David E. Sanger

speaker

1,917 appearances 16 recordings 1 series first heard Dec 2024 last heard 23 Jul

David E. Sanger’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 11 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 2.

Appearances

newest first · ▶ plays the moment

The Daily · Why Is the U.S. Building the Saudi Nuclear Program While Destroying Iran’s? · 23 Jul 2026 podcast

restrictions.

When the UAE negotiated its deal in 2009, it was considered probably the gold standard of these kinds of arrangements because the UAE agreed that it would not produce its own nuclear fuel and that it would allow international inspectors for the most intrusive kind of inspections.

And so the thought was, OK, we've set this standard.

Let's apply this to other countries.

And when the Saudis began discussing this with some of President Trump's closest allies during the first term, it was clear that they were more reluctant than the UAE to give up their right to produce nuclear fuel and to allow those intrusive inspections.

Well, the Biden administration picked it up.

And President Biden wanted to make a nuclear deal part of a larger political arrangement with Saudi Arabia that would include Saudi diplomatic recognition of Israel.

And so the nuclear deal was a sweetener for that.

And they were all linked together.

The Saudis also were demanding that Israel allow a Palestinian state to exist.

So there were these negotiations that were all wrapped into one big ball, and they were getting very close to completion when the terror attacks of October 7, 2023 happened.

And that blew up the entire thing.

That's absolutely right, Rachel.

And beyond that, we now have some evidence that Hamas timed their attack on Israel in part to blow up the deal with the Saudis.

Right.

He recognized he was going to have to decouple the nuclear deal from the diplomatic arrangement because the Saudis aren't going to recognize Israel diplomatically for years if they can ever pull that off.

And Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS in the region, the Saudi leader, made clear to President Trump last fall that diplomatic recognition of Israel was pretty low on his priority list.

But the nuclear deal was high on its priority list.

And because it has the promise of bringing billions of dollars of revenue to the United States, it's high on President Trump's list as well.

That's right.

Showing 41–60 of 1,917 · page 3 of 96