after a powerful cyclone tore through the indian ocean territory of mayotte. the storm has now made landfall in northern mozambique. and the comedian chris mccausland has been crowned this year's winner of strictly come dancing. the competition's first—ever blind contestant lifted the glitterball trophy in saturday's live tv final. now on bbc news — path to the presidency. we'll see tiktokers marching on capitol hill and the white house, demanding... dancing on capitol hill. dancing, yeah, dancing their way up pennsylvania avenue. well, here we are again.

another week, another path to the presidency. and this week, sumi and i arejoined by our dear colleague here in the dc bureau, anthony zurcher. hi, anthony. great to be here. it's a long path to the presidency. you've already been travelling it for a while, but i'm glad to join you in yourjourney. and a long way still to go. a long way to go — and we're in december now. are you guys holiday—partied—out? i didn't realise what a season this is in washington, dc. can you have too many festivities? yeah, it's exhausting. i went to my first one last night, i think i've got another two next week, and that's when it really kicks in. oh, i got a cookie party tomorrow, or saturday night, at a friend's house, where everyone has to bring a holiday—themed cookie and share it. so, by the time you leave, you walk out with a huge box of all these different cookies people made. and with many cavities. yeah, exactly. and calories. yeah. what's your theme, anthony, what are your cookies looking like? you know, we're lazy — we ended up going to the local german bakery and buying

something nice there. so, i'll see what catches my eye. sumi, maybe we need to start a path to the presidency cookie party for christmas. but on serious matters, i mean, a lot going on, yet again, on our path to the presidency. and anthony, this issue of immigration flaring up again last week, in that interview that donald trump did with meet the press on nbc — and it's really kept going, hasn't it? it has, i mean, this is another example of how donald trump can drive the agenda, drive the conversation. i'm sure you've noticed that over the past month — and in donald trump's first term, where he says something and it becomes something that all of us start chasing around. and what he said in that interview was that he wanted to do away with birthright citizenship on day one of his next term in office. now, birthright citizenship, as i'm sure you know, is the the idea that someone born on american soil, regardless of who their parents are, is an american citizen by birth.

it's grounded in the us constitution, in the 14th amendment to the us constitution that says people born in the united states — and subject to the jurisdiction thereof — are american citizens. and courts and governments, and politicians have interpreted that for more than 150 years to mean what it says — that if you're born on american soil, even if your parents are undocumented, you're an american citizen. now, donald trump wants to get rid of that because he and his supporters view that as a driving force of undocumented migration, that people are coming to this country from south america, from central america, having kids, and they're using that — and i think the term they use is "anchor babies" — in order to become citizens. and that they want to do away with that, they think that will help stem the the tide of migration to this country. i've heard it from republicans that this is a driving force. i'm not convinced that it

necessarily is the driving force — if you go to the border and you speak to many of the people who are crossing the border, what they say is that it is economic woes in their home countries, and violence, political violence, gang violence that are the driving factors. in fact, i think the most recent time i was at the border was a little bit earlier this year, on the california side, where you saw really hundreds of people a day crossing over, and from all over the world — and many of them were young people, who were not necessarily thinking about family planning and having children at that moment, but were thinking about their own future. so of course, it is something that, for republicans, could be an attractive way, they say, to reduce the number of people coming into the country. but i wonder, first of all, how effective it would be? and then, you know, you also have to ask, is that even possible? because that would involve a change to the constitution. yeah, well, in theirview, it doesn't involve a change of the constitution. they look at that subject to the "jurisdiction thereof" language in the 14th amendment, and they say, "well, if you're an undocumented migrant,

you aren't subject to american jurisdiction, that you're here without permission, and therefore they can be carved out." now, that would be a huge legal battle. you can guarantee that, if donald trump tried to do this on day one with the wave of a pen, the lawsuits would be coming that day, within hours, even, they're preparing for this — and it would be bogged down in the courts as federaljudges litigate it. and they may find a federal judge somewhere, maybe in texas, who would say, "ok, you're right, you could do away with birthright citizenship without a constitutional amendment," and they may find an appellate court that will do that. then it could get to the supreme court — and you never know with this supreme court, it's a conservative—tilting court — but it would involve upending 150 years ofjurisprudence, which is a big step to take, even with these supreme court justices — and originally, this birthright citizenship came in because of slavery in this country. so, aside from all those legal challenges that would be taken, you have to anticipate that there would be

an incredible sort of emotional and moral objection to that happening, as well. and, anthony, are there any statistics for how many people are coming here and having these so—called "anchor babies," to use that term? i mean, the total number of undocumented migrants in this country is estimated to be around 14—15 million. obviously, they're not all having children here, so you've got to figure, you know, that's a much smaller number of people born here in the united states who have become citizens that way. and there have been attempts to try to address, you know, what you do with families that have citizen children and undocumented parents — actually, some democratic administrations and the biden administration, and particularly the obama administration, tried to extend protected status, normalised residency to the parents of us citizens. because that is one of the things that'll be hard

for the trump administration to do, is to deport — you know, have these mass deportations and deporting undocumented migrants when they have citizen children. you're tearing apart families, in other words, if you try to round up all the undocumented migrants. they have a one—year—old american citizen, are you going to let that one—year—old stay in the country, or are you going to deport them? can you deport an american citizen? it creates a lot more challenges to what the trump administration wants to try to do — which is i think one of the reasons why they're targeting this. it's not just stopping the flow of undocumented migrants, it's making that deportation process more streamlined, because it's much easier to deport an entire family of undocumented migrants, rather than to break up a family or deal with an american citizen child that has a claim to living here. there were press specifically on this point, and president trump, president—elect trump on that point, in his

interview on meet the press, and he said — the anchor, kristen welker, asked him specifically, "so, are you going to break up families, or how does that work"? and he said, "if the child is a us citizen and the parents are not, then the child would go with the parents". so it's not a question of deportation — in the language that he used, it's not a question of deporting any us citizen, but the decision for the family to stay together. and what's interesting about that is that's the exact same language, of course, that his incoming border tsar, tom homan, has used, and that's the way that they believe that they can address this question of breaking up families — which is you don't want to have the children stay here by themselves, they would choose to return with their parents — which in reality, we don't know if that'll be the case. and if these children are small, i mean, they're not making that decision forthemselves, right? i mean, it's the parents making the decision. but it's interesting how i think the trump administration have sought to frame this, because they

are aware of, you know, all those awful images that we saw the first time around, of children separated from their parents. and we know, from statistics out earlier this year that, there are still thousands of children in this country who remain separated from their parents, who have not been reunited. and i think they're anxious to avoid any repeat of that. so this, i think, is where, you know, partly the genesis for this idea is coming from, that they're trying to somehow make it, i don't know, more palatable or something, what they're trying to do. right, i mean, there is political risk, right? i mean, we saw the damage that those family separations at the border — and those were people who were coming across and had just been caught with children, and they were being separated because it's harder to deport even undocumented children than it is is their parents. you saw how bad that was for the trump administration then — you could see why they're trying to avoid it now. they may not be able to, it's still a risk to try any of these mass deportation plans that they have. as soon as you get beyond the violent offenders

who are in prison somewhere — assuming you can cross those off the list and find someplace that will take them, which is a whole nother challenge for the trump administration — once you get through those easy ones that the public probably won't be too up in arms, and then you start getting to people who are members of the community, people who have jobs and families, and friends and relations, and you're pulling them out of the country and deporting them, or putting them in camps pending deportation. and that becomes much, much more of an emotionally tenuous sort of situation, and the public may not go along with that the way they are, you know, these killers that trump talks about who have committed heinous crimes that need to be sent back. and some of those people who are working in this country, albeit without paperwork, who are undocumented, many of them are working on farms, doing those sort

of lower—paid, hard, hardjobs, picking berries and fruit, caring for animals, and so on. and the farming community has really raised quite a lot of concerns about some of these plans — what it might do to their labourforce. i mean, i've actually been looking into the the farming community, the agriculture community this week, i mean, we've seen farmers protesting in the uk — it got me thinking, what lies ahead for the farming community under the trump administration? of course, his nominee, brooke rollins, for agriculture secretary — another trump loyalist, she worked in his first administration, then she went on to the america first policy institute. but it's kind of hard to find exact policies from donald trump and his administration, as to what actually they're going to do when they come into office. now, brooke rollins does have a background in agriculture. she grew up on a farm in a small town in texas, studied agriculture in high school, actually went

to texas a&m university on an agricultural scholarship to get a degree in agricultural development. i don't know if you guys have picked up on anything that people are concerned about or interested in, or excited about with the trump administration in the agriculture field? you know, i was in pennsylvania in october, and there was an event that donald trump participated in — it was a roundtable forum outside of pittsburgh, kind of rural area in pittsburgh, and it was all about farming. the thing i heard from the farmers there and the farming industry people there — they were mostly concerned about costs. the costs of energy, you know, costs of running the farm, costs of inputs that were driving up the prices of their agriculture, making it harder for them to make a profit, the cost of land — prices are too high, energy prices are too high. that's what they wanted to see change when donald trump becomes president.

yeah, you see a lot of those same crosscurrents with other parts of the population. but it's interesting, i remember having a conversation with republican senator cramer around the time of the republican national convention about migrant workers on farms, and how a crackdown on immigration on the southern border could also affect farm work in a state like his — and his point was one that we've heard, i think, from quite a few donald trump supporters and republicans, and those who will be going into his administration, which is, "look, these are not necessarily the types of migrants who we actually want to be caught up in this deportation wave." so, that then gets into the question, ok, are they going to be special visas for farm workers? we know that seasonal workers are a huge, huge part of getting food out in this country, and the food that the us exports, as well. so, i'm curious to see how they take that on. but i also saw some reporting — and interested to hear what you guys think on this — that you could see some of brooke rollins' priorities in standing up for the farmers

of this country, perhaps clash a little bit with rfkjr�*s policy of healthy food — which you would think they don't necessarily clash, but that some of the farming policies and deregulation that the farmers might want to see might not actually lead to the best healthy food outcomes. and i wonder, you know, obviously rfkjr we know would have to still be confirmed in that post — and he is a controversial pick for various reasons, for health and human services — but it does give you a bit of a sense of maybe how there are different priorities in the administration. and i think this interplay will be really fascinating, and obviously, as you say, they both have to be confirmed. but the us department of agriculture is in charge of school lunches. rfkjr has pledged to remove ultra—processed foods from american school lunches, to push forward healthy eating. there's a food—stamps programme here, as well, in this country where, if you're less—well—off, you kind of get vouchers towards buying food — but that you would not be allowed to use those to buy fizzy drinks, sweets, candy, junk food, etc. you'd only be allowed to use them for healthy foods —

which, in a way, you think might help american farmers, that there would be potentially a greater demand for produce, fresh produce, and not those kind of hyper—processed things. but i think there is a clash potentially coming, in terms of what priorities are, and what priorities get pushed to the top of the list, and which are kind of secondary, or tertiary down the line, as well. but, you know, it's so core to this country, food, to any country, and the farmers in particular are a strong lobby. and it kind of crosses over into so many other departments like we've mentioned, you know, rfk and the health department, also the trade department, the tariffs — we saw what happened the last time around,with china imposing retaliatory tariffs on soybeans and corn, and donald trump had to basically do a $1 billion bailout to farmers as a result — and just how it all interplays, how those cabinet discussions are going to take place.

and, you know, given that donald trump is kind of stacking the cabinet, as well, with so many loyalists and people that he can rely on — whose viewpoints come out on top will really be the thing to watch. and there's another thread here — you have vivek ramaswamy and elon musk with their doge, department of government efficiency, talking about having these massive cuts to discretionary spending. and i think ramaswamy, just a couple of days ago, highlighted that those food stamps, the snap benefits, as a source of fraud and abuse that needed to be trimmed dramatically. if they start talking about cutting other areas of spending, subsidies, farm subsidies, that'll

directly impact the department of agriculture. i mean, the universe in which there is room to make cuts without touching the big entitlement programmes, like social security and medicaid, the health insurance programme, and the department of defence, and interest on the debt — you get to discretionary spending, and that is much smaller. and a lot of that are these kinds of programmes that are subsidies and support for farmers and things, that there are going to be constituencies were very, very upset if that's what ends up on the chopping block. yeah, and on that point of the interplay in the various strands of this incoming administration — and elon musk, to that point — i've been really interested in looking at, this week, tech policy in the incoming trump administration. you know, as we see this lame—duck congress winding up in these last few weeks, obviously, you see some of those bills that haven't been passed bubbling back up again — one of them is kosa, the kids online safety act, it was one that passed in the senate injuly pretty overwhelmingly with a lot of bipartisan support. and this is an act that looks to create some sort of regulations for the kinds of features that you have in tech and social media, what they offer kids online —

in particular, some of those harmful features that create addictive behaviour. i mean, we adults, of course, are addicted to our phones, as well, and to our social media platforms. we've all been doom—scrolling in the past, you know, i can't deny it either. but it's particularly harmful for children, of course — and elon musk, who as we know is now a very close adviser to president—elect trump — he and x actually worked on the language of this bill, and now supports this bill. and itjust made me think about the different, again, countercurrents that you'll see coming in in this administration. on the one hand, you have people like the vice president—electjd vance, who's been very critical of big tech — he's talked about breaking up google, he's talked about meta and other companies having an anti—conservative bias that needs to be tackled —

and some of the incoming administration picks have echoed a very similar line. and then, of course, you have that bastion of free speech, elon musk, as well — who, in this case, has gotten on board with this bill in a way that he thinks respects those free—speech measures for x, for his platform. but at the same time, you have other republicans, including speaker of the house, mikejohnson, who have said, "yes, the language has been massaged, but we have to get this right, because we're talking about free speech". so, i wonder what you guys think about how those different voices in the administration on this huge issue — tech policy, social media — are going to play together. donald trump has made a lot of promises, and he's made a lot of promises to a lot of different people. and a lot of them are contradictory. you know, it's easy to do for a politician who's running for office to promise the world — and i think it's been particularly easy for donald trump to do, because he tends to go off—script a lot, and to not

have to stick to his policy platforms and papers, and things produced by his aides. he's happy tojust grab things kind of willy—nilly and promise them out. but i think we are going to see, in tech policy in particular, the embrace of some of these tech tycoons like elon musk, who have supported his presidential campaign, while also having that segment in the republican party that really does want to curtail the power of these big corporate institutions that they view as being antithetical to conservative values. so, i will be watching this, really interesting to see. it seems like elon musk right now has the upper hand, and that he has a lot of influence. but will there be a falling out? will there be donald trump pulled away towards a different kind of priorities from some of the other members of his constituency? and then, you have, of course, the ai and crypto tsar, david saxe, who'll be in the white house. and it seems to me that he's going to take that role on in a part time basis, it's not a senate

confirmation post. so, he'll be there on the first day when donald trump comes into office. and, again, an area that elon musk has a very particular knowledge set about. ithink, though, potentially, these are areas where we may see some collaboration with the democrats. i mean, we've been talking about how the democrats can work with republicans — albeit there's just that very, very slim majority that the republicans have in the house. but these issues, particularly around online safety and children — and we've seen in the past bereaved parents giving testimony before committees on capitol hill — that's potentially an area where everyone can come together. and the other one being the threat from china, as well. i mean, just this week, we saw senators raising the issue of the hack known as salt typhoon, which was the efforts by china to infiltrate — alleged efforts to infiltrate american telecommunications companies and potentially steal

data about calls that were happening on those us networks. so, it kind of veers into national security, as well, doesn't it? i mean, it's another issue that sort of crosses all those departments, and has a lot of people involved. it does, and just this week, we were also talking to the chairman and the ranking member of the china committee in the house about tiktok — because, of course, onjanuary 19th, that bill is supposed to go into effect that bytedance, the chinese parent company of tiktok, either has to divest or be banned here in the us. and really curious, because, of course, donald trump said in september, you know, just a few months ago, that anyone who wants to keep tiktok should vote for him. now, of course, he was angling for that younger vote at that time, and you don't know if that'll actually affect the policy that he decides to take. but he could come into office

and say, "look, tiktok�*s an important platform for me, and if bytedance were to sell tiktok, it certainly wouldn't be with its algorithm." so, it would be a very different platform, wouldn't it? so, what donald trump chooses to do with that, we'll have to wait and see — but i did ask the republican chairman molenaar, congressman molenaar about it, and he said, you know, "donald trump understands both the need to make sure that our free speech is respected, and that we have this platform available — but also," to your point, caitriona, "the national security threat that china poses, with the access to our data." so, you know, you have to read between the lines there but, from what i see, republicans believe that donald trump would uphold this ban. yeah, i mean, and it's a law, right? i mean, donald trump may not have a choice. but we should say that tiktok is taking a legal challenge against that, so we'll see what happens. but, yeah, it's like it's — even that tiktok law itself, i mean, politicians voting for it — who are also

on tiktok — like, posting campaign videos, you know... square that circle. it was a bipartisan law, which shows that there is — this is another one of these examples where there is bipartisan support for curtailing the power of, of social media in particular, and because of the national security component of that, as well. i think that really created an interesting coalition behind it. but i think there will be some people who are pretty shocked come mid—january if tiktok's turned off without someone else stepping in to take over the service, and they'll be looking for an explanation, despite promises from people like donald trump, that this isn't going to happen, why this ended up taking place. we'll see tiktokers marching on capitol hill and the white house, demanding... dancing on capitol hill. dancing, yeah, dancing their way up pennsylvania avenue. i think that's all we have time for, guys. but it's been a pleasure to talk to you. anthony, i promise if you come

back, we'll bring cookies. excellent, all right, well, i will i will hold you to that. great, see you guys soon. bye. goodbye. hello. a different looking week of weather heading our way. certainly compared with last week, we will be much, much milder to begin with. chillier air will return though later in the week. but to get there, we're going to see some windy weather at times and certainly more rainfall around. now, some of the wettest conditions will be to the northwest of the country. and, as our chart shows for the next three days, rainfall amounts are greatest here. and it's around the western highlands where up to 150mm of rain to take us through to tuesday, coupled with snow melt, could lead to flooding, because we've got a conveyor belt of moisture set to pile its way and focus in this part of the country throughout. that same conveyor belt, though, pushing lots of cloud across the country today.

there will be some low cloud towards the west of england and wales, northern ireland, some light rain or drizzle here. but many places will be dry. some breaks, even a little bit of sunshine, best of which to the east of high ground in scotland. but that wet weather there in the northwest becomes heavy. persistent gales developing too. for all, temperatures well above the late december average, some around 7 or 8 degrees warmer than it should be. 14 or 15 possible in eastern scotland and northeast england. now, into tonight, the rain continues to fall across some parts of the western highlands. to the north of it, we'll see some clearer skies, something a little bit cooler, a few showers. to the south of it, another mild night with temperatures 9 or 10 degrees into the start of monday morning. as for monday, rain continues to pile in across the western highlands, also the western isles. orkney, shetland, a little bit brighter with sunshine and showers. a bit more cloud to northeastern scotland though compared with today. but southern scotland, northern ireland, england and wales, a few more cloud breaks around. greater chance of some sunshine at times. the odd shower can't be ruled out, more especially through the english channel. temperatures down on today, but still pretty mild. and the run of mild

air continues into tuesday. but as this area of low pressure pushes in towards the west of us, we're going to see the wind strengthen to gale force across some western areas later in the day. outbreaks of rain becoming more widespread here into the afternoon and evening. a wet day to the north and west of scotland too, but the further east you are, you might stay that little bit drier. temperatures here around 10, 11 degrees. but 13 in the west. a very mild day to come on wednesday, as this next batch of low pressure pushes through, bringing rain more widely. but as it clears through into thursday, we're back to northerly winds. so still some wet and mild weather midweek. but, beyond that, turning cooler with a mixture of sunshine and, for some, wintry showers.

because that live from london. this is bbc news. syria's de—facto leader condemns israel for continued air strikes — as the un envoy for syria arrives in damascus for the first time since the fall of assad. here, the government says over 13,000 migrants have been removed from the uk since labour took power but admits the rate of illegal channel crossings is still too high. the five remaining members of the so—called bali nine drug

ring have been freed and returned to australia. and coming up — we hear from a bollywood superstar — who's hoping his new film could make the shortlist at this year's oscars. hello. welcome to the programme. we start with the latest on syria a week after the fall of the assad regime. syria's de—facto leader, ahmed al— sharaa, has condemned israel for its continued air strikes on his country. mr al—sharaa, who was previously known as abu mohammed al—jolani , said the strikes threatened an unwarranted escalation in the region. israel says it wants to prevent syrian weapons falling into the hands of its enemies. meanwhile, the un syria envoy geir pedersen says he hopes for a swift end to sanctions to help facilitate economic recovery. speaking in damascus, where he's attending meetings,

mr pedersen said that reviving law and order — and security —