Brett McGurk‘s new book Brink: Inside the Race to Free the October 7th Hostages offers an insider account of the diplomatic rollercoaster to secure a ceasefire and hostage release in the war in Gaza.
The book, published this week, also offers a glimpse at White House messaging about the conflict, including two figures the president turned to in delivering a key speech: Jeffrey Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg.
McGurk, who served as deputy assistant for national security affairs to Biden, wrote of the scene as they prepared the president for his address on May 31, 2024. While Katzenberg and Spielberg’s role have been reported before, McGurk gave a first-hand account in the room, for a speech focused on a proposal to end the fighting and to secure a release of the hostages.
By that point, the Gaza conflict had created divisions within the Democratic coalition, protests at college campuses and presidential appearances and concerns over its impact on the November elections. There was pressure from the campaign for the president to make an address on the crisis, per McGurk.
McGurk wrote of the rehearsal, “In the Map Room, Biden peered at two screens behind me. ‘Jeffrey, Steven, welcome,’ he said. I turned around to see Jeffery Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg on Zoom. They greeted Biden warmly, Spielberg saying this was the speech they wanted to hear.
“It was a reminder that while I saw this speech as a policy address with a functional aim, it had a political purpose, too,” McGurk wrote.
He added, “The speech was timed for Friday night in Israel, when much of the country shuts down, allowing time for us to shape its reception there and around the world. Notably, we did not inform Netanyahu that we were making the speech until shortly before Biden delivered it, as we knew the address would lock Netanyahu into the terms of the deal now on the table.
“Biden said he was ready.
“Katzenberg advised, ‘Remember, slow Joe, let the audience hear every word.’
“Biden smiled, ‘Slow Joe? Don’t let Jill hear that.’
“He read through the draft, pausing at times to ask questions about the text, which we addressed with rewrites.”
McGurk wrote that he found Biden “fully engaged, leaning forward on the podium.”
He wrote, “The moguls told him he looked strong, and he did. There was no sign of the Biden we’d all see on a debate stage with Trump only four weeks later.”
The latter was a reference to Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Trump. What followed were weeks of calls on Biden to drop out, coming from some elected Democrats and prominent donors, until he exited the race on July 19. Katzenberg had played a prominent role as a top adviser to Biden’s re-election campaign.
While the Biden speech focused on a peace proposal, as it turned out, it would take until the next year, a week before Trump returned to office, for a ceasefire agreement to be reached.
