The President's Daily Brief
PDB Situation Report | October 11th, 2025: Will The Gaza Ceasefire Last? & U.S.–Venezuela Relations Hit a Breaking Point
11 Oct 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right. And let's get briefed. First up, after two years of war, Israel and Hamas have agreed to the first phase of a ceasefire. This is a big deal. But key details remain uncertain, and not everyone is convinced it will hold.
We'll have more on that with Joe Trusman, research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracy's Long War Journal. Later in the show, the standoff between Washington and Caracas is escalating fast. The Trump administration has now cut off all diplomatic efforts with the Maduro regime, uh-oh, signaling a sharp shift toward confrontation.
We'll be joined by Andres Martinez Fernandez of the Heritage Foundation for some insight into the growing tensions. But first, today's Situation Report Spotlight. Israel and Hamas have reached a breakthrough agreement today, a phased ceasefire and a major hostage-prisoner swap.
Under the first phase, Hamas will free all remaining Israeli hostages, and Israel will begin a partial military withdrawal from Gaza to a mutually agreed line. Now, the deal was brokered through intense negotiations in Sharm el-Sheikh under U.S., Egyptian, and Qatari mediation.
Chapter 2: What led to the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas?
But key issues like disarmament of Hamas, that's a big one, Gaza's future governance and verification mechanisms remain unresolved and are likely to determine whether this truce holds. Joining us now to break it all down is Joe Truesman, research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracy's Long War Journal. Joe, thanks very much for joining us here on the PDB Situation Report.
Appreciate you having me on. There is a lot to go over when it comes to this ceasefire agreement. But let's start at the very top. Is this... How do you view this? Do you view this as a beginning of the end of the war and a road to peace? Or do you view it as just a very temporary and tenuous ceasefire?
I think this is a... a pause in the conflict between Israel and Palestinian armed groups. I think for now, I think we will see hostages returned, a prisoner exchange and reconstruction of the Gaza Strip and the IDF pulling back out of the Gaza Strip. But I think the key point here more than anything is that Hamas, at least the way I see it now, Hamas is going to stay in power.
I don't think they're going to disarm, even though that was a key point in the Trump plan. I just don't see any signs of that right now. So that's why I say this is a pause, because if Hamas continues to hold arms, it's going to regenerate. It's going to continue doing what it's been doing for more than 30, for about 30 years now. And that's wage war against Israel. So it's a pause, I think.
It's often called the hudna in Arabic or at least in the Middle East, as far as this is concerned, as far as this conflict is concerned, it's a pause. So that's what I'm seeing. But, you know. It is mutually beneficial for both parties here, right? The hostages are coming home. And unfortunately, Hamas also gets a respite here. But yeah, I see this as a pause, unfortunately.
And yes, I think there will be another conflict down the road. Whether that's a year or two from now, I couldn't tell you for sure. But it's going to happen, I'm pretty sure.
What is your understanding of... the process, the logistics as it stands right now? What's your understanding of the return of the hostages? I mean, obviously, there's a transfer of Palestinian prisoners. That's fairly straightforward, frankly. A much more difficult process is the hostages, and I hate to sound gruesome, but particularly those that have been confirmed as dead.
So, what's the timeline and what is the process from what you understand? Right.
So from what I understand is that Hamas will release the living, all of the living hostages, which is reported to be 20 of them in the next 72 hours, give or take a few hours.
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Chapter 3: What are the unresolved issues surrounding the Gaza ceasefire?
Now, they may know where they all are, but it's just not publicly known to us, at least now. Nevertheless, there are about 48 hostages in total, including Libby. I believe that they still remain in the Gaza Strip. It's going to take time to find them.
Hopefully, once Hamas finds them and returns them, I think the next phase of the ceasefire deal will go into effect where the Israelis begin to pull back completely out of the Gaza Strip. Because right now, they're pulling back some, but not out of all the Gaza Strip.
It looks as if, I mean, at least from reports that we've seen here at the PDB, it looks as if they're pulling back and essentially ceding a little over half of the strip in terms of pulling back to this yellow line or however they're referring to it, the withdrawal boundary. What do you say about that?
From the outset, the objective, according to Netanyahu, was to destroy Hamas, to make sure that this could never happen again, which has been part of this laser focus on the issue of disarmament. You can't keep Hamas in place. They can't reconstitute, as you pointed out at the beginning. But the reality is that it looks like we're kind of threading that and
We're going to end up with a Hamas that is still breathing, refuses to talk about disarmament, and it seems determined to play some role in the governance. So I take your point saying that this is a temporary pause, as good as it is, because if you can get the hostages both living and dead back, but...
If we kind of play this out down the road a little bit, say the hostages are returned, the Palestinian prisoners are exchanged, fine. But you have Hamas still there. From your perspective, what's the current condition of Hamas? I mean, we hear a lot about how the leadership has been decimated, et cetera, et cetera, the number of fighters that have been killed.
But have you heard anything that sounds credible in terms of the actual fighting capabilities and strength of Hamas at this point?
Right. Yeah, that's very important. Of course, as you mentioned, dead fighters, their upper echelons of the group's high command, for example, have been decimated. But some other things I've noticed as well about Hamas, and actually not only Hamas, but other organizations that... act under it that are armed in the Gaza Strip.
Obviously, we've already mentioned the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but there are about six or seven other Palestinian armed groups, of course, much smaller than Hamas, much smaller than Islamic Jihad, but that they act as a support for Hamas. And they've been very active in the Gaza War. And on October 7th. Now, I would say that all these groups, especially Hamas, yes, they've been decimated.
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Chapter 4: How does Joe Truzman perceive the future of Hamas after the ceasefire?
They're going to dig more tunnels. They're going to manufacture more rockets and attempt to smuggle more weapons in to regenerate what they have lost over 10 years of battle. Yeah. Yes.
Honestly, if they dig more tunnels, that whole Gaza Strip is going to collapse. They really don't have much more they can do underground. Listen, Joe, I want to pick up on a couple of those points you just raised, kind of the idea of rearming and also how they view, how Hamas views this ceasefire. But before we do that, we've got to take a quick break.
So if you stick around, we'll be right back with Joe Truesman from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. Stay right there. And we'll be back here with a situation report. Before you know it, stick around. Hey, Mike Baker here, PDB host and also known globally as a fashion icon. Did you know that? So let me give you a valuable tip on clothing.
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You can find them on Amazon, Target, Costco, Sam's Club, or just head to trueclassic.com slash pdb to try them out for yourself. Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Now, joining me once again is Joe Truesman of FDD's Long War Journal. We've been talking all things related to the ceasefire agreement. And, Joe, I guess this question is going to sound odd, perhaps, but...
How do you think Hamas views this ceasefire? Do they view it as a victory? Do they view it as surrender, as capitulation? Do they view it as just simply something necessary for their future survival? What do you think?
I don't think they view it as a surrender. Throughout the war, especially in the last, say, six months or so, Hamas has been extremely stuck to its guns. And what I mean by that is that they said, okay, Israel, for the war to end or for us to accept a ceasefire, Hamas has said, we will do a hostage exchange or a prisoner exchange.
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Chapter 5: What is the timeline for the return of hostages in the ceasefire deal?
you know, holy grail on the part of the West that somehow they internally, there would be a, you know, a revolt against some mullahs in the IRGC. I don't know that that is ever going to happen. But that's that's my theory is that everything else is just putting lipstick on a pig. Right. You can have the I agree with have very peace deals. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure. Yeah.
Anyway, maybe maybe my analogy is not a good one, but So let me ask you this. And this is a simplistic question, I realize. But is there one issue, is there one concern, one point that will determine whether this ceasefire holds?
If the hostages, all of the hostages are returned, the ceasefire will hold. I think it will. Now, let's say there's a missing hostage or something happens, then I'd start getting concerned. But I think both parties here, either the Israelis, they want to see this through, even though it's not... At least in my point of view, they're not getting everything that they wanted.
I think they want to see this through. Hamas, I think, wants to see this through as well because it needs to recover. So, I think every party involved here wants this to work. Things happen. This is the Middle East. This is war. So, I think if something happens with the hostages, doesn't matter if it's the wives that are living or the wives that have been killed or that are deceased,
one is not returned for whatever reason, or if there is a delay in returning them, I think that it'll cause some big problems and we may see a collapse of the ceasefire. But that's, I think the biggest concern I have for this ceasefire deal, if it were to fall through for whatever reason, but I don't think it will. Yeah.
Yeah. And I agree, I think, I'm in complete agreement with what you're saying about Hamas looking at this as we've survived. All we have to do is return the hostages and we've survived. And I'm sure there are some fairly hard and fast statements within the proposal, within the agreement.
that talks about cessation of hostilities, Israel not going back in and resuming the conflict once they get the hostages back. Joe, I got to tell you something. I really appreciate your insight here.
And I'd love to have you back on in the very near future, because I think we'll find out, to your point, I think we'll find out whether this holds, at least for the short term here, probably within the next few days, in terms of the hostage release and Palestinian prisoner transfer. situation.
But Joe Truesman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, when we call you the next time, I hope you pick up the phone. And then when we have you on, I'm going to ask you what's up with that football over your shoulder there that's in the case. Oh, yeah, absolutely. More than happy to talk. Thank you. Cool, man. Listen, thank you very, very much for stopping by.
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