White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan spoke with CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday about the chances of a hostage and ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas and voiced cautious optimism.
"We are very, very close; and yet being close still means we are far because until you actually get across the finish line, we're not there," Sullivan stated.
He noted that "we have President Biden's top Middle East advisor, Bett McGurk, in Doha. He has been there for a full week, hammering out the final details of the text to be presented to the sides and we're still determined to use every day we have in office to get this done.
"Can we get it done before the 20th? It is possible, but I certainly can't make any predictions."
Sullivan noted that President Joe Biden is "likely in the near-term to engage" with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "We are not by any stretch of the imagination setting this aside," he declared and added: "There is a possibility this comes together; there is also a possibility, as has happened so many times before, that Hamas, in particular, remains intransigent."
Tapper also asked the advisor about the intelligence failures leading up to the October 7th Massacre. Sullivan dodged the question instead claiming that at the time, the administration was working to solve the Palestinian issue by attempting to coax Israel into agreeing to a Palestinian state in return for normalization with Saudi Arabia, a process that hit a wall with the massacre.