Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, suggested to Tucker Carlson in a new episode of Carlson’s podcast on Friday that Hamas could end up being “involved politically” in Gaza if and when the terrorist group demilitarizes.

Witkoff made the comments while offering his assessment of what Hamas is seeking out of negotiations to end the war in Gaza, which he argued was important to understand in order to reach a deal to stop the fighting. Carlson, who began inviting guests onto his program who espouse antisemitic conspiracy theories after growing critical of Israel’s handling of its war with Hamas, asked Witkoff to explain Israel’s long-term vision for achieving peace in the region.

“What does Hamas want? I think they want to stay there till the end of time and they want to rule Gaza, and that’s unacceptable,” Witkoff said. “We had to know what they wanted. What they want is unacceptable. What’s acceptable to us is they need to demilitarize. Then maybe they could stay there a little bit, right? Be involved politically. But they can’t be involved — we can’t have a terrorist organization running Gaza because that won’t be acceptable to Israel. Then we’ll just have the same exact experiences every five, 10, 15 years.”

Responding to criticism from Carlson, Witkoff defended Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of Israel’s numerous wars.

“The rap he [Netanyahu] gets is that he’s more concerned about the fight than he is about the hostages. I think in some respects, I understand how people make that assessment, but I don’t necessarily agree with it,” Witkoff explained. “I think that he does want to get hostages home if he can, but he believes that pressuring Hamas is the only way to do it. I think in some respects he’s right.”

When asked by Carlson if the war in Gaza has made Israelis safer, the Middle East envoy said that he does not believe the Israeli government thinks “you can just sort of kill off Hamas. It’s an idea, right? That’s what Hamas is about. It’s an ideological idea.” Instead, he explained, “we’re talking about now demilitarizing, that’s the big thing.”

“We just can’t have an Oct. 7 ever again now. Oct. 7 was like 9/11,” Witkoff said.

Witkoff discussed his experience negotiating with Hamas through the Qataris after watching Israeli footage of the atrocities committed on Oct. 7, which he called “really terrible stuff.” “It can taint the way you’re going to feel about these people,” he told Carlson. “And I think sometimes as a negotiator, you have to be dispassionate. It’s not easy to make decisions if you’re going to, but I had to see that film, Tucker. I mean, that film is a reality. We can’t ignore the reality of what happened.”

Despite noting earlier in the program that Hamas had told negotiators that “they’ve got justification” for conducting the attack, a notion he said he firmly rejected, Witkoff told Carlson that he did not believe Hamas was as “ideologically intractable” as they’re portrayed to the world. 

“What we heard in the beginning of this conflict is Hamas is ideological. They’re prepared to die for a whole variety of reasons,” Witkoff said, adding that he had told Trump, “I don’t think that they are as ideologically locked in. They’re not ideologically intractable. I don’t. I never believed that, by the way.”

“I believe they strap on the suicide vests onto young kids who don’t know what they’re doing, right? And they tell them a story,” he continued. “Once you understand that they wanted to live, then you were able to talk to them in a more effective way.”

Discussing the scuttled ceasefire deal in Gaza, Witkoff said all parties involved, including Israel, agreed to the terms as Trump was returning to power because they did not want to go against him.

“We got it because they didn’t want to defy him [Trump]. He’s a bad guy to defy,” Witkoff explained. “Not just the Israelis. It was the Israelis, it was Hamas, it was Qatar. Everybody had to know that we needed to pull in the same way. There was a lot of miscommunication in that deal. Lots. We cleaned up the miscommunication. That was the game plan. But it was the president’s, his sort of overarching personality, and letting everybody know that success was not an option, it was a mandate. And that’s how we got to that place.”

Witkoff added that it was “unfortunate” that Israel had to go back into Gaza but noted that he had warned that Hamas’ most recent rejection of a U.S. peace proposal “was going to result in some sort of military action.” Calling Hamas’ actions “unreasonable” and “completely inappropriate,” Witkoff explained that he believed an Israeli military response “the only alternative.”

Witkoff doubled down on Hamas’ culpability during a “Fox News Sunday” appearance over the weekend. “I thought we had an acceptable deal. I even thought we had an approval from Hamas. Maybe that’s just me getting duped. I thought we were there, and evidently, we weren’t.”

“This is on Hamas. The United States stands with the state of Israel. That’s a 100% commitment. We’ve expressed that,” he said. “Hamas had every opportunity to demilitarize, to accept the bridging proposal that would have given us a 40- or 50-day ceasefire where we could have discussed demilitarization and a final truce. There were all kinds of opportunities to do that, and they elected not to.”

The Middle East envoy added that war “becomes the alternative” in the absence of any concessions.

Still, he said he’d be “amenable” to resuming talks with Hamas if they reached out. “I certainly hope we get everybody back to the table and get the hostages home,” he said.

Carlson has drawn criticism from pro-Israel conservatives and Jewish leaders alike in the last year for platforming several figures on his show, including those who diminished the Holocaust and alleged a decades-long Israeli plot to force the U.S. to oppose any Middle Eastern government supporting the creation of a Palestinian state. 

During the Witkoff interview, Carlson praised the Trump administration’s approach to dealing with Hamas and its broader attempts to negotiate the terrorist organization’s removal from power. He and Witkoff both defended Qatar’s involvement as a mediator in talks with Hamas. 

“In the case of the Qataris, they’re criticized for not being well-motivated. It’s preposterous. They are well-motivated. They’re good, decent people. What they want is a mediation that’s effective, that gets to a peace goal. And why? Because they’re a small nation and they want to be acknowledged as a peacemaker. And I think the president realizes that, and I realize that,” Witkoff said.

Carlson concurred with Witkoff’s defense of the Qataris before noting that the Gulf state is “almost universally accused in the U.S. media of being agents of Iran.”

“It’s preposterous. Look, they’re a Muslim nation. In the past, they’ve had some views that are a little bit more radical, from an Islamist standpoint, than they are today, but it’s moderated quite a bit. There’s no doubt that they’re an ally of the United States. There’s no doubt about that,” Witkoff replied.

Witkoff, a real estate mogul and a close personal friend of Trump, has had past financial dealings and other relationships with Qatar, and was a target of its lobbying efforts. For his part, Carlson recently interviewed Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on his program, during which his guest argued against attacking Iranian nuclear facilities.