The talking heads jumped on President Abdel Fattah El Sisi’s speech at the UN General Assembly late yesterday and nothing else.

Kol Youm’s Amr Adib hosted American businessman and the (very respected) former US ambassador to Cairo Frank Wisner, who said that US-Egyptian relations are strategic and that the US “can’t see a stable region without Egypt being an active partner.” Of particular importance is the brokering of a peace deal between Israel and Palestine, which is in everybody’s best interest, he said. Wisner added that he is optimistic about what the cards hold for Egypt in terms of stability and security, and that he hopes “Egypt will return to a path of full respect for all of its citizens” (watch in English, with Adib providing running, asynchronous Arabic translation for viewers, runtime 31:22).

Adib then dissected speeches at the UN from El Sisi and US President Donald Trump. He pointed to Trump thanking El Sisi as the “highlight” of the former’s speech, but also as an indicator of confused US policy on Egypt in light of the recent aid cuts. The host lauded El Sisi for not focusing on Egypt’s economic challenges or using his speech as a platform to pitch investment, and instead taking the chance to make the country’s political stances crystal clear (watch, runtime 32:28).

House Foreign Relations Committee MP Dalia Youssef told Masaa DMC’s Osama Kamal that El Sisi’s speech hit all the right notes by touching on terrorism and regional issues, as well as the Palestine-Israeli peace process. (watch, runtime 1:43).

On Hona Al Asema, Lamees Al Hadidi discussed Egypt’s diplomatic performance with State Information Service head Diaa Rashwan, a terrorism and security analyst at the state-run Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies who was favoured by many foreign journalists prior to being tapped to run the government’s information service. Egypt has struck a balance between opposing powers and diversified its network of allies, a testament to the success of El Sisi’s multipolar foreign policy, Rashwan said (watch, runtime 3:54).

Lamees also delved into the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation brokered by Egypt, which political science professor at Cairo University Tarek Fahmy said was a welcome development for Israel (watch, runtime 4:58). Fatah advisory council secretary Mohamed Horani phoned in from Ramallah to pile on the praise for Egypt’s mediation efforts and say that its participation in the process acts as a guarantee that the agreement will be implemented (watch, runtime 4:40).

The host discussed Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad’s speech with Emirati political science professor Abdel Khalek Abdullah, who said the address was riddled with contradictions and double standards (watch, runtime 5:31).