Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
“Shark Tank” entrepreneur and investor Kevin O’Leary said Wednesday that the ceasefire agreement-hostages between Israel and Hamas was reached on Wednesday because foreign adversaries they fear President-elect Trump, who will return to the Oval Office next week.
In a panel discussion on CNN’s “NewsNight,” O’Leary acknowledged the deal follows the contours of the framework President Biden laid out last May, but said Trump “made it happen.”
“The infrastructure of the deal has definitely been Biden since last May — 100 percent,” O’Leary told the panel. “But what made it happen is that Trump is unpredictable and adversaries around the world are scared shitless.”
“They’re afraid of him. ‘He’s crazy’ – That’s what they think. So they wanted to get this deal,” O Leary continued. “Hamas said, ‘Oh, yes.’ Oh poo-poo. Here comes Trump. We will close this deal now’”.
The billionaire investor, who backed Trump for president in 2024, said America’s adversaries everywhere listened Trump’s warning on January 7 that “all hell” would break loose if hostages in Gaza they were not released when he takes office on January 20.
“It took Trump to say, at that Mar-a-Lago press conference, there will be hell to pay if I get to office and these hostages don’t come back,” O’Leary said, paraphrasing Trump’s remarks.
“The whole world heard it and … there was an agreement,” he added.
“It’s not going to be good for Hamas and, frankly, it’s not going to be good for anybody,” Trump told the press conference at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida earlier this month. “All hell will break loose. I don’t have to say more, but it is what it is.”
Biden and Trump have both credit claimed to get the hostages deal.
the president erased On Wednesday, a question about whether he or Trump should take credit for the deal, saying, “Is this a joke?” in response to the reporter. The president-elect publicly celebrated news of the deal before an official White House statement was released hours later, and he claimed credit for himselfsaying a deal wouldn’t have happened without his victory in November on Vice President Harris.
While announcing the deal with Harris at his side, Biden acknowledged that it will be implemented after he leaves office and said his team has been working with Trump’s incoming team.
“I would also note that this agreement was developed and negotiated under my administration, but its terms will be implemented, for the most part, by the next administration. Over these last few days, we have been talking as one team “, the president said in remarks from the White House.
He also emphasized the framework of the deal, similar to the one his administration helped negotiate last year, and that Israel was able to weaken Hamas with US help.
“I knew this deal would have to be implemented by the next team, so I told my team to coordinate closely with the incoming team to make sure we’re all speaking with one voice, because that’s what presidents do. America,” Biden said. .
Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, worked closely with Biden’s negotiators to reach a conclusion on the deal. Trump, in his statement, said Witkoff and his incoming national security team “will continue to work closely with Israel and our allies to ensure that Gaza is NOT a safe haven for terrorists again.”
The Biden administration has been working for months on a ceasefire agreement, after more than a year of fighting since Hamas’s initial October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and the subsequent war Israel against the US-designated terrorist group in the Gaza Strip.
