opposition leaders have expressed relief over the release. now, on bbc news... path to the presidency. hello and welcome to the path to the presidency. well, we know who the next president will be now — donald trump. but we're going to be here charting his path to the presidency onjanuary 20th for a little bit longer. and all that happens between now and then. we'rejoined by our colleague brian de guzman today, who has dashed fresh from the white —— today, who has dashed fresh from the white house into studio.

what is the mood like at the white house? i mean, we're transitioning donald trump in whilejoe biden is transitioning out. well, yesterday, when the two men had their their meeting, which was the first time the two men have been in the same room since that debate, which arguably kind of led to biden withdrawing his candidacy. it was...it was busier than i've ever seen it. it was probably 150 reporters there, which, you know, even on days where things have been very, very busy, for example, when there's been escalations in terms of the middle east, it's been nowhere near that busy. i was speaking to some reporters that have been doing this for 20 or 30 years, and they said there's just nothing. they hadn't seen anything like that again, because they think it's kind of indicative of the amount of interest — not only here but around the world in terms of donald trump making

what no matter what anyone else says about him, it's kind of a remarkable political comeback, given all the issues that he's had, all the controversy over the last four years, that he's back very much on his way to the white house now, and it will just be a few weeks until he's there. do you know what's remarkable for me watching the footage? you were there. we were we were watching it here. but, in addition to all the journalists, you had all the staffers come out of the eeob. west wing fans will know about that — the eisenhower executive office building. they were all standing on the steps there, trying to get a glimpse of the new president coming in. you know, whether they'll have a job, whether they won't. but there were a few dozen of them there, which, again, is not something you generally see. yeah. i mean, i think again, they're you know, they know this is a historic moment. even many of them, frankly, informally told me, you know, i just want to see what happens. now, we didn't really think this was going to happen, but this is kind of a historic moment, even if they are already kind of looking to see, do i need a newjob now, even if i have a job injanuary? what if there's cuts what if there's cuts to government bureaucracy, to government bureaucracy, which is something that which is something that trump has said he's trump has said he's

interested in doing? interested in doing? you know where that you know where that leaves them in their leaves them in their position in the future? position in the future? it's still a kind of it's still a kind of a remarkable moment in a remarkable moment in us history. us history. it's a nervy moment for a lot it's a nervy moment for a lot of people, i think, in federal of people, i think, in federal agencies and in the agencies and in the administration wondering administration wondering where their nextjobs will be. where their nextjobs will be. but i was really looking at the but i was really looking at the body language betweenjoe biden body language betweenjoe biden and donald trump. and donald trump. ifound it so interesting. ifound it so interesting. of course, you know, a lot talked about that roaring fire between them roaring fire between them that was like crackling that was like crackling and making so much noise. and making so much noise. it was a cold day. it was a cold day. it was divine. it was divine. you could feel the heat you could feel the heat coming out of the screen. coming out of the screen. it was so hot chocolate it was so hot chocolate there or something. environment that we saw there or something. but, you know, it was very but, you know, it was very cordial, very friendly. cordial, very friendly. and joe biden in points, and joe biden in points, you know, had this you know, had this big grin on his face. big grin on his face. and afterwards we saw and afterwards we saw the images that were released, the images that were released, the photos as well. the photos as well. and the former and future and the former and future first lady melania first lady melania trump did not attend trump did not attend for a scheduling reason, for a scheduling reason, from what we understand from her team. from what we understand from her team. but you had these pictures then but you had these pictures then of donald trump, joe biden of donald trump, joe biden andjill biden, doctor andjill biden, doctor jill biden, the current first lady and, you know, all smiles and different poses in the white house. for all of the talk of what we saw on the campaign trail whenjoe biden was facing off against donald trump. and up until election day, ijust thought that was such a stark

contrast to the smiles and the relatively affable jill biden, the current

for example, a ceasefire agreement in gaza. i mean, do we have a sense, bernie, from your experience also at the white house, of what they see as priorities for these remaining weeks? is it getting federal judges confirmed? i think certainly getting federaljudges confirmed is something that they'll be looking hard at. i think also in terms of foreign policy. i mean, any movement towards a ceasefire in gaza or anything. as far as eastern europe, you know, something that would kind of help assure ukraine and, you know, your us allies in europe of their us commitment going forward, which i think clearly some are worried about. i think those are all things that biden will be looking to do on, on his on his way out. um, kind ofjust to, to to end kind of on a positive note, because frankly, even at the white house now, there's almost kind of a the feeling is very deflated even among reporters, among staffers, you know, for example, today, biden left on a trip to south america. i think in other circumstances, it would have been

a much bigger deal that he's going to go meet, and he'll see xi jinping in peru. it went very quietly, frankly. i mean, there was kind ofjust happened. i think it's really interesting that he's going to meet president xi of china on that trip, because if we see the appointments that donald trump has made so far or the nominations, many of them still have to be senate confirmed, particularly marco rubio, the florida senator who's been tapped as secretary of state, takes a very hard line against china, as does donald trump. and first time round in trump's national defence strategy, they named interstate competition, specifically china, as kind of the biggest national security threat to the us. and we've seen him on the campaign trail as well. take a really hard line with china. so i think it's really interesting. i mean, this meeting with president xi was only added, ithink, maybe on wednesday of this week or at least was made public at that point. so, you know, what isjoe biden going to be saying to him as the outgoing president? in many ways, a lame

duck president. how much attention is president xi going to pay to anything that he says? i mean, to your point, he was asked or the white house press secretary was asked this why is president biden holding a meeting with xi jinping when obviously he's the outgoing president? donald trump is coming in. and i was at apec the previous year when president biden and xijinping met there as well. and of course, to much fanfare. and there was a lot of talk about some of the common ground that they could strike. and the images of them walking in a garden together obviously made international news. you know, they talked about kerbing fentanyl ingredients and climate change agreements. you know, i actually haven't really followed up on where some of those agenda items actually landed. but i'm sure if you look at where things actually stand in the current biden administration, they kept the trump tariffs on china, right. and we were speaking here on the programmes earlier this week to a member of the council of economic advisors, thomas philipson, who was there during the first trump administration.

and, you know, he said, look, a lot of times, this tariff talk, this is just about putting something on the table for negotiations. so i asked, 0k, will we see 60% tariffs then on goods from china. and he obviously, you know he's not in the current transition team. but his point was that too could be a negotiation tactic. so i mean it could be that coming back to president biden that he's going there a bit to close what his administration wanted to do in terms of relationship with china, but also to kind of set the path forward, i guess. he is yesterday's man, though. yeah. sorry, joe. but, you know, things have moved on. it's about donald trump. we're following the appointments or the nominations, who he's picking for these various jobs that he has to appoint. and, ithink, i mean, we mentioned the middle east a few moments ago. i think at this point in time, and we'll talk so much, i'm sure, about joe biden�*s legacy between now and the 20th of january. but i think for him personally, the fact that there is a situation that just seems to be so far from peace, so farfrom a deal being done and will be personally for him,

a big disappointment. he spent so much of his career committed to the middle east, committed to israel. you know, we saw the kind of it wasn't quite an ultimatum, —— you know, we saw the kind of... it wasn't quite an ultimatum, but the the threat, if you want to use that word that was issued to prime minister netanyahu by the secretaries of state and defence. —— by the secretaries of state and defence a month ago, saying if they didn't meet that deadline this week to improve humanitarian situation in gaza, that there would be conditions attached to the aid, and then you see the us state department coming out and saying, "oh, no, it's fine. israel is making progress," which has been disputed by all of the ngos in the area. i mean, we've spoken to many of them on our programmes here. and, you know, the perceived wisdom from experts in this field at this point is that the deal will not be done now that joe biden is the officially the outgoing president, the democrats are the outgoing administration and that there won't i mean,

notwithstanding a miracle. and everyone hopes forthat, right. but that there won't be a return of hostages or an improvement in that situation. so i think that will be something that he personally will be disappointed about. i do think, i wonder at the end of his presidency, usually, you know, there'll be kind of an outgoing news conference. i imagine someone will ask him, what do you think was the low point or the, you know, a failing of your presidency. and i'd be surprised if that wasn't it, because, i mean, he did deal with a lot of factors outside of us control. but, i mean, us aid to israel is something that the government could have controlled, and it left many people unhappy. i think we saw that in the election. even in michigan, for example, there was so much dissatisfaction with how he handled it. and i mean, at the end of the day, over more than a year now, there was very little movement in the direction they repeatedly said they wanted to go. i wonder if that's, you know, perhaps will ultimately be seen as kind of a stain on his legacy by people within his own administration. well, and things are moving so quickly now with these appointments,

as you said, if we look at who donald trump plans to appoint as the ambassador to israel, former governor of arkansas, governor huckabee. and if we look at the appointment for ambassador to the united nations, elise stefanik, congresswoman, these are two staunch supporters of israel. and it gives us a sense of where this policy could be going from the next trump administration. yeah. and i think in a way, that's kind of the trump administration fulfilling its promises. i mean, trump was very clear that he's a very, very pro staunch israel supporter on the campaign trail. and i think, as is the case with some of his other appointments so far, you know, by appointing those people, he's kind of living up to what he promised his supporters in terms of israel going forward. i don't think, you know, many of the people within the trump camp would be surprised by those particular appointments, for example. and for me, with trump in 2016 being elected in those four years, he actually delivered on a lot of things he promised on the campaign trail during that administration. and from what we're seeing now in the nominations, he looks set to do the same, doesn't he? i mean, in those nominations. but also if we talk about immigration, which, you know,

is kind of his signature campaign pledge in many ways, wasn't it? there's mass deportations and to be starting on it on day one. and you've obviously covered a lot on this, but appointing... i mean, he's calling him an immigration tsar. tom homan, he doesn't have a more official title than that. but i mean, that's someone who's worked in law enforcement under, i think, six presidents or something. very, very familiar with border patrol and law enforcement. he's very much kind of a hardliner of the kind that, you know, he's he's been very vocal about pushing the sort of policies that trump, you know, over, over the whole campaign, almost every rally i went to. trump made the same promises in terms of mass deportations and stuff. and homan is very much the person he sees as kind of the enforcer of those. i mean, and and also kristi noem as head of homeland security, which is, you know, a very broad position, but also

has responsibility over customs and immigration to a certain extent. what has homan actually said, though, about how he plans to implement this? this is something we've asked quite a few guests who have, come on, you know, who are surrogates for donald trump. you know how they envision actually implementing such a mass deportation plan, which is quite difficult financially and logistically. what is homan saying about this? well, i think they're aware that, i mean, deporting millions of people isn't, like you said, really difficult logistically and financially. it'd be enormously expensive. so, i mean, what he said is that, you know, initially they'll focus on people they see as public safety threats and national security threats. but, you know, that's quite a small pool of people. so if they really want to live up to their promises of deporting more people, i think ultimately, and he's also said, you know, ultimately they'll have to look at workplace... he doesn't use the term raids, but enforcement operations, which was a feature of the previous trump administration. very unpopular. biden did away with it almost immediately when he was president because it was so unpopular. that's probably kind

of the next step. and i think homan has started alluding to that fact that you know, we'll start to see a return to that. for me, the thing that we haven't seen in the detail of this and, you know, aware that it's only been a week or so since donald trump was re—elected again, but the logistics of mass deportations, that's the part that we have really no information on. i mean, if you're talking millions of people, first of all, you have to find them, right? which is difficult because by their very nature, they don't have paperwork and they, you know, live, as some would say, in the shadows or in some. —— live, as some would say, in the shadows. some cities have said they wouldn't cooperate with local police. exactly. either those who do have driver's licences and, you know, in the sanctuary cities and so on. so how do you find people and then how do you extricate them from the lives that they have and the children that they have, and particularly people are here for decades and decades and decades, and then how do

you physically send them to other countries? i mean, who's paying for those flights or buses? yeah. i mean, you know... there's a cost to all of that. trump is, ithink, he's aware of that cost. he said, you know, it's going to be expensive. but as far as he sees, there's no cost too high for this. but i think, you know, for example, family deportations, that's another thing homan has been very hard line about recently. he said, you know, he was asked how would you deal with, let's say a child is a us citizen and the mother is not. well, you deport them together. i mean, he was very clear about his view on that. and, you know, but there are still a lot of questions. for example, there's nowhere as things stand even now, there's nowhere near the detention facilities you would need to house a bunch of people. a lot of countries, for example, venezuela, nicaragua, cuba. there might be less than cooperative in terms of taking people back. yeah. and if you haven't lived there for decades as well, that's even harder, isn't it? you know. it is. i mean, even now, i wasjust actually on the phone with a dreamer who's, you know, at the moment protected from deportation because they came as a child. but in theory, i mean, they're

worried that if this happens and their status is revoked and ultimately they're deported, they'll be going back to a country they've not been in 35 years. this is a 37—year—old person. so i think that's, you know, kind of high on the mind of a lot of these people. i know you did a lot of reporting on the latino vote in the election as well. and ifound it so interesting in the aftermath and some of the numbers that were combing through to see how people voted. and we did see this shift, particularly among latino men, but in general, in the latino vote towards republicans, towards donald trump, despite the announcement that there would be this mass deportation. i mean, what is the sense you're getting from undocumented people in that community? because i know you've been speaking with them as well. well, it was a lot more, frankly, a lot more nuanced than i expected it to be. i've had quite a few that told me that, for example, they don't think they will be deported because they're not criminals. they're law abiding, taxpaying citizens whose only crime in their eyes was crossing the border without checking in at some point or without doing the visa process. so there's a lot of that,

and some of them are, quite frankly, kind of, as i think we saw with the broader latino vote, kind of excited by the prospect, maybe the economy gets better, maybe there's more work for them, but others are really quite terrified. i mean, they're terrified that that's how it starts. but, you know, if trump wants to deport a million people or 2 million people, uh, you know, eventually they have to move beyond criminals to, to, you know, work. i mean, there's a lot of fearof being kind of a collateral... of being collateral damage in sort of those sorts of enforcement operations, which is something even the trump last term, they used the term, you know, collateral enforcement to a certain extent. people get caught up in sweeps. and we also saw under the last trump administration and withjohn homan, family separations, didn't we, where children were separated. now, donald trump did put a stop to that in 2018 and with an executive action. —— with an executive action. and then whenjoe biden came into office, he fully reversed that policy.

but i was checking some of the numbers a bit earlier and the most recent statistics from the department of homeland security, which do come from march of this year, found that there were 1360 children who had been separated, still are still separated from theirfamilies, you know, kind of four, six, eight years later, and some of whom theyjust have no contact information for the families. so will never be kind of reunified. i mean, i think the fact that donald trump stopped that the last time around, we probably won't see that. but it's just another thing when you're speaking about concern and communities. and i mean, ithink it also kind of shows the fact that how difficult it is to track these people and these families that are in many cases, completely off the grid. i mean, and once someone is deported, if you want to reunite that person with someone who's still in the states, that's almost impossible in a lot of these people might be in rural central america, for example. it would be very hard for someone in the states to kind of bring those families back together. i also want to ask you guys about the department

of government efficiency and the appointments that we saw there of elon musk. doge. exactly. aptly named doge — elon musk and vivek ramaswamy. and of course, this isn't actually a government agency. we should say. it's kind of like an advisory body, as i understand it. but i mean, we are hearing elon musk talk about cutting down the number of federal agencies down to like 99, i think, he said recently on social media. i mean, do we have a sense or do either of you have a sense of how they would go about actually not only cutting the numbers of federal employees, but also entire agencies? i'm just wondering, you know, how they're going to go about doing it. i mean, on one hand, you canjust do it like you can just stop the funding and and shut things down. but it's the practicalities of how you unwind that and all the people who are employed. i mean, this city will be... here in washington will be transformed dramatically if these agencies are closed and federal workers are,

you know, laid off and huge, huge numbers. and this concept of, you know, elon musk has posted the other day on x saying he'd put some of these suggestions up on x, what they were targeting, and take feedback. in the comments, essentially. yeah, i mean, that's remarkable. like a whole new way of of doing business. um, you know, and we're speaking here... we're recording this on thursday evening in washington, dc and us eastern time, and these names are still trickling out. and the latest one, we haven't heard it at the point of speaking from donald trump's mouth directly, but it does seem like rfk jr will be tapped for the health department, which is something he had asked for for months, hadn't he? i mean, that's been in the realm since he gave up his own campaign and agreed to endorse donald trump. even though trump has said on the campaign trail he doesn't fully agree with certain things that rfk jr stands for. so it's going to be really interesting to see if he is appointed to that. like, what parts of his

own platform and go —— go in and what parts of the trump platform go into his mandate if that's confirmed? you know, no matter what he does, the fact is it'll still be deeply, deeply unpopular with a huge swath of the population that didn't resonate much with him on the campaign trail, and is now going to have him in a cabinet position, if that's confirmed. he talked about taking fluoride out of water. he's obviously a vaccine sceptic as well, which is one of the issues that has caused some concern. and this all raises the question, of course, of whether he can get confirmed. and we've been talking really over several days now as these appointments keep coming out. can some of these nominations actually get confirmed in the senate? and, you know, we were talking just before this katrina, even if some republican senators have expressed concern over people like congressman matt gaetz to be the attorney general, or pete hegseth of fox news host, to be defence secretary, or robert f kenneder, to be the head of health and human services. will they get the support that they need in the senate?

i mean, there is the possibility that donald trump could go around them with recess appointments. but we've heard these rumblings on x and social media that there are a number of republican senators that they wouldn't vote for him at the end of the day, would they would they cross donald trump and not vote for his specific picks for cabinet positions? it's kind of the million dollar question. if we knew the answer to that, we'd be very rich people. ithink, i mean, i think some will see more resistance than others. i mean, matt gaetz comes to mind. i think people were a little more outspoken about him. but i mean, broadly speaking, ithink, you know, lawmakers, you know, they're kind of on the same page. i mean, from what i can tell, some of them are very keen on, even if they don't necessarily agree with the picks, they're very keen on pushing these people through as quickly as possible and getting to work on, that agenda that he and the republican party promised voters. i think we'll see some horse trading, which is par for the course.

and these things where somebody maybe has an objection to one nominee, another colleague has an objection to the other nominee. and it's kind of, well, i'll vote for your guy if you vote for my guy sort of thing. and ultimately, for republicans, regardless of what they think of donald trump, he has delivered tremendous electoral success. i mean, absolutely tremendous victory for the republican party. and if you're a republican, if you're a conservative, you're facing into this very attractive prospect where they have now the house, they have the senate, and they have the white house. in the supreme court, conservative majority. you know, it's a great opportunity for republicans of any particular persuasion to get their legislative agenda through, to get the things that they've promised their voters through, and to do that as quickly as possible before. —— as possible before... i mean, as we know, the electoral process in this country is so long and so long compared to my part of the world anyway. but, you know, before they all have to start thinking about re—election again, right? so they have a few

months really where they can get to work. and i think it's probably in all of their interests ultimately to do that quickly. isn't it? in some ways, it's kind of kind of a once in a lifetime opportunity for a lot of these people. i mean, and the time frame, i mean, they have two years until the midterms too. so, i mean, if they want to do things quickly, i mean, now is kind of the time because the clock starts ticking onjanuary 20th until the midterms and then in the midterms, who knows what happens? so i think you'll see, especially now that there's a majority in both houses of congress. you'll see people try to push things as quickly and as hard as possible from day one. yeah. and as a footnote to all of this, we can say now that donald trump has put on truth social that he's thrilled to announce robert f kenneder as the secretary of health and human services. so there you go. there you go. we were ahead of us. well, on that note, we'll have to bring our chat to a close for today. great chatting as always. we'll be here again next week and every week on the path to the presidency until donald trump is on those steps.

swearing in on the 20th of january. we've already started to see snow falling in the north of scotland. that will continue over the next few days. the snow showers continuing to feeding during the afternoon. showery rain across much of northern ireland, into parts of northern england, wales, eventually the midlands as well. further south and east a little bit drier, some brighter skies here. a bit of sunshine, too, for parts of eastern scotland, north—east england. but chilly, or cold, really, across scotland, 4 or 5 degrees here. 9 or 10 celsius further south. now, tonight, the area of showery rain will continue to spread to the south—east but with clear skies across northern england, scotland, there is going to be a hard frost. temperatures down to —5, maybe —8 degrees celsius. the coldest night of the autumn so far. and with those snow showers continuing to feed

across the far north of scotland, the risk of some ice as well. but into monday, we are keeping an eye on this area of low pressure moving in from the atlantic. it contains milder air with rain but the problem is when that bumps into the colder air and that's when we are going to see the risk of some snow monday night into tuesday. but during monday day there will be further snow showers into northern scotland. plenty of dry and sunny weather to these northern and eastern areas before the cloud and the rain spreads in from the south—west containing that mild air. 13 degrees in plymouth on monday afternoon, whereas further north, temperatures barely above freezing. then it's monday night, as that rain, as you can see, moves further north and eastwards, a spread of snow over higher ground of northern ireland, but in particular the south pennines, into north wales, the north midlands eventually into the early part of tuesday morning. 1—3 centimetres, even down to some low levels as well, but 5—10 centimetres over the higher ground. this is likely to cause some disruption to your tuesday morning as that continues to spread to the south—east. there will be a mixture

of rain, some sleet around the edge of this area of snow but it could well bring a bit of falling snow for some in eastern areas on tuesday. but then during tuesday this northerly wind continuing to bring in some snow showers and the very cold air. a very cold week to come, temperatures 4, 5 degrees celsius at the best. widespread night—time frosts as well with further wintry showers. bye— bye.

live from london. live from london. this is bbc news. this is bbc news. a "massive" russian a "massive" russian attack on ukraine's power attack on ukraine's power infrastructure has killed infrastructure has killed at least ten people. president zelensky says his at least ten people. president zelensky says his country was targeted by 120 country was targeted by 120 missiles and 90 drones. missiles and 90 drones. officials in northern gaza say officials in northern gaza say dozens of people have been dozens of people have been killed by an israeli strike killed by an israeli strike on a residential building. on a residential building. rescuers are trying rescuers are trying to reach many more to reach many more trapped under the rubble. trapped under the rubble. china's president xi china's president xi holds his final holds his final meeting withjoe biden, meeting withjoe biden, and pledges to work and pledges to work with incoming us president, donald trump. 0n the frontline of climate change. pakistan's northern communities face glacial floods and landslides as temperatures rise. we have a special report.