense.com. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email and we’ll add you to our list. And be sure to follow me on Threads and/or on X @jamiejmcintyre.
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HAPPENING TODAY: President Donald Trump meets this morning with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba. Ishiba presides over a minority government after his party lost its majority in the Japanese parliament for the first time in 15 years in October. His party has a tenuous grip on power.
Ishiba had been pushing for a Washington visit to meet with Trump. He says he is ready for a hard-nosed negotiation with the American president and pledges to bolster Japan’s military capabilities.
“With the balance of power in the region making a historic change, we must further deepen Japan-U.S. cooperation and ensure the U.S. commitment to the region to prevent any power vacuum from destabilizing it,” Ishiba said in a policy speech to parliament, according to the Associated Press. Ishiba is the first Asian leader to meet with Trump in his second term.
Trump will welcome Ishiba to the White House at 11:30 a.m., and a joint news conference is scheduled for 1:10 p.m. The news conference will be followed by another executive order signing session, during which Trump is also expected to meet with the press.
PANAMA: NO FREE RIDE FOR U.S. WARSHIPS: Panama has issued a pointed denial to a Feb. 2 Bloomberg story that reported Panama’s President Jose Raul Mulino “promised free passage for U.S. warships through the Panama Canal” in talks with Marco Rubio this past weekend.
“The Panama Canal Authority, authorized to set tolls and other charges for transiting the canal, communicates it has made no adjustments to these fees,” a press release said. “The Panama Canal Authority, as previously stated, is willing to engage in dialogue with the relevant officials regarding the transit of military ships from [the United States].
President Trump has accused Panama of overcharging U.S. naval vessels as part of his justification for reclaiming the canal. Panama insisted that U.S. ships pay the same rates as other shipping, which vary based on the size and weight of the vessel. The 1977 Treaty of Permanent Neutrality mandates that shipping from all countries be treated equally and that “charges for transit and ancillary services shall be just, reasonable, equitable.”
President Mulino indicated he was open to prioritizing the transit of U.S. warships, such as moving them to the front of the line.
WOULD TRUMP REALLY INVADE PANAMA TO RECLAIM THE CANAL BY FORCE?
RUBIO: INSUBORDINATION AT USAID LEFT NO CHOICE: Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a longtime champion of the foreign aid dispensed by the U.S. Agency for International Development as a counterweight to Chinese influence, is defending the heavy-handed tactics that are gutting the agency and reducing its workforce from about 10,000 people to about 290.
“Our preference was to go into USAID and work from the top down in identifying all of our programs. What are all the programs we fund around the world? Which are the ones that make us safer, stronger, and more prosperous?” Rubio said this week. “This is not a charity. These are not private funds. This is American taxpayer funds, and we have an obligation to spend it wisely.”
But Rubio argued the USAID staff immediately resisted any review, forcing the administration’s hand. “Unfortunately, we had very little cooperation,” Rubio said. “In fact, we had individuals, even after the orders were issued, that were still trying to push payments through in contravention and in direct insubordination. And so now we’ve had to do it in the opposite direction. It is not the direction I wanted it. It’s not the way we wanted to do it initially, but it is the way we will have to do it now.”
READ MORE: THE UNMASKING OF USAID
SAMANTHA’S ‘POWERFUL’ DEFENSE: “This is a disaster, not just from a humanitarian standpoint, from the standpoint of all the beneficiaries who may, in fact, die because they won’t have access to US resources, but it’s a disaster for US national interests and national security,” Samantha Power, former administration of USAID said in an interview last night on CNN. “This is devastating, and it is ceding the field as well to the People’s Republic of China, to the Russian Federation, and other malign actors who would like nothing more than to see the U.S.’ ground game in American foreign policy — the face of American values disappear.”
“There is so much misinformation, so many falsehoods now circulating about USAID, that would be heartbreaking enough in any circumstances, but they’ve also taken down the USAID website, which actually lists what we do,” Power said. ‘It’s a $38 billion budget. 60% of the budget goes to humanitarian emergencies, literally to provide shelter, food, and medicine to keep people alive. In addition to humanitarian emergencies, out of that, 60% is global health programs preventing malaria, TB, helping people with HIV, and very critically, in the wake of the pandemic, actually helping do surveillance to make sure that we don’t have another COVID- style outbreak that makes its way to the United States and kills Americans.”
“The important aspect of USAID’s work that has been entirely lost in many of these debates in the last weeks is that it takes actual expertise to know how to get rid of malaria. It takes actual expertise to think about how to build disaster-resilient infrastructure so that the next extreme weather event doesn’t take out a whole community. It actually is really complicated to figure out how to work with communities to do de-radicalization and to get economies back on track,” she said.
Power also said the way the Trump administration is shutting down the agency is leaving many American overseas in the lurch. “They’re being told they have 24 hours to pack their bags and come home. They don’t have homes, necessarily in the United States. They’ve been working in some of the most dangerous parts of the world on behalf of the United States,” she said. “If we did this to military families, just summarily told them to pack their bags and leave a place that they had been deployed, there would be broad bipartisan outrage.”
MILLIONS OF LIVES AT STAKE IN USAID STOP-WORK ORDER
THE RUNDOWN:
Washington Examiner: Trump’s proposal for US to ‘take over’ Gaza meant to stir up Middle East governments for alternatives
Washington Examiner: Middle East leaders in panic over Trump proposal for US control of Gaza
Washington Examiner: Good cop, bad cop diplomacy: Trump makes threats, and diplomats offer deals
Washington Examiner: Trump repudiates Rubio’s attempt to repair Gaza foolishness
Washington Examiner: Would Trump really invade Panama to reclaim the canal by force?
Washington Examiner: West Point shuts down clubs centered on race and gender
Washington Examiner: Pete Hegseth to meet with Australian counterpart with focus on Indo-Pacific
Washington Examiner: Greg Abbott offers Trump 4,000 prison beds to detain immigrants amid ICE shortages
Washington Examiner: Mexico’s 10,000 troops begin to arrive at US border
Washington Examiner: Stopping maritime immigration part of Trump’s plan
Washington Examiner: Oklahoma moves to turn over criminal immigrants in its prisons to ICE
Washington Examiner: Department of Veterans Affairs gets a DOGE employee
Washington Examiner: South African president warns ‘we will not be bullied’ amid feud with Trump, Musk
Washington Examiner: US military aircraft crashes in Philippines, killing four people
Washington Examiner: Seven in 10 Germans disapprove of Olaf Scholz ahead of elections, poll finds
Washington Examiner: Fentanyl-laced marijuana, horse tranquilizer, and nitazenes listed as top emerging drug threats in US
Washington Examiner: Congress pushes to classify fentanyl permanently as Schedule I narcotic
Washington Examiner: Colombian president claims cocaine is ‘no worse than whiskey’ and should be ‘sold like wine’
Washington Examiner: Senate confirms Russ Vought as Trump’s budget director despite Democrats’ stall tactics
Washington Examiner: Why are Democrats so scared of Russell Vought?
AP: Trump promotes misleading claims about federal government’s media subscriptions
Washington Post: The White House’s inaccurate claims about USAID spending
New York Times: Trump Imposes Sanctions on I.C.C., Accusing It of Targeting U.S. and Israel
Defense News: Ukraine Receives First Mirage 2000 Fighter Jets from France
The War Zone: F-15EX Nails Pentagon Test Campaign, Survivability Concerns Remain
Air & Space Forces Magazine: US Military Working on Slate of Safety Fixes for V-22 Osprey
Washington Post: Flights into National being slowed after crash, as Musk intervenes
Breaking Defense: Here’s Who Hegseth May Task to Put Together Trump’s Iron Dome Plan
Air & Space Forces Magazine: USAF Flies More Detained Migrants to Guantanamo in C-17
Oilprice.com: Rising Tensions Could Push Iran and Trump Toward a New Deal or Conflict
Defense One: What Google’s Return to Defense AI Means
SpaceNews: DIU Studying Applications of SpaceX Starship In-Space Refueling
Air & Space Forces Magazine: Japan Puts New US Space Force Capability into Orbit
Breaking Defense: Honeywell to Divide Business into Three Parts, Separating Aerospace Unit
Air & Space Forces Magazine: Death at Robins Blamed on Faulty Construction, Prompting More Inspections
19fortyfive.com: Why the Air Force Might Build 225 B-21 Raider Bombers
19fortyfive.com: Canada’s Military Has Reached the Tipping Point Into Crisis
19fortyfive.com: Father Time Is Coming for the Navy’s Nimitz-Class Aircraft Carrier
THE CALENDAR:
FRIDAY | FEBRUARY 7
11 a.m. 1957 E St. NW — George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs book discussion: The Art of State Persuasion: China’s Strategic Use of Media in Interstate Disputes, with author Frances Wang, assistant professor of political science at Colgate University https://calendar.gwu.edu/event/book-launch-the-art-of-state-persuasion
11:15 a.m. — Center for European Policy Analysis briefing: “How to Win: A Seven-Point Plan for Sustainable Peace in Ukraine,” with former national security adviser retired Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster; and CEPA President and CEO Alina Polyakova. By invitation: [email protected]
TUESDAY | FEBRUARY 11
8 a.m. 2401 M St., NW — George Washington University Project for Media and National Security Defense Writers Group breakfast: “Exclusive, Advance Preview of a Munich Security Conference Report on ‘Unspoken Barriers to Innovation in Defense,’” with Matthew Schlueter, global head of defense and security, Boston Consulting Group By invitation, email: [email protected].
10 a.m. 310 Cannon — House Homeland Security Transportation and Maritime Security Subcommittee hearing: “Examining the PRC’s Strategic Port Investments in the Western Hemisphere and the Implications for Homeland Security, Part I.” https://homeland.house.gov/hearing/examining-the-prcs-strategic-port-investments
WEDNESDAY | FEBRUARY 12
10 a.m. 253 Russell — Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee hearing: “Nuuk and Cranny: Looking at the Arctic and Greenland’s Geostrategic Importance to U.S. Interests,” with testimony from Alexander Gray, senior fellow in national security affairs at the American Foreign Policy Council; Anthony Marchese, chairman of Texas Mineral Resources; Jennifer Mercer, section head at the National Science Foundation Office of Polar Programs’s Arctic Sciences Section; and Rebecca Pincus, director of Wilson Center’s Polar Institute http://commerce.senate.gov
THURSDAY | FEBRUARY 13
TBA Brussels, Belgium — NATO Defence Ministers meet for two days at NATO Headquarters in Brussels https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/news
10 a.m. 342 Dirksen — Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing: “Eliminating Waste by the Foreign Aid Bureaucracy” http://www.hsgac.senate.gov
FRIDAY | FEBRUARY 14
All Day Hotel Bayerischer Hof, Munich, Germany — The 61st Munich Security Conference is held through Sunday https://securityconference.org/en/msc-2025/
WEDNESDAY | MARCH 5
10 a.m. 2154 Rayburn — House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing: “Sanctuary cities policies,” with testimony from Boston Mayor Michelle Wu (D); Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D); Denver Mayor Michael Johnston (D); and New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) http://oversight.house.gov