AMERICA FIRST? ME FIRST!

Israelis and Palestinians are hailing their fragile ceasefire. But big hurdles remain to a lasting peace — including Trump’s bruised ego, if he’s snubbed for the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.

• President Donald Trump’s team is running victory laps after Israel and Hamas agreed to the first phase of a peace deal negotiated by his team, and for good reason. The deal marks a significant breakthrough in peace talks, after two years of fighting that devastated the Gaza Strip and reportedly killed more than 67,000 Palestinians.

• Under the deal, Hamas will release all of the remaining hostages on “Monday or Tuesday,” Trump told a Cabinet meeting today. Israeli forces will pull back to an agreed-upon line, according to Trump.

• “It’s not like other moments in the war,” Eyad Amawi, a Palestinian aid worker in Gaza, told What A Day this morning. “We have mixed feelings between hopes and worries and happiness and sadness… the main questions for our people are: Where will I go? What will I do? What’s the future? How can I manage my life?”

• Crucial details remain unclear — including exactly where Israel’s new pull-back line will be, and what might happen if Hamas fails to deliver all of the hostages, including the bodies of those who died over two years of captivity.

• Trump also remains a wildcard. His notoriously oversized ego has been driving the process, observers say, including his desperate desire to win a Nobel Peace Prize when the winner is announced tomorrow. Could Trump’s commitment to the peace process falter, if he feels he didn’t get the praise he deserves? Last week, Trump warned that if he doesn’t win, “it’ll be a big insult to our country, I will tell you that.”

• “I think [Trump] rushed this in many ways in order to try and get [the prize],” Mairav Zonszein, a senior analyst on Israel for the International Crisis Group, told What A Day. “I have no idea if he’s going to get it. But I think that if he does get it, that would potentially give him more incentive to keep this going and see [the peace deal] through. If he doesn’t get it, who knows?”

• One country that’s worried about Trump’s reaction: Norway, home of the independent Nobel Committee. The Scandinavian nation should brace for tariffs, or for the U.S. to declare it an enemy, if Trump gets passed over, one Norwegian newspaper columnist warned. The committee reportedly made its choice on Monday, well before the Israel-Hamas deal was announced on Wednesday.

A new motto is emerging for the so-called Trump Doctrine: It’s Not America First — It’s Me First.

• “Trump’s desire for a Nobel Peace Prize is driving diplomacy,” wrote The Guardian’s Andrew Roth, adding that the president’s “fervid pursuit of the award is believed to have been a key motivator in brokering peace deals in Ukraine and Gaza.” Trump’s obsession with the prize has reportedly become a “running joke” among foreign diplomats.

• In other words, we’re increasingly living in a world where geopolitical struggles, war and peace, hinge on the ego of one man. In his second term, Trump’s ego increasingly rests on his self-image as an international “peacemaker.” This dynamic was made embarrassingly clear when Secretary of State Marco Rubio slipped Trump a handwritten note about the deal yesterday: “Very close,” read the note, according to an image taken by an Associated Press photographer. “We need you to approve a Truth Social post soon so you can announce deal first.”

• Trump’s “Me First” doctrine is impacting other world conflicts, too, with unpredictable consequences. The latest example: Trump will only attend an upcoming conference of Asian countries if he’s allowed to preside over the signing of a peace deal between Cambodia and Thailand, Politico reports.

• Trump’s actions elsewhere in the world are… more concerning. Bombing ships in Venezuela without due process isn’t very peaceful. He still wants to take over Greenland. He bombed Iran. The White House still wants the Panama Canal. Trump’s cuts to foreign aid have caused children to die around the world. And of course, at home, he wants the military to use big, blue cities as “training grounds,” while he pushes officials to arrest his political enemies and silence his critics.

Trump has a weird way of making peace. Sometimes, he seems to get results. But more often, his tactics make it clear why he’s unsure if he’ll get into heaven.

WHAT ELSE?

New York Attorney General Letitia James was indicted for alleged bank fraud in Virginia, making her the latest Trump rival to catch a criminal case after he urged his Department of Justice to go after them. In an unusual move, the case was personally presented to a grand jury by Trump’s handpicked, inexperienced prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan — who was installed after Trump pushed out her widely respected predecessor, Erik Siebert, for reportedly failing to bring cases like this one. James dismissed the charges as “baseless.” Trump’s revenge tour is getting scarily real!

Related: That bizarre Truth Social post publicly calling on Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute his political enemies WAS meant to be a private message, according to the Wall Street Journal. “Bondi grew upset and called White House aides and Trump, who then agreed to send a second post praising Bondi as doing a ‘GREAT job,’” the outlet reports. So, Trump is now accidentally posting his own Watergate Tapes on his feed? Awesome.

The Defense War Department has investigated nearly 300 employees for comments made online after the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, the Washington Post reports. The inquiry underscores Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s extraordinary efforts to silence criticism of a key MAGA ally, alarming former defense officials and lawmakers.

On that note, journalists are criticizing the Pentagon for a new policy that effectively bars reporters from trying to find out things Hegseth doesn’t want the public to know. (AKA “doing journalism.”) The policy conveys “an unprecedented message of intimidation,” the Pentagon Press Association said in a statement. What is Hegseth hiding??? I’m sure these journalists will find out! Or if they don’t, he may just send it to them on Signal!

Senate Majority Leader John Thune and other top Republicans privately warned the White House against firing federal employees and cutting government assistance programs. “The only reason we are forced to have these conversations is because the Democrats shut down the government,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said. Even Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) doesn’t believe that!

Tech weirdo Elon Musk could still score tens of billions of dollars from his new Tesla package, even if he missed nearly all of the goals that the company set for him. Has anyone in history ever failed upwards so incredibly hard? Imagine getting paid tens of billions of dollars to suck at your job. Unbelievable.

Barron Trump might get a spot on TikTok’s board, according to a social media influencer with close ties to Trump. “I’m hopeful President Trump will consider appointing his son Barron and maybe other young Americans to TikTok’s board to help ensure it remains an app young people want to keep using,” Jack Advent told the Daily Mail. I have a feeling that Barron’s appointment might finally make people want to stop using TikTok…

Light at the End of the Email…

Donald Trump’s team might give $75 million in foreign aid… to save Greenland’s polar bears and Nepal’s snow leopards? The mind-boggling plan is confusing everyone, in light of Trump’s steep cuts to conservation efforts. Even researchers who work on this stuff say they wouldn’t even know what to do with that much money. How many golden money guns does each polar bear really need?

Pope Leo used his first major document to call on the world to help immigrants, in a thinly veiled critique of the Trump administration. “Where the world sees threats, [the Church] sees children; where walls are built, she builds bridges,” Leo wrote, referencing Pope Francis’s criticism of Trump as “not Christian” due to his U.S.-Mexico border wall plan.

The CDC is quietly expanding access to COVID-19 shots for pregnant women, after HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recommended that the group stop receiving shots (for no science-backed reason).

Trump officials are losing their minds over country star Zach Bryan’s new song bashing ICE raids across the country. But Bryan isn’t backing down: “I served this country, I love this country and the song itself is about all of us coming out of this divided space. I wasn’t speaking as a politician or some greater-than-thou asshole, just a 29-year-old man who is just as confused as everyone else,” he said in response to right-wing criticism.

Fred Ramsell, a scientist who won the Nobel Prize in medicine, was on a backpacking trip in Yellowstone National Park without cell service when he learned the news. When notifications came flooding onto his wife’s phone, she excitedly told him the news. “I said, ‘No, I didn’t,’” Ramsdell recalled. “She said, ‘Yes, you did. I have 200 text messages that say you won the Nobel Prize.’”

A dog named Eeyore led police to an 86-year-old woman who had fallen while walking him in Florida. When the sheriff’s deputy found the woman, she was shocked that Eeyore — who isn’t her dog — rescued her. “He came up to your car?” the woman asked the deputy. “Oh, sweetheart … Oh Eeyore, you’re such a good boy. Grandma loves you.” The What A Day fam loves you too, Eeyore.