McGurk the McJerk - October 5, 2026

Margaret Brennan (0:12)

And there appeared to be unquestioning US support for Israel and providing military support to Israel.

Brett McGurk (0:21)

Let me bring you into the Oval Office in a scene in which I think encapsulates this very issue.

Margaret Brennan (0:26)

You felt the US was putting more value on Israel than on Israel. And you said, the US was putting more value on those lives than the Israeli government did.

Brett McGurk (0:32)

Do you skip the younger women, start talking about older men, keep the ceasefire or say no, you broke the deal.

Margaret Brennan (0:37)

President Biden told Bibi Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, that he could, in theory, cut Israel from military aid at a finger snap.

Leaving Israel on its own. You think I'm Santa Claus, no Santa in Israel, pal.

Brett McGurk (0:52)

Yeah.

Margaret Brennan (0:54)

But he didn't.

Cenk Uygur (0:56)

So that is Brett McGurk. He is the top Middle East advisor for Joe Biden.

And he's partly responsible for the genocide. So he's trying to launder his reputation. So what we're going to show you is his comments and then show you how ridiculous those lies are. As he continues to pretend there was nothing we could do, as he enabled a genocide. We should never let monsters like that back into office. But Ana's got the whole story for you.

Ana Kasparian (1:27)

McGurk is the type of person that you can think of when people are discussing the problems with the so called deep state. Now he might not be all that deep within the deep state. But at the end of the day, he was an unelected individual who actually served through various administrations, both Democrat and Republican administrations. And has been meddling in foreign policy decisions for many, many years.

And that includes, by the way, national security positions under Presidents George W Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden. So if you're wondering, why is it that as much as things change, it seems like everything stays the same. People like Brett McGurk are front and center in ensuring that our foreign policy remains consistent regardless of who's in charge.

Cenk Uygur (2:16)

Can I just jump in real quick on that? So Ken Paxton recently got caught on tape saying, well, look, I can't run this campaign. They're running it for me in Washington. And people aren't positive what he's referring to. But I think it's tied in a tangential way to this story. There is a permanent bureaucracy in Washington.

Ana Kasparian (2:36)

Yes.

Cenk Uygur (2:36)

And I have talked to people who have run at the very, very highest levels.

And they all say the same thing. Well, I wanted to do X, but I couldn't, they had me do Y instead. Who is they? Brett McGurk is part of the they.

Ana Kasparian (2:52)

Yes.

Cenk Uygur (2:53)

Part of the deep state, the permanent bureaucracy. This doesn't matter what you said you were going to do for the voters. It doesn't matter what you think, you will do this.

And so, let's go back to his lies.

Ana Kasparian (3:05)

And let's just be very clear about one thing before we move forward with the lies that he thinks the American people are going to buy.

He enabled Israel and its genocide against the Palestinian people every step of the way when it comes to the Biden administration, every step of the way. Now, as we shared with you last week, a new book came out, Crossing the Red Line, which discusses various figures, including McGurk, within the Biden administration, who enabled the genocide, who actually worked against securing a ceasefire. And it was illuminating. Now McGurk is trying to clean up his reputation a little bit, and you shouldn't trust him, you shouldn't believe him. Because he's everything that was detailed in that book. With that in mind, just to give you a sense of how poor his judgment was, here's his explanation for why the Biden administration allowed a ceasefire with Hamas to unravel, which made it real difficult to secure the release of all the hostages, take a look.

Brett McGurk (4:03)

About a month into the war, we had to deal with Hamas, not easy. I described what it was like to get for all women and children. It's very clear, all women and children hostages are going to come out, and in exchange for a number of Palestinian prisoners. And we had a ceasefire for eight days, and about 100 hostages came out, three of those women that did not come out. Because on the eighth day, Hamas said, we're not going to release the younger women actually.

We release the young toddlers like Abigail, the young American girl, we release the 80-year-old grandmothers. We're going to hold on to the younger women. They said we can't find them, which was completely untrue.