Below is a transcript of the interview with Brett McGurk, White House National Security Council coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” which aired on January 19, 2025.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn to Brett McGurk, the White House National Security Council coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa. Good to have you here, Brett.
Brett McGurk: Thanks. Margaret, it’s great to be here.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We’re watching breaking news. This is the deal I negotiated. What can you tell us about the conditions of these three women who were transferred to the Red Cross? Good,
Brett McGurk: I’ve just confirmed with my Israeli counterparts that they are now in Israeli custody. This just happened. Look, I know they’re alive. I’m sure they’ve been held in deplorable conditions for 470 days, but the Israelis have a very good system in place to take them into their care, and they will get the care they need and be reunited with them. Their families.
MARGARET BRENNAN: It seems that until this morning, there was doubt as to whether Hamas would go through with this. The Israelis said that they did not hand over the names of the prisoners. Do we know why, and do we know much about the safety of the three Americans still detained?
Brett McGurk: Well, this deal was negotiated over the course of a year for good reason. It is a detailed and complex arrangement to leave nothing to chance. And until last night, I was up until 4 a.m., when it was finally confirmed that everything had gone according to plan. Hamas owes a list of three names that had to happen for the ceasefire to take effect. This was delayed by a few hours. It finally happened, and now we have the news today. You have a complete ceasefire in effect in Gaza. There are about 800 aid trucks arriving in Gaza today.
Margaret Brennan: 800?
Brett McGurk: 800 aid trucks are supposed to arrive in Gaza today, and the three girls have now been reunited, again, with their families, hopefully, and are now in Israeli custody.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So the UN says an average of 72 trucks a day came in in December, and that was the case in January. Is there even the ability for the Israelis to inspect these trucks and allow that food to enter? Do you expect 800 trucks to arrive in Gaza today?
Brett McGurk: That’s why I’ve been in the Middle East for the past month, nonstop to make sure everything is ready to go. This didn’t come together last week. This has actually been put together since May, when President Biden laid out this framework. He developed this framework with the Emir of Qatar and with Egyptian President Sisi, and announced it to the world in May. It was approved unanimously by the United Nations Security Council. We thought we were close in August, Margaret, and then we killed six hostages in a tunnel under Rafah. I was in your green room talking to the mother, or talking to Hirsch Goldberg’s mother Pauline, who was tragically murdered in August. It was this incident in August when Hamas killed those hostages that we decided to flip the script. An agreement was not reached, because Hamas did not agree to release the hostages. We supported the Israelis in pursuing Hezbollah. They eliminated Hezbollah in Lebanon. We have a ceasefire in Lebanon. We have a new government in Lebanon. This led to the isolation of Hamas. Iran is in the weakest position it has been in the Middle East in decades. So, we returned to the table in December, and Hamas, for the first time, was prepared to accept the May framework and begin releasing the hostages. It was not until early January that they actually approved the hostage list, and that is how we arrive at the result today.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But do we know how Keith Siegel, Sagi Chen, and Aidan Alexander are doing?
Brett McGurk: Keith will come out in the first phase. Sagui will exit in the first stage. Idan was a uniformed Israeli soldier. He is in the second stage. But we are committed. I think you just heard this from Mike Waltz, and we’ve been working smoothly with the incoming team. I think this is a testament to President Biden and President Trump, allowing us to work together. I’ve been working with Steve Witkoff over the past week, again, a partnership, I think is historic, to help get this done-
Margaret Brennan: Trump’s envoy.
Brett McGurk: We’re committed – we’re committed to getting Aidan out as soon as possible. I spoke with Adi Alexander, Aidan’s father, last night.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So Prime Minister Netanyahu described this overnight as a temporary ceasefire, and says he has permission to start fighting as needed. Do you think he sees this as just a strategic stance, or does he actually want to end this war?
Brett McGurk: The way the deal is structured, on the 16th, phase two negotiations begin. The second phase will begin negotiations to exchange soldiers with Palestinian prisoners. But conditions must also be set for the second phase, and we support the Israelis in making sure that these conditions are set so that Hamas is never able to return to power in Gaza. Hamas cannot again threaten Israel from Gaza. These conditions must be specified. We in the Biden administration have been very clear. We want to see this – this deal has reached all three stages. Every hostage goes home. I think the Trump administration very much shares that goal and model, the road map, again, that the president laid out in May, that was the road map, ultimately, to end the war, and bringing everyone home is the only way to do that. He – she. This roadmap is now ready. We have a ceasefire today in Gaza, and we have a good chance of returning all the hostages to their homes, and we must do everything we can to make that happen.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, according to Secretary Blinken, Hamas has recruited almost as many new militants as it has lost over the course of this war. Blinken said so this week.
Brett McGurk: Hamas has been largely eliminated. Its leader, Yahya Sinwar, was killed in October. Without that, we wouldn’t be in this deal. Hamas on October 7 was an organized military formation. It invaded Israel with 3,500 soldiers in military formations and combat brigades. He is no longer able to do so. It has no military capacity
MARGARET BRENNAN: But this suggests that Israel did something that might be counterproductive to itself in terms of the humanitarian situation that allowed Hamas not to lose support, but to continue recruiting.
Brett McGurk: To get—I—I work closely with my Israeli colleagues. I spent hours with Prime Minister Netanyahu. This is a deal he fully supports. They agree. There is a moral debt to these hostages. You have to get them out. Israel will also make sure it protects its national security. And we’re going to make sure that we do, you know, Margaret, we get this deal without the broader Middle East war that everyone expected. The Americans were not drawn into a broader war in the Middle East. We have defended Israel from Iranian missiles. We supported Israel in pursuing Hezbollah. We supported Israel in pursuing Hamas. We have succeeded in dismantling Iranian proxy networks across the region, which has isolated Hamas. To actually get this deal today, that’s how we got to this point.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, I should take a break here. Brett, I don’t mean to interrupt you, but we’re going to have more questions, but we need to take a quick break. Stay with us.
Part 2:
MARGARET BRENNAN: Welcome back to Face the Nation. We now continue our conversation with Brett McGurk of President Biden’s National Security Council. Brett, I just want to pick up where we left off. Just last week, President Biden gave one of his final interviews, participating in a private conversation with Prime Minister Netanyahu. Listen to it:
BIDEN SWOT: I said, but Bibi, I said, you can’t bomb these communities comprehensively. And he said to me: Well, I did it. You’re a carpet bomb, not his exact words, but you carpet bombed Berlin. You crafted a nuclear weapon, and killed thousands of innocent people because you had to in order to win the war.
MARGARET BRENNAN: President Biden went on to say, that’s why the United Nations and the entire international system were created to prevent this from happening again. To what extent do you think Israel’s standing in the world has been damaged by the behavior of its army?
Brett McGurk: Well, Margaret, that was a conversation early on, when the debate was about whether or not the Israelis should get involved on the ground. We had a discussion with them about that. Ultimately, we supported them, and they were right, because Hamas was living in 400 miles of tunnels under Gaza. There was no way to eradicate Hamas without going into Gaza, and frankly –
MARGARET BRENNAN: But he was talking about dropping bombs on buildings.
Brett McGurk: You can see, but I’ll get back to the topic of conversation. It was a matter of how it went. And look, we worked very closely with the Israelis. Many people have died in this war. That is why we are working hard to reach where we are today with a ceasefire. Today’s ceasefire, this framework, the roadmap that the president laid out in May, was the only way to end the war, and the only way to end the war, frankly, was to put massive pressure on Hamas and eliminate the other proxies. Which was supporting Hamas. I just have to stress this again, when Hezbollah was shooting at Israel every day, Hassan Nasrallah’s position was that they would not stop shooting at Israel and make northern Israel a no-go zone until Israel accepted all of Hamas’ conditions in Gaza. . Israel had to strike Hezbollah in order to get this deal. This is what happened with the ceasefire at the end of November. This is what opened the way for this deal. It was a brutal war, but to end it, we had to reach a ceasefire agreement. And to do that, to do that, we had to support and support Israel. And we did it.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We’ll see if the ceasefire marks an end to the war and if there’s more diplomacy to come. Brett McGurk, thank you for sharing the details.