President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a joint announcement on Monday afternoon to discuss their proposed peace deal to end the Israeli occupation of Gaza — a deal that drew immediate criticism from observers for not even including leaders of the terror group Hamas at the table, which as one of the parties fighting in the conflict would be essential for the agreement to work in the first place.
The president, seemingly trying to avoid any difficult questions, simply ended the event without letting reporters ask anything.
"So I think while we wait for these documents to be signed and get everybody in line, I think it maybe is not really appropriate to take questions," Trump told the crowd of reporters. "I'm meeting with, as you know, a couple of Democrats in a little while about the country, about keeping our country open up. They're going to have to do some things because their ideas are not very good ones. They're very bad for our country. So we'll see how that works out. But this is something that was really historic today. This was something that was amazing."
Trump turned to Netanyahu. "I think maybe I mean, depending on you, I think while we're waiting for signatures and waiting for approvals from a lot of different countries that are involved in this, we probably shouldn't take questions. Or would you like to take a question or two from perhaps a friendly Israeli reporter, if there's such a thing?"
"That's a very, very tough proposition," said Netanyahu as some reporters in the crowd laughed. "But I would think, Mr. President, that I would go by your instinct that this is a — we'll have enough time for questions. Let's settle the issue first, I think." The two leaders then exited as reporters tried to shout questions after them.
