CNN military expert Col. Cedric Leighton (Ret.) recently pushed back after anchor Sara Sidner questioned whether President Joe Biden’s comments about a cease-fire during an unplanned photo op “could do damage” to the Israel-Hamas peace process via Mediaite.
President Biden surprised many when he had a tantalizing exchange with a pool reporter during an impromptu stop at Van Leeuwen Ice Cream:
REPORTER: Can you give us a sense of what you think that a cease-fire will start?
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Well, I hope by the end of the weekend, I mean the end of the weekend, at least my my, my security advisor tells me that we’re close. We’re close. We’re not done yet. And my hope is by next Monday, we’ll have a cease-fire.
On Tuesday’s edition of CNN News Central, Sidner asked Leighton if blurting that out could hurt chances for a cease-fire, but Leighton said that while commenting on negotiations can be damaging, Biden was exerting “pressure” on the two sides in this case:
SARA SIDNER: You just heard from Jeremy Diamond. Both Hamas and the Israeli government is pouring water on something the president said, sort of an off the cuff comment on what is happening and the negotiations, with the hostages and with a cease-fire in a coffee shop.
What do you make of this? And can there be damage done if a president says something like this, something could happen by Monday and the negotiations are ongoing?
COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON: Yeah. Good morning Sara. I think. Yeah, certainly. Damage can be done in a case like this.
But I think what President Biden was doing was trying to exert some pressure on both sides. Both sides. You know, as Jeremy pointed out in his piece, they were looking at their posturing, their ability to get the maximum that they possibly can from these negotiations.
The good news is that negotiations are going on right now. The bad news, or at least questionable news, is that neither side is really ready to say that they are ready to make these agreements.
So I think, both Hamas and Israel are trying to gain maximum advantage at this particular point. They’re not ready to say that they’ve reached an agreement yet, but an agreement is still possible.
Whether that’s going to happen by Monday. That is definitely a question. But I think President Biden was exerting some pressure there to try to get them to do exactly that.
