Where is this going? How's it going? Do you believe that they're going to be the next Abraham Accords country?

I hope they have the courage to do so.

I will say that I think that the president, Aoun, and Nawaf Salaam have rhetorically gone further than any administration has in Lebanon in the last 20 years.

So they've gotten very good at talking and saying the right things, and now it's time for action.

The principal problem that we have in Lebanon, and everyone knows this, and the Israelis talk about this, is, of course, Hezbollah, the disarmament.

We face a similar problem, you know, in Gaza.

But I think another crucial challenge that we have in Lebanon is we have a, I'll just say it, a Hezbollah-sympathetic chad, chief of defense.

Are we winning the war?

Has anything changed in the president's thinking in the future of Gaza?

I don't think so. I mean, I think he's laid it out very clearly for everybody the vision that he has for Gaza. Um, and we know, I mean, listen, one of the most, th- uh, the, the two, uh, you know, really important things to come out of this conflict is that Hamas cannot govern. Hamas has to be, uh, demilitarized. The, the Gaza has to be demilitarized, which means, uh, that Hamas cannot have weapons, um, and that they cannot, uh, be able to commit acts of terror against, uh, Israelis, Americans, uh, or any of our friends and allies, uh, in the region. And you also have to de-radicalize the population. So, I think President Trump's vision for Gaza clearly lays out how we achieve and meet those goals. And I think with that, we're all gonna be pretty firm on those goals. You know, you can't... Never again after October 7th is something that I think everybody's very resolute and very clear about. And I, I think Israel has the kind of response that we would have in the United States if this happened to us. And by the way, it did happen to us. Over 40 of our citizens were killed. They still hold four bodies, uh, of Americans, uh, in Gaza. They still hold an American hostage. Uh, they took dozens of American hostages. Uh, so the Biden administration never made them a pri- never made them pay a price, really, personally, for what they, uh, did to harm Americans. And, and we will ensure that that is, that that never happens again.

Is there, um... Talk to me a little bit too about what we're seeing happening with the Houthis. We have seen, uh, a, uh, ramped up, uh, operation now, US-led. I- is that in consultation with, with other allies? Or is this a, a US operation, uh, specifically to go after the Houthis? And what's the, the end goal here? What, what, what's sort of the, uh, the, the, the mission, um, operation focused on, on doing, uh, as it relates to the Houthis in Yemen?

Um, yeah. So I think the president's been... was pretty clear in his tweet last Saturday when he confirmed the operation has started. And essentially, um, uh, you have an issue that has really never happened in modern history, uh, which is that a terrorist group is able to close off the waterways, um, and shoot ballistic missiles, drones, and other sophisticated, uh, military weaponry at US Navy ships, at US commercial vessels. And they've essentially been able to stop anybody, uh, from going through there, right, because of their own safety. So you're impeding free and fair trade and commerce. You're prohibiting, um, or, or trying to attack the US Navy, uh, as we do freedom of navigation around, uh, the world and, and specifically, uh, there, and that's just to- not tolerable for us. So until the Houthis learn that they can't attack US Navy, uh, ships and they can't attack commercial vessels and they can't control, uh, those waterways, um, uh, this, um, operation will continue. And so, uh, we hope that the Houthis will come to their senses so- sooner rather than later, but we're prepared, um, to, uh, make sure that we have freedom of navigation and freedom of the seas around the world, and you can't shoot at the United States of America and expect that we're just gonna take it. Not in this administration.