Former President Joe Biden and former Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday reportedly both sought to share credit for President Donald Trump’s landmark ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, even as Trump continued his diplomatic push in the region.
In a post on X, Biden, who is undergoing cancer treatment, said he was “deeply grateful and relieved” that the Gaza war was nearing its end. He described the path to peace as arduous, writing, “The road to this deal was not easy. My Administration worked relentlessly to bring hostages home, get relief to Palestinian civilians, and end the war.”
But the former Democratic president also acknowledged Trump’s central role in delivering the outcome that eluded his own administration. “President Trump deserves credit for getting a renewed ceasefire deal over the finish line,” Biden wrote. “Now, with the backing of the United States and the world, the Middle East is on a path to peace that I hope endures and a future for Israelis and Palestinians alike with equal measures of peace, dignity, and safety.”
Blinken, who served as secretary of state under Biden, echoed that sentiment while also suggesting that Trump’s breakthrough built on groundwork laid by the previous administration. In a lengthy post on X, he wrote that Trump’s 20-point peace plan for Gaza “was based on one developed by the Biden administration.”
“It starts with a clear and comprehensive post-conflict plan for Gaza,” Blinken wrote. “It’s good that President Trump adopted and built on the plan the Biden administration developed after months of discussion with Arab partners, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority.”
Blinken pointed out that the Biden team had managed a brief ceasefire in January 2024, which led to the release of 135 hostages before it collapsed. He also credited regional players — including Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey — for pressing Hamas to accept the agreement. “Arab states and Turkey have said ‘enough’ to Hamas,” he wrote, adding that Iran’s proxies, Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels, had notably stayed out of the latest conflict.
Still, Blinken questioned whether Trump’s deal could hold, warning that a postwar plan for Gaza would require “pulling together the international stabilization force, fully demilitarizing and disarming Hamas, dealing with insurgents, and expeditiously securing a phased but full Israeli withdrawal.”
Aboard Air Force One, Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy asked Trump about Blinken’s claims that the deal drew on Biden-era planning. Trump brushed off the suggestion. “Everybody knows it’s a joke,” he said. “Look, they did such a bad job. This should have never happened.”
“If just a decent president — not a great president like me — if a decent president were in, you wouldn’t have had the Russia-Ukraine war,” Trump added. “This was bad policy by Biden and Obama.”
Speaking from Cairo on Monday, Trump said he was focused on “phase two” of the ceasefire and ongoing talks with more than 20 world leaders. “We’ve heard it for many years, but nobody thought it could ever get there. And now we’re there,” he said.
“This is the day that people across this region and around the world have been working, striving, hoping, and praying for,” Trump continued. “With the historic agreement we have just signed, those prayers of millions have finally been answered. Together, we have achieved the impossible.”
Blinken, for his part, concluded that Trump’s agreement reaffirmed several principles “established at the outset of the war — no platform for terrorism, no annexation, no occupation, no forced population transfers.” He credited Trump for making clear that the ultimate goal remained “creating the conditions for a credible pathway to a Palestinian state.”
While Democrats sought to tie Trump’s triumph to their own diplomatic framework, even many of Trump’s critics conceded that the ceasefire represented a major step toward ending one of the world’s most intractable conflicts — and a rare moment of bipartisan acknowledgment of success.
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