State Department Spox Asked Point Blank: Did Biden's Comments 'Kill' The Hostage Negotiations

4 months ago

During a press briefing on Thursday, State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller answered reporter questions on comments made by President Biden regarding the halt of arms shipments to Israel.

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Transcript

00:00 Truly final one, and I apologize to my colleagues. Can you tell us where we are on the hostage

00:04 talks? And there are Israeli officials, I believe perhaps Prime Minister Netanyahu,

00:09 saying a deal on the hostage talks collapsed because of the President's decision and because

00:14 President signaled this decision. What would you say to that?

00:16 So first of all, I'm not going to respond to anonymous officials. Is that a

00:21 on-the-record quote from someone? I'm not going to respond to anonymous officials. But I would

00:25 just say that is not at all our assessment of the hostage talks. We actually think that

00:32 a Rafa operation would weaken Israel's position, both in these talks and writ large.

00:38 We've talked about this before, that a major military operation in Rafa would further weaken

00:45 Israel's standing in the world, would further create distance from its partners in the region,

00:52 who actually share Israel's goal of seeing Hamas defeated and want to see Hamas replaced with

00:56 a different governance structure in Gaza. And then also, if you just look at Hamas's track record,

01:06 they have never cared about Palestinian civilian lives. If they did, they wouldn't have launched

01:11 these attacks in the first place, which they knew would produce a response. They wouldn't hide

01:14 behind civilians, and they would have agreed to a ceasefire long ago. So I just don't think that

01:21 argument holds any water. With respect to the talks itself, so we continue to engage with the

01:28 Israeli Government on the amendments to the proposal that Hamas submitted earlier this week.

01:33 There continues to be – we continue to work to try to finalize the text, try to get an agreement.

01:40 And I will just say that any effort like this is incredibly difficult. This one has certainly

01:48 been incredibly difficult, but we will continue to stay engaged to try to get a deal because we

01:52 believe it's in the interest of all relevant parties.

01:54 QUESTION: Thank you.

01:55 QUESTION: So just to – it wasn't an anonymous official; it was the prime minister of Israel

02:00 that you --

02:00 MR. TONER: So I hadn't seen it on the record. That's why – I had seen anonymous quotes earlier.

02:04 I think my comments --

02:05 QUESTION: Okay.

02:06 MR. TONER: I did give a substantive response in any regard, so I can apply to that.

02:10 QUESTION: Well, I – okay, substantive. I don't know by whose definition. But anyway, when you

02:15 say that --

02:15 MR. TONER: Ouch. I thought it was pretty substantive.

02:16 QUESTION: Well, but when you say that the death toll – when you said prior – that the death toll

02:21 continued or has fallen since October, it's come down but not yet enough. Whose death toll are you

02:28 talking about here? Whose figures are you accepting?

02:31 MR. TONER: So we are looking at the figures that are released by the --

02:35 QUESTION: By who?

02:35 MR. TONER: -- Ministry of Health, which we do have --

02:37 QUESTION: By Gaza, but by the --

02:38 MR. TONER: Yeah, which you know that we have --

02:39 QUESTION: Which is run by Hamas.

02:40 MR. TONER: Which you know that we --

02:41 QUESTION: And you have --

02:42 MR. TONER: Let me just finish. We know that we do have – we don't have any way of verifying

02:46 those figures on our own.

02:47 QUESTION: Well, then how do you know that --

02:48 MR. TONER: But they are the only figures that are available. And look, the UN relies on them.

02:52 We look at them.

02:52 QUESTION: Okay.

02:53 MR. TONER: We do think there are probably issues with the numbers, but they do capture

02:56 a large death toll and a large civilian death toll.

03:00 QUESTION: But you're fairly certain that, at least in terms of the trend, they're accurate?

03:09 MR. TONER: It's just that I won't – I can't say accurate with any degree of certainty. Like,

03:14 I can't give you a what percentage accuracy.

03:16 QUESTION: (Laughter.)

03:16 MR. TONER: But – no, no, hold on. But if you look at --

03:17 QUESTION: With any degree of certainty?

03:18 MR. TONER: No, no, I can't say if they're --

03:19 QUESTION: Like it could be zero percent?

03:20 MR. TONER: No, hold – if they're off by 10 percent, by 5 – I can't say something like that.

03:23 QUESTION: Well, I mean, they may be off by 50 percent. Who knows?

03:26 MR. TONER: But just – just – but stipulate whatever they're off by. They have come down.

03:29 And so they have come down over time. The daily number has come down over time when you look at

03:35 where they were last October and November to where they are today.

03:37 QUESTION: All right. Last thing really briefly, just on this whole hypothetical thing,

03:41 because when Humeyra started her question, it was about my question to you. And it is a

03:46 hypothetical because you have the President making a determination on something that hasn't happened

03:52 yet, right?

03:53 MR. TONER: He is making United States policy based on conversations with the

03:58 Government of Israel where they tell us what they plan to do.

04:00 QUESTION: Let me put it in a very flip way. Like, should I be bringing an umbrella home

04:07 with me when I leave work today?

04:09 MR. TONER: I have not looked at the forecast. I can't quite answer that.

04:12 QUESTION: Right. So that's a hypothetical. So you don't know, right?

04:16 MR. TONER: I don't have control over the forecast. The Government of Israel – hold on. The

04:19 Government of Israel has control of what it's going to do, and so when they tell us that they

04:22 intend to do something, we make our policy in reaction to that.

State Department Spox Asked Point Blank: Did Biden's Comments 'Kill' The Hostage Negotiations

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