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CNN Cites 'Administration Sources' To Blame Netanyahu In Gaza Even After Trump Praises Him
On Monday at Mar-a-Lago President Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about several issues including the cease fire in Gaza, and the missile threat from Iran. The recent U.S. strike against Venezuela also came up at the press conference after the meeting. And there was some interesting coverage going on over at CNN both pre and post meeting.
Prior to Monday's post-meeting press conference with the two leaders, CNN White House reporter Alayna Treene was busy repeating what she had learned from unnamed "administration officials", and that is, that Netanyahu is the problem. Here she is on CNN News Central.
TREENE: ..One of the key things,.. is making sure that they can get Netanyahu to commit to that phase two, part of that ceasefire agreement that was initially struck back in October. It's actually something that in my conversations with Trump administration officials, they had expected would be underway at this point...
But a lot of people are also worried, and I say a lot of people, people in the Trump administration, worried that perhaps Netanyahu is slow-walking those talks and that he's not as committed and invested in the broader peace plan than he had initially let on. Because I should say, initially he got a lot of what he wanted out of this cease fire proposal. You know, the return of the hostages. One thing he's been complaining about and criticizing is that Hamas has refused so far to turn over the last living.. excuse me, the last remains of the the final deceased hostage. And so it's really going to be, I think, a key question of what happens behind closed doors when they emerge from this.
Very interesting reporting by Treene. Her "unnamed sources" accusing Netanyahu, her claiming that Israel got "the return of the hostages", which was called for in phase 1, then reluctantly acknowledging that there is still one deceased hostage. Ran Gvili still being held by Hamas, and they also refused to disarm, another violation.
Later after the two leaders met, Trump would meet with Gvili's parents and threaten that Hamas had better disarm, or "there'll be hell to pay for them." He also would say that, "Israel has lived up to the plan 100 percent", shooting a hole through the CNN sources' "slow-walking" claims. But none of this stopped Treene from spewing the same claim against Netanyahu, when she appeared on The Lead, with Phil Mattingly filling in.
TREENE: (Trump) believes Israel is living up 100%, was the term he used, to their commitments in this deal. And that is different than what I'm hearing in some of the conversations with other Trump administration officials, which there's been a lot of concern and some skepticism that potentially Netanyahu is slow walking this process for phase two to kind of, you know, he was never fully invested in a long term peace deal.
Apparently she couldn't resist repeating herself.
But the worst of CNN occurred on NewsNight With Abby Phillip. During a panel discussion on Trump's efforts on Ukraine, Emma Vigeland brought up "our complicity in the genocide in Gaza" and compared Israel's response to October 7 to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and Scott Jennings let her have it for not condemning Hamas.
All three nightly network newscasts covered the meeting, of course, but gave the Gaza topic relatively little time, instead concentrating on Trump's warning to Iran, and the strike on Venezuela. Only CBS's Ed O'Keefe mentioned the Trump meeting with Ran Gvili's parents. None of the three shows referenced those unnamed administration sources blaming Netanyahu, which was a bit surprising, given how much gravitas CNN's Treene granted them.