A triumphant Trump basks in Mideast praise
The Excerpt
USA TODAY
4.1 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 14 October 2025
⏱️ 10 minutes
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Summary
USA TODAY Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page puts President Donald Trump's role in recent Israel-Hamas peace proceedings in context.
USA TODAY Congressional Reporter Zach Schermele has the government shutdown latest, as the Education Department lays off roughly 20% of its workforce.
The collapse of coral reefs has driven the world across its first climate tipping point.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Tuesday, October 14th, 2025. This is USA Today is the excerpt. |
| 0:14.5 | Today, breaking down the peace deal and President Donald Trump's role, plus what to know about layoffs as a government shutdown enters a second week. |
| 0:21.8 | And we get some dire news about the planet's coral reefs. |
| 0:29.0 | A triumphant Donald Trump is basking in Middle East praise this week. |
| 0:33.0 | I spoke with USA Today, Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page, to put the president's role with recent |
| 0:37.5 | peace proceedings in context. Susan, thank you so much for joining me. Yes, it's always my pleasure. |
| 0:43.1 | So just starting here, Susan, what was President Trump's role really in making this peace deal happen? |
| 0:48.1 | And how does he frame it? And what's the reality? |
| 0:50.5 | President Trump takes a lot of credit for the ceasefire deal, and I think he deserves it. |
| 0:55.2 | He used his personal relationship to use his leadership style. |
| 0:59.9 | He used threats and warnings to get a deal that included provisions. |
| 1:05.9 | Israel wasn't enthusiastic about and that Hamas didn't like. |
| 1:09.5 | And that is the way you get a compromise in these |
| 1:12.1 | very difficult longstanding disputes. Well, you're right, Susan, that Trump's leadership |
| 1:16.5 | traits and personal relationships may have made a ceasefire deal possible that would have alluded |
| 1:20.7 | other presidents. Can you go into that a little bit? How so? Well, for one thing, he had stuck with |
| 1:25.5 | Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu through thick and thin |
| 1:29.2 | at a time most foreign leaders had expressed grave concerns about Netanyahu's battering of Gaza. |
| 1:37.5 | And that meant when he got to the end of this process and Netanyahu wasn't quite ready to agree. |
| 1:47.1 | He pushed him to agree. He had the standing to do that. |
| 1:52.4 | And when it came to dealing with Hamas, he threatened them with obliteration if they didn't agree. |
| 2:02.5 | And the fact that he bombed Iran, for instance, or that he's been taking military action against Venezuelan boats that he says are linked to drug cartels. That gave him a reputation for being willing to use force that Hamas paid attention to. Well, Susan, he had this |
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