The first hint came in a jokey anecdote about Joe Biden to fans in Las Vegas, when President Donald Trump mentioned that he had just spoken to a world leader.
By Sunday morning, the Middle East was in uproar. Hardline Israelis were jubilant while Palestinian officials were furious that they had been sold out.
In between, he was asked four questions by a Daily Mail reporter aboard Air Force One for more information about his call with King Abdullah II of Jordan.
And his answers—suggesting Gaza’s war weary population be moved to Jordan and Egypt—showed how yet again Trump has the extraordinary ability to set off tectonic movements in geopolitics.
But it could have been very different.
After telling supporters about that call, the White House released one of its typically bland statements.
‘Today, President Donald J. Trump held a call with His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan, in which King Abdullah congratulated President Trump on his inauguration,’ it said.
‘President Trump thanked King Abdullah for his longtime friendship, and the two leaders discussed the importance of regional peace, security, and stability.’
President Donald Trump talked to reporters aboard Air Force One on Saturday evening as we flew from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Miami, Florida
Trump wants to move more than a million people out of Gaza, where a devastating war reduced the Palestinian enclave to rubble. Pictured, Palestinians, displaced by Israel’s order into southern Gaza during the war, dismantle their tent as they wait to be allowed to return to their home in northern Gaza, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas
The readout came just as a Daily Mail reporter and 12 other journalists in the ‘presidential pool’ were boarding Air Force One for the flight from Las Vegas, where Trump delivered a rally style speech on rebuilding the economy, to Miami, where he was due to stay the night at his Doral club.
The pool travels with the president to ensure that the media has access to his events, even in small venues or private settings, sending reports to thousands of colleagues in Washington and further afield.
And this president has made clear he sometimes just likes to shoot the breeze at the back of the plane with reporters.
And so it was, that an hour into the flight (when the stewards were readying dinner of grilled chicken on spaghetti) a tieless president appeared in the press cabin.
After dealing with questions about Air Force One’s paint job, and swatting away inquiries about quite why he had dismissed more than a dozen government inspectors general, I spotted my chance.
Could you tell us a bit more, I wondered, about your call with King Abdullah?
‘It was a very good call. He’s a friend of mine. We get on very well,’ he said in his familiar style.
‘I’ve gotten along with him over the years very well. He’s done a wonderful job. He really houses millions of Palestinians and he does it in a very humane way.’
Trump has frequently pushed ‘nontraditional’ solutions to conflicts around the world
‘You’re talking about a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing,’ he told DailyMail.com aboard the presidential jet Air Force One on Saturday
The White House readout of the call offered little clue to its bombshell content
I pushed him. Was that what the call was about?
‘Pretty much that. I said to him: I’d love you take on more, because I’m looking at the whole Gaza strip right now and it’s a mess,’ continued Trump. ‘It’s a real mess.’
This was news. Jordan houses more refugees than anyone else and would be wary of taking more. Gazans would be unwilling to leave, wondering if this was all some kind of Israeli land grab.
So I asked him outright: Are you saying you’d like Jordan to house people from Gaza?
‘I’d like him to take people. I’d like Egypt to take people. I’m talking to General Sisi [president of Egypt} tomorrow sometime I believe. I’d like Egypt to take people.
‘And I’d like Jordan to take people. You’re talking about a million and half people, and we just clean out that whole thing. You know over the centuries its had many, many conflicts. And I don’t know, something has to happen,’ he continued, giving us even more news and colorful quotes to boot.
‘It’s literally a demolition site, almost everything is demolished and people are dying there so I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where they can maybe live in peace for a change.’
Was this going to be temporary, I wondered, before he could me off.
‘Could be either. Could be temporarily or could be long term,’ he said.
It is not the first time Trump has offered radical ideas for Gaza. He has mused in the past about its coastline, fine weather and its suitability for tourism.
This is how the beach in Gaza looked before the war and earlier this week Trump said it was a ‘phenomenal location’ but said it looked like a ‘massive demolition site’
Palestinian children play next to a building destroyed by Israeli army strikes in the central Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis earlier this month
This went a whole lot further.
This was a story. But now the basic communications on Air Force One meant I had no way to transmit it.
All I could do was transcribe the president’s words and hit send two hours later once we were coming into land about two and half hours later.
When I woke up on Sunday morning, the story was everywhere.
My WhatsApp feeds included a statement from Gershon Baskin, an Israeli who negotiated with Hamas and who is the Middle East director of the International Communities Organization.
‘I hope that he understands that what he is suggesting is ethnic cleansing and should never even be whispered as a wish,’ he said.
‘Here’s my proposal to President Trump – let’s make believe that you didn’t even say it and some journalist (even the good one who first reported it) was mistaken.’
A Hamas official told Reuters it triggered longstanding Palestinian fears about being driven permanently from their homes.
Earlier in the day, Trump addressed supporters in Las Vegas with a rally style speech in which he set out his ideas for transforming the U.S. economy
Then he watched a game of craps on the floor of Circa Resorts and Casino
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Basem Naim said Palestinians ‘will not accept any offers or solutions, even if (such offers) appear to have good intentions under the guise of reconstruction, as announced in the proposals of U.S. President Trump.’
Some hardline Israelis seized on the idea.
In a Hebrew post on X, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said: ‘After 76 years in which the majority of the population of Gaza was detained under hard conditions to maintain the aim of destroying Israel, the idea of helping them by finding other places where they could start a new and better life is outstanding.’
Trump upended expectations during his first term with Middle East peace accords. His unusual approach brought the normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and Israel and Bahrain.
His latest proposal quickly ruffled feathers and has the potential to ignite fresh conflict.
And it is a sign that we can expect plenty more of Trump’s blue sky thinking, with all the turmoil that comes with it.
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