With Trump’s help, a bad situation seems to be getting worse.

This is really terrible, and has not been widely covered.

Yellow line’ that divides Gaza under Trump plan is ‘new border’ for Israel, says military chief.

Eyal Zamir said Israel would hold on to current positions, giving it control of more than half of the territory

The “yellow line” that divides Gaza under Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan is a “new border” for Israel, the country’s military chief told soldiers deployed in the territory.

The chief of the general staff, Eyal Zamir, said Israel would hold on to its current military positions. These give Israel control of more than half of Gaza, including most agricultural land and the border crossing with Egypt.

“The ‘yellow line’ is a new border line, serving as a forward defensive line for our communities and a line of operational activity,” Zamir said during a visit to meet Israeli reservists in northern Gaza, where he also visited the ruins of the Palestinian towns of Beit Hanoun and Jabaliya.

“We have operational control over extensive parts of the Gaza Strip and we will remain on those defence lines,” Zamir said, according to an English-language transcript of his remarks provided by a military spokesperson.

Palestinians were forced out of this eastern portion of Gaza by Israeli attacks and evacuation orders. Almost all the surviving population, over 2 million people, are now crowded into a narrow zone of coastal sand dunes that is smaller than Washington DC.

Zamir’s commitment to keep troops in Gaza appears to contradict the ceasefire agreement signed in October, which specifies that “Israel will not occupy or annex Gaza.

Trump’s 20-point plan commits the Israeli military to “progressively hand over” Palestinian territory to an international security force until they have “withdrawn completely from Gaza”, barring a small security perimeter by the border.

The Israeli government declined to comment on whether Zamir’s statement reflected official policy. An official said Israeli forces were “deployed in Gaza in accordance with the ceasefire outline” and accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire.

The ceasefire agreement links the departure of Israeli forces to the demilitarisation of Hamas, without laying out a mechanism or a timeframe for that to happen.

A UN resolution passed last month authorised the creation of an international security force but no countries have committed troops to stand it up. Some have expressed interest in joining a peacekeeping force, but none want to risk their soldiers being ordered to fight Hamas, despite pressure from the Trump administration.

The Israeli army has built new concrete outposts along the “yellow line” to fortify its positions and declared it a lethal boundary, even though it is not always clearly marked and a ceasefire is in place. Soldiers have repeatedly killed Palestinians they accuse of crossing it, including young children.

Concrete bollards laid out to mark some stretches of the line have also been used to expand Israel’s military occupation of Gaza. Satellite images show that some markers have been placed hundreds of metres beyond the boundary agreed on ceasefire maps.

The US military has also been planning for the long-term partition of Gaza along the “yellow line”, and one US official has desccribed reunification as “aspirational”.

Documents seen by the Guardian envisage the territory split into a “green zone” under Israeli and international military control, where reconstruction would start, and a “red zone” to be left indefinitely in ruins. (The Guardian).

This is the other part of the bad situation.

A Weakened Hamas Still Dominates Gaza, Building Day by Day.

A cease-fire after two years of war with Israel has allowed Hamas to tighten its grip on power again. “It’s still standing,” one Israeli official said.

Since Israeli forces withdrew from parts of Gaza in October under a cease-fire agreement, Hamas has moved quickly to fill the void.

Its police forces are out on the streets again. Its fighters have executed opponents. And its officials have levied fees on some costly goods being imported into Gaza, according to local businessmen.

Over two years of war, top Hamas commanders and thousands of fighters have been killed, and the group’s arsenal has been severely depleted. It now controls less than half of the territory in Gaza, with the rest occupied by Israel.

Yet Hamas has managed to reassert its power in Gaza, according to Israeli security officials and an Arab intelligence official. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal assessments.

“Hamas was hit hard, but it wasn’t defeated,” said Shalom Ben Hanan, a former senior official in the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency. “It’s still standing.”

This swift regrouping presents a formidable obstacle to the Trump administration’s plan to reconstruct a Gaza free of Hamas. The plan envisions the enclave’s demilitarization and calls for all military infrastructure, including tunnels and weapons production facilities, to be destroyed.

Hamas emerged from the war with a foundation it can build on.

Mr. Ben Hanan, who receives briefings from the Shin Bet leadership, said that even though Hamas’s ranks are thinned, official estimates say that 20,000 fighters remain.

Hamas has quickly replaced the commanders killed in the war, said Brig. Gen. Erez Winner, who served in a senior role in the Israeli military until March.

The group has many places to hide and store weapons, given that more than half of the underground tunnel network is still intact, the Israeli and Arab officials said.

Hamas still runs the central organs of government in Gaza, including the security services, Mr. Ben Hanan said. Its rocket supply has dwindled, but members still have lighter weapons, like automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.

Hamas gunmen are operating checkpoints in parts of Gaza and questioning and detaining people, according to residents. Its police have prevented people from trying to steal from aid trucks and abandoned homes, they said.

“They’re trying to convey to the public that they’re still in charge and they’re providing security,” said Nidal Kuhail, 31, a resident of Gaza City. “You can feel their presence, but they also appear to be weaker than the past.”

Husam Badran, a senior Hamas official, said the group was prepared to allow a committee of Palestinian technocrats to take over the administration of Gaza. Chaos would be the result of leaving behind a power vacuum, he said.

“That would be the most dangerous decision,” he said in an interview. The police, he added, were seeking to “preserve security and stability.”

Still, Hamas has used brutal tactics to settle scores with rivals.

In mid-October, members of the group forced eight men to kneel in a crowded street in Gaza City before shooting them dead. Hamas internal security officials said the deaths were in retaliation for the killing of several Hamas militants during the war.

On Thursday, Yasser Abu Shabab, the leader of a Palestinian militia backed by Israel, was killed in a clash in eastern Rafah. Though it was not clear whether Hamas was involved, the group cheered the news.

As Hamas has tried to establish security, it has also sought to raise money from the cease-fire.

Since the truce took effect, hundreds of trucks carrying humanitarian aid and commercial goods have been entering Gaza daily, a sharp increase from wartime. Hamas has been generating revenue from some of the more costly items flowing in by levying taxes on a small number of commercial goods, such as computers and solar panels, according to four Gaza businessmen.

Ismail Thawabteh, the director general of the Hamas-controlled government media office in Gaza, denied that the Hamas government was collecting any taxes on imported goods.

Despite its partial comeback, Hamas clearly does not wield the power it did before Oct. 7, 2023, when it was a fully fledged militia and government that controlled Gaza with an iron fist.

The half of Gaza it now presides over was demolished by the war. The Trump administration has refused to consider reconstructing parts of Gaza that remain under Hamas authority. Israeli officials say much of the group’s funding has also been cut off.

Most important, Hamas is facing more pressure than ever from both Israel and the international community to give up whatever arms it still has. The Trump plan for Gaza is predicated on Hamas’s disarmament and a new government taking over the territory’s administration with the support of an international stabilization force.

Mr. Badran said Hamas was ready to discuss the issue of the group’s weapons, but only in the context of “serious” talks about a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a total halt to military operations in the territory, and the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.

“Without that, talking about these matters would be nonsensical,” he said. “Without value.” He also suggested that Hamas was open to a long-term truce.

For Hamas, giving up all its weapons would be tantamount to giving up a core element of its identity: the ability to resist Israel.

Beyond its ideological attachment to its weapons, Hamas members view them as critical for self-defense, said Wesam Afifa, a Palestinian analyst and the former executive director of Hamas’s Al Aqsa TV.

Palestinian analysts said they thought Hamas might take a pragmatic approach to preserve some sort of future role in Gaza and a long-term cease-fire with Israel.

While a long-term truce is possible, Mr. Afifa said, a wholesale surrender is not in the offing.

Some Arab mediators say they believe they can persuade Hamas to give up some of its weapons as long as President Trump offers guarantees that Israel will not restart the war.

Senior members of the Israeli government have indicated they would probably not settle for a partial Hamas disarmament, noting that it would not be in keeping with the U.S. vision.

“This territory will be demilitarized, and Hamas will be disarmed,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel told a government meeting in mid-November. “Either this will happen the easy way or it will happen the hard way.”

Israeli political and military officials have complained that with each passing day of the cease-fire, Hamas is deepening its control and reorganizing its forces, making it harder to introduce a viable alternative to replace it.

“It happened very quickly,” Moshe Tur-Paz, a centrist Israeli lawmaker, said of Hamas’s resurgence.

“The moment to bring in the new government was the moment the cease-fire started,” said Mr. Tur-Paz, a member of Israel’s parliamentary Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, which receives classified briefings on security affairs. “Hamas was at its weakest.”

The slow process of setting up a new government for Gaza is playing in Hamas’s favor, he said.

Mr. Ben Hanan, the former Shin Bet official, warned that Hamas could pose a threat again in the future, if Israel becomes complacent about the group.

“Hamas is besieged,” he said. “But if it continues controlling parts of Gaza and wants to rebuild its capacities, it will find a way to rebuild them.”

He added, “The next battle might be in 10 or 20 years, but it could be much worse than Oct. 7.” (New York Times).

Trump continues to stand in for Putin.

7 Takeaways from [The Politico] Interview.

President Donald Trump is closing out his first year in office, feeling bullish about how he has reshaped the economy and the world even as allies abroad and supporters at home raise increasing concern about who, exactly, his policies stand to benefit.

Republican pollsters and operatives, including those supportive of Trump, have warned that Democrats are overperforming in part because the president has not done enough to assuage concerns over the cost of living.

But Trump, during an interview with POLITICO’s Dasha Burns for a special episode of The Conversation, gave himself an “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus” grade on the economy.

He defended trips abroad as fundamentally aimed at helping Americans back home by securing new investments.

Prices are all coming down. It’s been 10 months,” Trump said. “It’s amazing what we’ve done.”

Still, the president said he was open to new carveouts on tariffs, appearing to recognize that a reversal on one of his signature economic policies would provide short-term benefits to Americans’ pocketbooks. And in the most direct challenge to the Federal Reserve’s independence, he said that lowering interest rates immediately is a litmus test for the next central bank chair.

For Hill Republicans eager for direction on health care affordability, Trump didn’t give any — declining to say whether he would push Congress to extend health care subsidies expiring at the end of the year.

His message to European allies worried about Russian aggression was that the real threat to their country is unchecked immigration and political correctness. He warned that decades-old alliances with the United States are at risk and that the most famous capitals — including London and Paris — are unrecognizable.
Here are seven takeaways from the interview on domestic and foreign affairs.

Trump had a litmus test for his new Fed chair: lowering interest rates immediately

Trump has spent the last several months pressuring the Federal Reserve and its chair, Jerome Powell, to lower interest rates. Now, he’s openly making rate cuts a screening tool for Powell’s successor.

Asked whether support for immediate rate cuts is effectively a litmus test for picking the next Fed chair, Trump said “yes,” adding that Powell “should too” and berating Powell as “not a smart person” who “doesn’t like Trump.”

The exchange represents Trump’s most direct effort to bring the central bank under his thumb, tearing at the independence of an institution the president has long sought to influence. And it comes as the Fed is expected to on Wednesday approve its third-straight interest rate reduction at the central bank’s final meeting of the year.

Trump said last week he has already selected Powell’s successor. Though the president has declined to name that person, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett is widely seen as the front-runner for the job.

Trump gave the economy an ‘A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus,’ argued foreign trips are focused on the U.S.
The president, asked what grade he would give the economy, awarded it an “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus,” casting his stewardship as an unqualified success despite persistent anxiety among consumers and tepid job gains in key sectors.

It comes as Trump continues to insist the emphasis on affordability is a “hoax.” Democrats, he said, broke the economy under former President Joe Biden, leaving him with a mess to clean. But that message is at odds with some of Trump’s top advisers who have said the president needs to focus more on selling his economy, especially as 37 percent of those who voted for him last year say the cost of living in the U.S. is the worst they can remember it being, according to a recent POLITICO Poll.

He also defended the string of high-profile foreign trips he has taken in his second term — to the Middle East and Asia — insisting they are fundamentally about improving conditions at home.

“When I go on a trip, I only have one place in mind. It’s the United States,” Trump said, arguing that his personal diplomacy has yielded trillions of dollars in new investments into the U.S.

But much of the capital Trump has touted will take years to manifest into new factories and jobs. Meanwhile, a recent report from the payroll processing firm ADP found that private companies cut 32,000 workers in November, including a loss of 18,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector.

Trump offered little clarity on health care legislation

Trump left Republicans on the Hill who are struggling to coalesce around a plan to avoid health insurance premiums spiking in January hanging. The Senate on Thursday is expected to vote on a three-year extension of enhanced Obamacare subsidies, a Democrat plan that is almost certain to fail. Republicans have discussed broad outlines for reforms but have not agreed on a path forward.

Asked whether he would urge Congress to temporarily extend those subsidies, a move that would stave off premium increases for millions of Americans, Trump declined to take a position.

“I don’t know. I’m going to have to see,” he said. “I’d like to get better health care.”

Instead, he again leaned into a populist frame that appeals to his base but complicates Republicans’ immediate reality, reiterating support for a plan that would send enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidy funds directly to health savings accounts that Americans can use for out-of-pocket costs.

It’s the one policy tenet Trump has explicitly endorsed even as Republicans debate thornier questions such as income caps and whether to prohibit the subsidies from being used to pay for abortion.

“No money for the insurance companies, I want to pay the money directly to the people,” Trump added.

Trump said he will consider more carveouts from tariffs to lower prices for Americans

The White House last month pared back tariffs on select imports — including beef, tomatoes, bananas and coffee — as inflation jitters and voter frustration over grocery prices mount. Trump now says he’s open to expanding those exemptions.

“Sure, and I’ve done that already with coffee,” Trump said. “They’re very small carveouts, it’s not a big deal.”

But even as he downplayed the shifts, Trump made clear he sees them not as a retreat from his tariff agenda but as tactical adjustments. He stressed that any relief on consumer staples would likely be offset elsewhere.

As he cuts duties on some goods, he would raise them on others, he said, preserving his broader strategy of using trade penalties as leverage. That approach underscores the push-pull inside his economic policy: trying to blunt inflationary pain at home while still brandishing tariffs as a political and geopolitical tool.

But that power may prove short-lived. The Supreme Court is currently weighing the constitutionality of many of the president’s new tariffs, a decision that could significantly curtail his ability to use levies to get his way in foreign affairs.

Trump’s hands-off approach to a ‘decaying’ and ‘weak’ Europe

Trump cast Europe as culturally and politically adrift, and suggested that the U.S.’s traditional alliances are not as ironclad as many European leaders might have hoped. The president argued that lax immigration policies are changing the culture of Europe, making it a “decaying” continent, and that political correctness had left Europe “weak.”

The critique, which comes days after the administration released a National Security Strategy that encouraged “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory,” doubled as a signal of Washington’s increasingly arm’s-length posture toward traditional allies, a shift that has unsettled European officials already anxious about U.S. reliability.

“I want to run the United States, I don’t want to run Europe,” Trump said, before alluding to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s description of him as “daddy,” a flourish that captures both his pride in dominating the alliance and the discomfort it triggers among allies who see it as belittling.

At the same time, he made clear he intends to insert himself into politics abroad by backing ideological allies, citing Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Argentina’s Javier Milei as past examples. That selective engagement, distancing himself from the continent broadly while elevating nationalist figures underscores his approach: a retreat from collective security norms coupled with personal intervention in other nations’ politics.

Pressed on whether he meant European nations would cease to be U.S. allies, Trump offered little reassurance: “Well, it depends.” The conditional answer highlights the uncertainty confronting governments that once assumed an automatic American guarantee and now find their status contingent on his personal approval.

Trump: Hegseth can testify before Congress ‘if he wants’

The president was ambivalent about whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should testify before Congress about the recent U.S. strikes on suspected drug-smuggling vessels, including a Sept. 2 follow-up strike that killed two survivors of an initial blast.
Lawmakers are trying to use the annual defense bill to force answers on a strike some experts warn could meet the threshold of a war crime, but Trump offered no signal he expects his Pentagon chief to comply.
“I don’t care if he does. He can, if he wants. I don’t care,” Trump said, adding, “I don’t care. I would say do it if you want. He’s doing a great job.”

Trump also said he reviewed footage of the operation, arguing “it looked like they were trying to turn back over the boat.” That framing mirrors Sen. Tom Cotton’s (R-Ark.) assertion that the video showed “two survivors trying to flip a boat loaded with drugs bound for the United States back over so they could stay in the fight.”

Whether the survivors were attempting to resume alleged smuggling activity or were stranded and in need of aid is central to the legal debate over the second strike’s justification.

Trump declined to say whether he thought the second strike was necessary: “I don’t get involved in that.” The remarks offered a split screen between a president standing by his Pentagon chief while distancing himself from one of the most contentious military decisions of his tenure.

Trump said it’s time for Ukraine to hold an election

Ukraine has postponed national elections under martial law as it fights Russia’s invasion, a constitutional requirement that bars voting during wartime. Trump, however, said Kyiv should press ahead anyway, arguing that delaying the ballot undermines Ukraine’s claim to democratic legitimacy.

“They’re using war not to hold an election, but I would think the Ukrainian people should have that choice. And maybe [President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy would win. I don’t know who would win, but they haven’t had an election in a long time,” Trump said. “You know, they talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy anymore.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has seized on Ukraine’s inability to hold elections to label Zelenskyy illegitimate, while Ukrainian officials have argued that holding a national ballot amid mass displacement, occupied territory, active shelling and millions of citizens abroad is neither feasible nor legal under its constitution.

Against the backdrop of reports of a new peace framework being floated to Kyiv, Trump struck a bleak tone about Ukraine’s prospects on the battlefield and suggested Zelenskyy will soon be forced into concessions.

“Well, he’s gonna have to get on the ball and start accepting things, you know, when you’re losing — because you’re losing,” Trump said, a blunt assessment that undercuts the administration’s public line that Kyiv still has viable options.

Asked about Donald Trump Jr.’s recent assertion that the U.S. might walk away from Ukraine, Trump offered a hedge: The statement wasn’t “exactly correct, but not exactly wrong,” either. (Politico)

The Politico Interview. 45 minutes.

Nobody listens to the Charlie Kirk podcast anymore

Among the special guest hosts who failed to keep the podcast numbers high are JD Vance, The Daily Wire team, Glenn Beck, Megyn Kelly, Benny Johnson, Dr. James Orr, and Tucker Carlson.

Kirk’s widow Erika Kirk is the permanent host. She doesn’t lift the numbers.

Democrat wins Miami mayor's race for the first time in almost 30 years

Democrat Eileen Higgins, a former county commissioner, defeated Republican Emilio González, NBC News projects.

Democrat Eileen Higgins has won the Miami mayor’s race, NBC News projects, giving the party control of the office for the first time in almost three decades in another victory for Democrats ahead of next year’s pivotal midterm elections.

Higgins, a former Miami-Dade County commissioner, won 59% of the vote to 41% for Republican Emilio González, a businessman and former city manager who was endorsed by President Donald Trump. González conceded Tuesday night, his campaign confirmed.

"Tonight, the people of Miami made history. Together, we turned the page on years of chaos and corruption and opened the door to a new era for our city — one defined by ethical, accountable leadership that delivers real results for the people," Higgins said in a statement Tuesday night.

While the Miami mayor’s race is technically nonpartisan, the Republican-affiliated candidate has won every election since 2008, and an independent candidate won before then, locking Democrats out of the office since their last win in 1997. But while Miami-Dade has moved dramatically toward Republicans in the last few elections, Democratic former Vice President Kamala Harris narrowly carried the city itself last year.

Both candidates centered their campaigns on breaking from the previous mayoral administrations in Miami and addressing voters’ economic concerns while pitching different solutions, but the race became nationalized in the final weeks. And it hinged on familiar themes that will play a big role in deciding the 2026 elections: affordability, Trump’s weakened political standing and how his controversial deportation agenda is playing in a city with a significant Hispanic population.

Higgins leaned on her role on the county commission to frame herself as focused on quality-of-life issues like affordable housing, infrastructure and streamlining city processes in a way she said would help save the city, and residents, money.

“There are many approaches to affordability that local governments have in their own hands even though we aren’t in control of tariffs — which by the way is creating a huge affordability crisis,” she told NBC News the day before the election, in a reference to Trump’s broad tariff policy.

She was also deeply critical of Trump — and González by proxy, given Trump’s endorsement — over his deportation agenda, telling NBC News that Hispanic and Haitian voters have been telling her they are “afraid of their government.”

Despite Higgins’ messaging, González didn’t run as a Trump acolyte. Instead, he argued he was the candidate focused on local issues like fighting overdevelopment, and he aligned himself with GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis’ plan to end homestead property taxes to ease the cost of living. González deflected criticism of Trump’s immigration policies by arguing that’s a national issue over which he has no say.

In an interview Tuesday night with WPLG-TV in Miami, González said he called Higgins to wish her well, adding that she ran a "wonderful campaign."

"If she's successful, Miami is successful," he said.

The race drew increased national attention in the final weeks, particularly after Democrats made gains but still lost in a Tennessee special election in a vacant congressional district this month. The Democratic National Committee took an active interest in the mayor’s race, sending organizational support to boost Higgins, and prominent Democrats with potential aspirations for higher office — Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel — sent their support, too.

Republicans zeroed in on the race, as well, hoping to hold the seat and push back against a string of GOP candidates underperforming their 2024 marks in special House elections, the recent governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia and other downballot races. (NBC News )

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