went into overtime. but many aren't happy, as some nations, including india, say the deal falls far short of what is needed. lebanon's health ministry says 3,670 people have now been killed in israeli attacks since october 2023, with more than 50 people killed on saturday. at least 20 people were killed in beirut, and more than 60 others were injured. israel's government says an israeli rabbi who went missing in the united arab emirates has been found dead. the office of prime minister benjamin netanyahu described his death as an act of anti—semitic terrorism and vowed to hunt down the suspected killers. now on bbc news, it's path to the presidency.

so, we're back for another week. tick—tocking down the days and the weeks until president elect donald trump is in the white house. so we've got another week of path to the presidency and it's great this week, sumi. we are joined by our colleague kayla epstein. hi, kayla. hello. it's great to see you, kayla. i feel like we haven't had as much opportunity to speak to you since the trump trial, which is where you were covering, obviously extensively there in new york with your cool new york background there, your skyline. yes. it's been a really wild year. i mean, you think back at what's happened and it's incredible. we've just packed this all into a few months and you've got a lovely new york backdrop picture behind you there, kayla. but, sumi, are you sitting on the floor? i was hoping no—one would notice. listen, all of our colleagues left and they took chairs and tables with them, and i had to rush to find a spot and i couldn't find an adequate chair and table setup. so everyone,

excuse me, i am sitting on the floor, but i'm comfortable. i'm cross—legged here. it's good for my posture. filled in a bit of yoga while we chat. well, i think the missing chairs and tables are where i am because i'm in another corner of bbc towers here in washington dc, and i won't show you because i won't put that image on the world, but it's full ofjunk and bric a brac here beside me. oh, you have my tables and chairs. oh, yes. yeah, exactly. alljoking aside, i mean, it's still so dramatic, isn't it? as president elect donald trump is putting together his team for his administration come january. and i suppose we'll just put a timestamp on when we're taping this. it's thursday the 21st of november. just coming up to 1:30 eastern time, because major news has just broken that donald trump's pick for attorney general, matt gaetz, has taken himself out of the running.

yeah, it's pretty astonishing. and, kayla, i know that you have been following this all of the twists and turns. and here in our bbc programmes, we've been speaking to a number of members of congress on both sides of the aisle, but in particular republicans about the house ethics committee investigation into matt gaetz and whether that investigation should be released to the senate, and what was in this investigation. and it was fascinating to watch members of the ethics committee trying to speak as carefully as possible without divulging the contents of that investigation, which obviously they're not allowed to do, but indicating that they thought it was absolutely critical for the contents of that investigation to get to the senate. so the senate could then make a decision based on the information that they had. but it seems like at this point, matt gaetz, withjoined by the vice president—elect, jd vance on the hill, was having plenty of meetings with republican senators. and the indication at this point is that perhaps he just he didn't have enough support and that there was bombshell information, perhaps in the report. again, we have to say over and over again, he denies any wrongdoing.

and we also should say that there was a criminal investigation into these alleged acts and no charges were brought forward. and this ethics committee is a political investigation on the hill. but, i mean, he's out of the running now. donald trump has to go back to the drawing board, i guess, and nominate another attorney general. yeah, he may have a list of possible candidates that he can turn back to, but i think we were all a little bit shocked in the newsroom when this news came through recently that matt gaetz was going to step aside, because this is a figure who never stands down about anything. he has taken trump's approach ofjust sort of, you know, using stubbornness and will to, you know, push himself forward, whether it's trying to get kevin mccarthy ousted as the former speaker of the house, whether it's, you know, trying tojump his way to the front of the line to become the potential attorney general. i mean, matt gaetz is not somebody who we tend

to see quit anything. and so to see him say publicly, i'm taking my name out of contention was quite remarkable. yeah. and let's not forget that he also, you know, before we got to this point last week, he actually resigned his seat in the house of representatives. so now where does that leave matt gaetz? i mean, the question has been floated of whether he could actually return to a seat because of the way that his resignation letter was worded. that's completely unclear. one of our colleagues had just mentioned the fact that there is now an open senator seat in the state of florida because senator marco rubio, of course, is the pick to be the secretary of state. so he's matt gaetz could possibly be someone who governor florida governor ron desantis thinks is a good fit for that seat. but not only is there a lot of uncertainty for matt gaetz, as you said, kayla and katrina, you said as well, it's going to be interesting to see what donald trump does with that position, because what they said is matt gaetz is the guy to go in and clean up the department ofjustice. that's the way they phrased it.

nothing about this situation is precedented like, you know, trump's pick of matt gaetz was pretty extraordinary. i mean, legal experts i've been talking to all week, people who know the department ofjustice well used to work for it, said, you know, not only is this someone who has an ethics investigation hanging over his head, but also this is someone whojust doesn't have the kind of experience that like the deep legal background or the big government management experience that you would see from the us attorney general. and so, you know, gaetz resigned, as you mentioned, after trump wanted to nominate him, partially because that would, you know, he thought that would shutdown the house ethics investigation. you know, there are rules that people, you know, weren't quite sure about whether or not the investigation could continue or whether or not a report could even be released once he left. and so, yes, it does leave him in this strange limbo. after making all these manoeuvres to put himself into a position to potentially become the next attorney general. he is now looking at an uncertain future, but i don't think this is going to be the last we ever hear of matt gaetz. and it's really interesting to me. the first reaction we've had from donald trump to this, he posted on truth social and he said, you know, he greatly appreciated the efforts of matt gaetz,

who was doing very well. but at the same time, he didn't want to be a distraction for the administration, for which he has much respect. matt has a wonderful future, and i look forward to watching all of the great things he will do. very sort of conciliatory tone from the president elect there, you know, not blaming anyone else for pushing matt gaetz out. so i think we'll see more come out about the reasons behind this and what's going on behind the scenes. but it does bring someone who you know very well, kayla, todd blanche, into the cross hairs now because he, of course, had been nominated as the deputy attorney general. so had everyone been confirmed, and matt gaetz then stepped out of the running. todd blanche would kind of assumed the role of attorney general. but you know him, kayla, very well from the trump trial in new york and everywhere else, because he is, of course, one of donald trump's main lawyers. todd blanche getting nominated for that role was slightly less controversial, especially among lawyers that i talked to. he actually was a former

federal prosecutor here in new york before he went into a private firm and then went to work for trump. and that's a really managerial job, like he's somebody who's run a department before. and so people weren't surprised to see him be put in as the number two at the justice department if trump's confirmation goes through. but a lot of people are wondering what that dynamic would be like between matt gaetz at the top and a todd blanche sort of, you know, a more, uh, you know, a more traditionalfigure right underneath him regardless. blanche is going to be doing a lot of day to day work running that agency. so he's still going to have a lot of power no matter who's above him. and it's curious when you look at this in the context of history, because i remember past confirmation hearings and people fell at the first hurdle because they were employing someone in their home who was maybe undocumented or didn't have the correct paperwork, or they had said certain things in past social media posts and so on, and they seem to be in a different bag to what kind of some of the allegations that

we're seeing against some of the individuals here. but, you know, that goes along to what we hear from donald trump all the time that he's personally subjected to a witch hunt. and he says that of everyone in his entourage as well. so, you know, it is a very contentious time. we can't forget that, you know, donald trump had tremendous electoral success, of course, and he's president elect. and republicans will have control of the house and senate. but there are still a lot of very upset people. and on the other side of the aisle and that, you know, they're looking with a very fine tooth comb over all of these individuals who will be nominated. and there are still some positions outstanding as well that we haven't yet heard again at the time of speaking about who will be treasury secretary at this point in time. and one of the individuals in the running for that has been appointed commerce secretary. howard lutnick. yeah. we spoke to him after the vice

presidential debate in new york because of course, he's also co—chair of the trump transition team. so it is sometimes a bit unusual that the chairperson or the co—chair and themselves ends up with the job. but howard lutnick, obviously a very accomplished financier and very, very loyal member of donald trump's team, is now in the commerce department. and that is the department that we know. again, subject to confirmation, is very dear to donald trump's heart. and howard lutnick, if confirmed, will be the person who, with the president elect will be bringing in tariffs that falls into that department. "tariffs," of course, we know donald trump has described as one of the most beautiful words in the english language. and i was in ireland there for a couple of days this week. and i can tell you there and in other parts of europe, people are very, very nervous about what donald trump's trade philosophy is going to mean for them, what the imposition of tariffs is going to mean for them. you know, we've heard donald trump say on the

campaign trailandjd vance and all of the team, for that matter, that he wants to put tariffs of about 20% on all goods coming into the us and 60% on those coming from china, which will make things extremely expensive in this country. but of course, the idea being then that american manufacturers will bypass those foreign imports and make and build and create those things here anyway, but it is making people on the other side of the equation very, very nervous. and of course, it leaves open the question of retaliation, doesn't it, that other countries may then put tariffs on american goods. and one of the points that we've heard from republican economic advisers is, look, this is also meant to be a negotiating tactic. and, you know, you can't imagine. and kayla, iwonder what you think about this, but you can't imagine that if you see something like 60% tariffs and you see certain goods in the us become extremely expensive, and with the way that the economy dominated the election, you can't imagine that if that becomes an incredibly unpopular policy,

that it would be one that the trump team would pursue. yeah, i think it's definitely one of those wait and see situations, because trump was obviously making a lot of promises during his campaign. what's going to happen when he's actually in the oval office and actually running the country and has to govern? is he going to find something in between? you know what economists who are critical of him are saying versus what he's promised? is he going to go all the way forward with the plans he's proposed on the trail? i think the one thing, though, is that, you know, i'm sure both of you encountered this when you were out talking to people around the country, is that people are so attuned to prices, and it really influenced how they felt about this election. and i'm not sure that they were paying attention to the nitty gritty of tariff policy. but what they wanted was a president who would come in and alleviate these cost of living issues that they were feeling so intensely, and they're looking to trump to do anything to fix that. if he doesn't exactly match what he said he was going to do on the campaign trail,

but they feel that their pocketbooks are a little bit less light than they were over the last couple of years than they might give him a pass. but if yes, like you said, like prices keep going up. any results of increased tariffs wind up getting passed on to us consumers and they start to feel it. then we might get some angst among the electorate, but we really have to wait and see what happens. you know, he is looking donald trump is looking for early deliverables. he's a transactional kind of guy. he likes to deliver on promises, be seen as a winner, all of that. that's what he did in his first term in office. that's what he intends to do now. so and there is certain parts of imposing tariffs that he can do with existing legislation or with a straight up or down vote on the hill, which he could get through quite easily. it doesn't need to be attached to budgetary legislation, which is much more difficult, as we've seen in past years, to get through the hill. so i wouldn't be surprised if he does slap some tariffs on certain things, not universal. but in those first early days and, you know, there will be

a trickle down effect before that directly impacts prices. and, you know, he'll be really turning the screw on american manufacturers then to take some of their overseas operations and bring them back into the us. but it's definitely a very nervy time for international trade. speaking of nervy times, kayla, i'm curious to get your reaction to the hush money case proceedings that we saw this week with the announcement that the prosecutors essentially are saying that they would be delaying, possibly at least that was one of the avenues that they're pursuing that they would delay put this case on hold now until possibly four years from now when donald trump completes his term. i mean, what did you make of what prosecutors said in this case? i mean, help us understand this because it felt like they were, in a way, themselves trying to understand what leeway they have with donald trump about to enter office again. yes. this is definitely a very suspenseful time when it comes to the trump hush money trial.

because basically, to rewind a little bit, what trump's lawyers have asked for is forjustice palmer, who oversaw the case, to throw out the conviction that occurred earlier this year because they argue that it would interfere with donald trump's ability to do hisjob as president. and they also are arguing that because of the us supreme court ruling about presidential immunity, which came out after trump was convicted, that trump's conviction should not stand. and so prosecutors are trying to find a way to preserve their conviction while also acknowledging the really extraordinary circumstances and unprecedented circumstances that we find ourselves in. trump is supposed to be sentenced next tuesday as of right now, but he's also putting together his cabinet. he's preparing to go to the white house. how does that even work? and so what the prosecution did was they filed a brief earlier this week and they said, you know, we plan to oppose any effort to throw out this conviction. but a few paragraphs down, they slipped in. you know, the judge should consider other options, which could include delaying

this until after he leaves office and what lawyers and former prosecutors i spoke to believe is that that's what they were actually kind of asking for, because they see that as the likeliest scenario. they see it as an opportunity to sort of keep their conviction, but avoid the really thorny constitutional problems that might get a judge to think, maybe i should throw out this conviction now. justice mershon can do whatever he wants. he could say no to both parties and say, we're doing this on tuesday. but he's gone rather quiet, and so we don't really know what he's thinking. there's no way to know what he's thinking. what he's going to do. but we're waiting for the judge to rule on whether or not the conviction should get thrown out and whether there should be a sentencing at all next week. and kayla, is there anyone, ever, anywhere. who thinks that the president elect may be given a custodialjail sentence? i don't think anyone believes that could happen at this point. for practical reasons, but also as well as the nature of who trump is, you know, he's in his late 705. he's never been convicted of a crime before, you know, even before he was elected. legal experts, formerjudges

i talked to said they really wouldn't expect for somebody who was convicted on their first offence to these kinds of charges would probably see jail. and now it's become, i mean, no one knows how that could work if it were to happen. you know, he's surrounded by secret service, getting the maximum level of security. he's about to be sworn into the oval office. you can't have a president in jail while also holding office. it'sjust impractical. so it seems like that's off the table. i mean, can we talk a bit about the other legal cases? because i felt like we spent a year talking about the four major cases against donald trump and where they all stand, and the federal cases now with donald trump re—entering office. well, he can obviously pardon himself, but he's not been convicted in the first place. so, i mean, where does jack smith has wound down his case essentially. jack smith in the alleged election interference case. he is now going to be leaving the department ofjustice. so there is no case. yeah. i mean, they're not officially dead, but they're effectively dead, i think because all trump

has to do is he has to take office, appoint his attorney general, who decides not to pursue these any more. you know, the attorney general who comes in could fire jack smith if he hasn't left by the time trump takes office. although it seems from reporting he's going to do that. and so, you know, there'sjust no way that a justice department is going under trump _ trump, who says that he wants the people he appoints to be loyal to him, who values loyalty above all else, who i can't imagine would appoint an attorney general who would not close the book on these cases. so it's very hard to imagine these going anywhere over the next four years. is there a sense that whoever donald trump's attorney general will be. of course, we don't know now at the time of talking, and that they may pursue cases against other individuals in relation to the 2020 election, because, as we know, there are many within the trump world who still think that that election was not legitimate and was stolen and so on. of course, there's absolutely no evidence for any of that, but is there any sense

that this may not be the end of the legal wranglings of of that election? yeah. we have to wait and see who he decides to nominate instead of matt gaetz. but what everyone took from the matt gaetz nomination was that trump was heading in a direction of he wanted political retribution. he wanted more control over the justice department, which presidents are traditionally encouraged to stay away from in the post—watergate scandal era, trump really wanted to put his thumb on the scale a little bit more. now he could try and nominate someone in the matt gaetz mould who doesn't come with as much baggage but would have a similar view of the department ofjustice. or maybe he's going to do something else and appoint a different person, but we're really going to have to wait and see. and just going back to the sentencing, that's outstanding as we're speaking now. and if that date on tuesday holds and nothing happens between now and then, does president elect trump have to appear in court in new york next tuesday? ordinarily, yes.

you will have to appear for your sentencing. however, a lawyer could argue that he's too busy with the presidential transition, that this is an extraordinary circumstance. you could see an argument like that being made. ithink, though, the more i talk to lawyers, the more i talk to prosecutors, the more they say that they feel like it's becoming unlikely that a sentencing happens on tuesday for another reason we didn't get into, because it's kind of nerdy, but like there's a whole schedule and process that has to play out when lawyers are filing briefs back and forth to argue their points. and the prosecutor said, that they want another deadline set in early december. and then trump's team said, no, we want to file our brief in late december. so even ifjustice mershon is like, all right, i'm going to continue to hear you guys fight over this. like, that pushes the date back. and so it's running out the clock to inauguration day. you know, so i think people are thinking it's less and less likely that we're going to see trump in court on tuesday. and if that nerdy process continues, and we love talking about nerdy processes on this show, and that date does get pushed beyond

the 20th of january. does that then mean that it's fallen off a cliff, or will it automatically be paused ? or what happens at that point once donald trump is president officially once again? yeah. i mean, i think it's very hard to see justice mershon holding a sentencing hearing after trump is sworn into office in late january. i think, again, to go back to what we were talking about before, this is why prosecutors kind of slipped in there. you could alsojust postpone this all until he's left office in four years, because then it wouldn't be the same kind of problem. he can't run for president again. he's constitutionally barred from doing so. he would be a private citizen once again. would it be extraordinary for someone to be sentenced and then four years after they were convicted? yes. but you know, with this case and all of trump's cases, there's really no precedent for any of this is what i've learned after covering them for four years. it'sjust we actually don't know how any this is going to play out. yeah, it's going to be really

exciting and interesting the next months and years ahead. in the little time that we have left. i know we haven't talked about the democrats at all, and obviously the focus is on trump and his transition team. i am really interested to see just the little battles that are happening, for example, over who should be the next chair of the dnc, because that will tell us a lot about the direction that the party is heading, and also which line of critique over what was responsible for the election loss actually is the one that's rising to the top. you know, if you go for a younger democrat or somebody like ben wikler, who's the head of the wisconsin democratic party who is seen as obviously donald trump won wisconsin. but tammy baldwin, the democrat senator, held on to her seat there. and they did have some important gains in some precincts. so, you know, he's a name who has been floated from a key swing state. you know, there are a bunch of names that have been floated, like chuck rocha, who is a latino specialist and is well known in the democratic party as well. it's fascinating to me to see which of the narratives that we've all been discussing is actually going to

override the others. we also see, of course, martin o'malley, the former two term governor of maryland, two term mayor of baltimore, democratic presidential wannabe himself, at one stage now in charge of social security. he's also declared his candidacy for the chair of the dnc. and as something that he really wants, that he feels very passionate and ambitious about where to drive the party forward from here. so i think, yeah, you're right. that's going to be really interesting in terms of how they all run their campaigns and who the party ultimately chooses to move forward. i mean, after donald trump won in 2016, there was so many calls from within the democratic party for soul searching, going back to grass roots, you know, examining how they would move forward. and they ended up running withjoe biden in 2020. and as we know what happened this year, sticking withjoe biden untiljust a couple of months ago. and we saw how that played out. so, you know, they're talking

all the same talk again about the soul searching and the need to go back to the grass roots. but, i mean, you kind of think at this point they have to really. losses are always a moment of introspection for the political party that doesn't win. the question for me is also 0k, say they produce a postmortem, say they do a big report about why they lost. are they actually going to follow any of their own recommendations in four years? are they going to be applicable? like, i rememberwhen mitt romney lost to obama in 2012, the republican party did some soul searching and they said, we need to do more outreach to latinos. we need to do more outreach to immigrants. and then the person that the party nominated four years later was donald trump, who made some quite controversial statements about people from mexico. and sojust because, you know, in this moment, a party soul searches and says, this is what we did wrong. this is what we need to do next. i'm not sure we can use that to predict what's going to happen in four years, who the nominee will be, what mould they'll be cast in. that's all the time we've got.

but and also my legs have fallen asleep, so i think it's probably. you better get up. stretch, come over here. i'll get you a chair. and a table. well, it was great to talk to you both. yeah, this was great. what a wild week. and more to come, i suspect. yep. yes. alrighty. bye, guys. bye. hello there. storm bert refuses to relinquish its tight grip across the uk. today, it's all going to be about heavy rain and gale force gusts of winds. and these are some of the rainfall totals we're starting to see now. over the last 36 hours, it's parts of wales that have seen the heaviest of the rain — just shy of 100mm. and it's here where we're likely to see further heavy rainfall as we go through the day today. in fact, in the last few hours, we've seen some heavier pulses pushing up through the sout—hwest into wales and north—west england. flood warnings are starting to arrive now. there could be some

localised flooding before storm bert moves away. the centre of the low starting to hook itself to the north—west of the uk. but that trailing weather front will stay with us throughout the day. it's going to gradually drift its way steadily eastwards, the rain becoming light and patchy through the midlands by lunchtime as the rain heads into east anglia and the south—east. a frequent rash of sharp, squally showers driven by severe gales, though, around the far north and west of scotland. some areas close to the coast could see gusts of wind widely 60 possibly 70mph. but it's a mild story as well. double figures right across the country, 17 or 18 degrees. if we get that, that could be a date record. now, as that rain starts to ease away overnight, things will quieten down for england and wales. but the centre of the low, storm bert, starts to drift its way across scotland, so here it stays showery and windy through the night. not a cold start to our monday morning, and monday will be

a day of mixed fortunes. we keep squally showers and strong winds through scotland and northern ireland. england and wales on the whole will be drier and quieter with some sunshine. just a few scattered showers as the wind turns round to a westerly. and a little bit fresher as well, with that westerly wind — 8—10 degrees the overall high. moving out of monday and looking at a little bit further ahead, bert will finally ease over into scandinavia. little ridge of high pressure quietens things down for tuesday. we will keep a close eye on this front, which could threaten more rain into south—west england and wales, but overall, it's a quieter but slightly cooler story as we go through the week ahead. take care.

live from london. this is bbc news.

a last—minute compromise deal is reached at the summit but whilst some countries celebrate poorer countries say it comes nowhere near to meeting their challenges. sir keir starmer promises to tackle the uk's "bulging benefits bill" — warning it is "blighting society". i know from speaking to ourjob coaches, ourfantasticjob coaches injob centres, that there are people who can work and who aren't. thousands of homes in the uk remain without power because of storm bert , with heavy rain and thawing snow causing flooding in many areas israel's government says an israeli rabbi missing in the united arab emirates has been found dead. and — max verstappen finishes fifth at the las vegas grand prix — winning his fourth consecutive formula one world title

hello, thank you forjoining us.