idid move. i've made the grave mistake of moving just before the holidays because i embrace the chaos. so here we are. you are brave. speaking of chaos, i mean, that kind of brings me to what i wanted to talk about today, which is the future of the democrats. they have endured a pretty chaotic election cycle in 2024. they've seen a lot of highs and lows, as you mentioned, this summer, with the push for biden to end his re—election, peaking with the democratic convention and all the energy around kamala harris's unexpected campaign, and then obviously culminating with the loss of the white house and the senate and narrowly, you know, control of the house. so there's been... i don't know about you guys, but i feel like over the holidays, you know, at a lot of these holiday parties, there's been a lot of finger—pointing and hand—wringing about what's next and what happens. and a lot of people saying they're getting out of town. that's what i encountered at some of those parties. this summer, with the push for biden to end his re—election, peaking with the democratic convention and all the energy around kamala harris's unexpected campaign,

and then obviously culminating with the loss of the white house and the senate and narrowly, you know, control of the house. so there's been... i don't know about you guys, but i feel like over the holidays, you know, at a lot of these holiday parties, there's been a lot of finger—pointing and hand—wringing about what's next and what happens. and a lot of people saying they're getting out of town. that's what i encountered at some of those parties. you know, definitely from the kind of staffers and the officials up on the hill that they're, like... ..they�*re done. they've burnt out. they need a break. they can't see where the party goes from here, and they want to do something else. and these internal battles and jostling on the hill itself for these positions within the house, for example, the top position, the house oversight committee going to a more moderate democrat congressman from virginia instead of, you know, the progressive wing, aoc, alexandria ocasio—cortez, and hand—wringing over that, about what it says about what democrats have learned about the election. i find it so interesting to see these battles being played out on a day—to—day basis in kind of these lower—level roles as well.

yeah. i think, you know, there's no real leader of the party at this point. i think there's... you know, some blame biden for where they are and, you know, others who support him say he would have won if he stayed in the election. there's a lot of debate about that. but i think it speaks to, you know, this is a faceless party trying to pick up the pieces while an emboldened trump is making his grand return to washington with unified control of congress and the white house. and i think the big question behind all of this, and the one that i've been trying to unpack this week, is where does kamala harris fall in all of this? you know, does she stay in the game? does she become the face of this, you know, so—called resistance movement that we saw define the party in 2016? but, you know, where is it now? and you know, sumi, you mentioned some of those races playing out on the hill and i think that speaks

to a generational conversation within the party, right, about where they should be and who should be calling the shots and leading the party and shaping the messaging coming out. i remember after 2016, when hillary clinton lost to donald trump, there was so much soul—searching that the democrats were supposed to be doing at that point and focusing on who was going to be the next generation of leaders. and that is what we're seeing on the hill right now with that wrestling over committee chairs. because right now, if you look at the leadership of the democratic party, you know, it's basically looking at a collection of grandparents, isn't it? whereas you look at the republican party and it's not that, and donald trump every day is announcing a new person who's going to be head of this, ambassador of that, whatever. and because he's, you know, kind of focusing on people who are on tv and stuff, which we can talk about later, like, they all look very glossy and shiny, which is in contrast to what we're seeing from on the democrat side of things.

and, i mean, we haven't really heard from kamala harris, have we? i mean, i'm sure she went away to nurse her wounds a bit, but as to where her position is in the party, she's not been very vocal about that. well, yeah, she had that speech that she delivered in maryland this week and, you know, delivered a kind of similar message to the one that she did after conceding the election. come back ready. ready to chart our| path to the future. and i'm curious to know, courtney, because you've seen these rumours swirling that she might be considering a run for governor of california, that she might want to put her hat in the race again in 2028 for the democrats... throw her hat in the ring, excuse me, for that race, but it feels like a lot of that decision. will come down to what democrats decide — in their postmortem of this election — was the reason for losing.

and we've talked about the fact that donald trump is obviously an incredibly popular president, and that was one of the reasons that we saw the election outcome that we did. but do democrats feel like kamala harris was their strongest candidate to put forward? and if not, would that obviously impact what she decides to do? yeah, and i think, you know, she's going to do her own postmortem — that's what her aides have told me — over the holidays. she kind of flicked at this in her remarks in maryland. and she did, um... they echoed something she said, too, at a holiday party i was at last week at the vice president's residence, which is she wants to take some time over the holidays, figure out, you know, what went wrong, what... you know, kind of audit the campaign that she ran, which was just over 100 days, as you mentioned, and decide where she belongs in the conversation. and i think, as one aide put it to me, does she want to be the face of this resistance movement? what resistance movement, right?

precisely. is there one? is there one, right? feels very different. and i think... yeah - yeah. and i think the governor's race is a real possibility. people are encouraging her. she's been on calls with donors and supporters that have gone on as they express their ideas about what she should be doing. but i think we also have to remember that if she ran for governor, she would be sworn in as she would need to be announcing her run for 2028. so i think there needs to be some soul—searching. you know, look, being governor of the fifth biggest economy is no smalljob, right? but i think, for kamala harris, the white house is the ultimate goal. so she's going to think long and hard about whether that makes sense. it's also taking over for somebody who has long been considered her political peer, gavin newsom, who she jumped ahead of when she ran for the senate. they came up together in california so she'd be, you know,

elected to a job he'd be finishing as he's eyeing the white house. and i think that would be a hard pill for her to swallow. and one other route that i've heard that i haven't seen reported anywhere is, you know, some senior advisers are talking about her taking a more global role, taking on a couple issues where she can go out and speak and, you know, sort of stay in the game, but stay out of the fray a little bit and then make that decision about 2028. what could that look like, courtney? i mean, what would that be? well, i think there is consideration of her launching her own political organisation, right? i think one of the things coming out of the campaign that they are being extremely protective of is this email list,

this, you know, support, this groundswell of support that she was able to put together and harness, you know, over that very condensed campaign. and they're not going to just give that away. they're not going to give that to the dnc. they're trying to weigh what's the smartest thing for her to do? should she launch her own organisation and take on, you know, a couple issues she can speak to? should she continue down this path of trying to really focus on the next generation, right? she's really big on gen 2, which... you know, she's been giving these speeches to students and telling everyone to keep staying in the fight. and that's a theme that we've seen for the last couple of years that i think she wants to continue doing. it's just a matter of what that looks like. doesn't that tell you, though, all you need to know about the trouble that the democratic party is in? like, if she has this enthusiasm and this email list and doesn't want to share it with the rest of the party when they are absent a leader, absent sort of a path or a direction,

that something as kind of basic as that, there isn't agreement on or cooperation on? there's real divisions about which direction the party should head in, and that is both on a generational front but also on an ideologicalfront, right? and you have people who are saying they lost touch with the kitchen table issues. they lost touch with the middle class, right? you have people like aoc who are like, "we need to dig deeper. we need to be anti—trump," right? and i think that, you know, there's no unity at this point. but i also think there are a lot of people, as you said, who are getting out of town, they're resetting, they're keeping their powder dry for afterjanuary 20th, because they want to see how this republican control plays out. that's precisely what i've been looking into as well.

if you look at this quote—unquote resistance, we see a number of democrats talking about ways that they feel like they can work together with the incoming administration, looking for that bipartisan common ground, which is not unusual, you do see that under any administration, but it is a very different tune, isn't it, from what we saw in 2016 and then going into 2017? but i was looking a bit at environmental regulations. i'd seen some reporting this week about how climate change activists are preparing now for this incoming trump administration. and we know that one of the picks that donald trump has made is lee zeldin, to run the environmental protection agency. lee zeldin, a congressman, former republican congressman from new york. and he is someone who started very much as a moderate republican. obviously, new york is a blue state. so the type of republican members of congress you get in that state do tend to be more of a more moderate line, but always a strong, staunch supporter of donald trump and very much now has become one of donald trump's maga warriors, if you will. and he accepted this post, according to reporting that i saw, it's not a post that he asked for and doesn't necessarily have experience with, but back when he was a congressman, he had fought a bit more for environmental protections. and if you look at some of the interviews that he's

done now, he has said, "well, the most important thing is to be able "to implement donald trump's economic agenda," essentially, that, you know, regulations that might be in place to protect the environment should not get in the way and should be then deregulated, to ensure that american businesses can profit and prosper. and it gives you a sense ofjust... i mean, both of you, i know we all covered this campaign and the various issues, climate and the environment played really no role at all, did it? with the exception of "drill, baby, drill." right. you know? yeah, right. we're going to drill, i baby, drill right away. drill, baby, drill. which we heard at every donald trump rally. any time he does an interview, it's mentioned. and to your point about how the environmental agenda

and the economic agenda are linked, a lot of it is around that, a lot of it is around loosening regulations to get control of the natural resources in this country. a couple of weeks ago, just shortly after the election, i was at an event with a number of republican women, and they were extremely excited about what this was going to mean for mining, for, you know, accessing, you know, what is... donald trump called it, you know, the golden liquid or whatever, when he's referring to oil. but there's also other mines in this country, copper mines and stuff like that that people are hoping the rules will be relaxed and there will be a lot of money to be made there and jobs to be created. and, you know, the kind of, um, when you when you raise the environmental impact of these things, you're told, "well, we have good labour protections in this country. "so, if people are going to mine for things anyway, "aren't they better doing it in america "where they'll be looked after?" "well, we have good labour

protections in this country. "so, if people are going to mine for things anyway, "aren't they better doing it in america "where they'll be looked after?" i'm also really interested in the ev aspect, the electric vehicle aspect of this, particularly because, as we've seen in the last few days alone, just how much sway elon musk has over this administration. and, you know, obviously he is planning to unwind all of the subsidies and, um, you know, federal benefits for electric vehicles, right? but those are all designed to help car companies that are in direct competition with tesla, which is elon musk's company, obviously. so it'll be interesting to see, you know, where the conflicts bubble up and, you know, i think particularly with regard to china too, right? like, the biden administration's whole point around this was building up and bolstering the us supply

chain alongside china, whereas it seems like donald trump is looking to completely cut off china entirely from this market, which, of course, could drive prices up here. and as you said, this is all tied to his economic agenda, which is effectively what got him elected. so there's a lot of, you know, high stakes in some of this environmental stuff as well for him, because it all comes down to, what does donald trump's economy look like once he takes over? yeah, there's an ngo here in washington called the environmental integrity project, one that supports the implementation of environmental laws and the enforcement of those laws. and they had taken a look at whether environmental protections are enforced across a number of administrations. and they showed in their research that there was a dip in the first trump administration in those years of enforcement of some of those regulations. so that's possibly something that we could see, you know, rather than rolling back regulations entirely, that you just see the epa and other agencies simply not implement some of the laws that are on the book. and that's certainly something that has, you know, climate change activists and environmental activists

really concerned. but to your point, courtney, this could indeed be a boon for elon musk himself. i mean, obviously, before he came into the picture, there was not much of a focus in the trump administration on evs except to vilify them, especially in a key state like michigan, in that battleground state. but, you with him now there touting teslas and his share of the market, it could be that he is able to influence ev policy in a way that is really beneficial to tesla, and perhaps — we don't know — at the expense of other ev producers. and speaking of elon musk and the supposed outsized role that he seems to have in this incoming administration, it's notjust evs and other policies like that, it's this whole issue of control of the media, which i've been really

looking at this week. media now obviously includes social media and online streaming and so on. and you have elon musk using posts on x to, in particular, i think, sway what's been going on on capitol capitol hill regarding potential shutdown, which may or may not happen in terms of the continuing resolution to keep financing the government. but you also have a lot of the people that donald trump has nominated to cabinet level positions and other positions are attached to him in some way, or to the media in some way, either through his own trump media & technology group or fox news as well. i mean, i had a quick look through the list of some of the people, just to see, you know, what the connections are. it's a kind of dinner party conversation in certain circles in washington, dc, at the moment, like, how can you connect the dots between all the trump nominees? what do they have in common?

and the media seems to be one of them in terms of, if we take just trump media & technology group first, which is the parent company of truth social and a streaming platform called truth plus as well, you've got board members linda mcmahon, who will be on a cabinet role, subject to confirmation, you've got kash patel coming in to head up the fbi, again subject to confirmation. ceo of truth social devin nunes, the former congressman, he's been picked to head the president's intelligence agency. you've got people hosting shows on that network that are very close to donald trump as well, that we know from days gone by, like steve bannon and mike flynn. then you look at fox news, of course, probably the most famous of them all at this point is pete hegseth, who's been nominated for defense secretary. and the difficult process that he's having, or had — seems to be smoothed over now at this point. host on fox & friends. his co—host, rachel campos—duffy, married to sean duffy,

also a host on fox news, he's the pick for transportation secretary. doctor oz, of course, the celebrity doctor who's been picked to head up the agency in charge of medicare and medicaid. and there are a few others as well. and please no—one be offended if i've left you out, given a shout—out to your show. seb gorka as well, of course, who we interviewed on our show a couple of weeks ago, who is going to be the new director for counterterrorism. so there's a really interesting question there in terms of, you know, the media is supposed to be kind of separate in any democracy to the power branches, to the executive and the legislative branches, and now you have this cross—pollination where many of them have shows or have hosted shows or are contributors on these things. and suddenly it's kind of hard to see where the lines are and is the control that donald trump when he's president has will then reach far beyond the press briefing room at the white house

and almost bypass it, in a way. i know that's a place you're very familiar with, courtney, and obviously you're a board member of the white house correspondents' association as well. has this come up for discussion at all? oh, yes, absolutely. i'm unfortunately limited in what i can share, but i can say that, you know, we've had rigorous discussions about what the role of media looks like in a trump 2.0 administration, both with the administration, incoming administration itself, and within the press corps, right? i think there's a lot of, um, nervousness about what the expectations are. they obviously have said they want to shake up how they interact and engage with media, as they did during the campaign. but there is an essential role but there is an essential role there as well, right? there as well, right? and i think, as you mentioned, and i think, as you mentioned, in the trump administration, in the trump administration, the lines get blurred sometimes the lines get blurred sometimes

because a lot of the trump officials because a lot of the trump officials — and you both remember this — and you both remember this from the first administration — from the first administration — they're going on air they're going on air and they're messaging and they're messaging the administration's talking points the administration's talking points for an audience of one. for an audience of one. and that is donald trump, right? and that is donald trump, right? and so there's almost a sort of, um, and so there's almost a sort of, um, broadcast mentality to being a part broadcast mentality to being a part of this administration. of this administration. so of course having so of course having a media background is a media background is something that he views... something that he views... he values, right? he values, right? but that also means, of the day, the hope is, but that also means, yeah, where do the lines yeah, where do the lines something that he views...he values, something that he views...he values, right? _ right? _ but that also means, but that also means, yeah, where do the lines yeah, where do the lines of independent media begin? of independent media begin? and just regurgitating talking points that are handed to you by people who straddle the line between the media world and the trump administration world, right? and so i think, at the end

that are going to make sure that there's coverage with him a press conference. i think last week, you know, we saw him in his first press an established pool of reporters who were there to listen, to ask questions. that was supposed to be a prescheduled statement, right? but it turned into a press conference because i think he realises he likes to be in front of reporters as much as reporters

like to be in front of him. yeah. yeah. to appoint her to that, is that donald trump, he sees these is that donald trump, he sees these platforms as important. platforms as important. but it also made me think but it also made me think about the fact that, about the fact that, in this election campaign, in this election campaign, the trump campaign was very the trump campaign was very effective in building effective in building an entire media narrative, an entire media narrative, excluding those legacy excluding those legacy media organisations. media organisations. yeah. yeah. i mean, he proved through i mean, he proved through the campaign that you can get the campaign that you can get elected without really having elected without really having to engage with the legacy media, to engage with the legacy media, that you can do those long—form that you can do those long—form sit—down podcasts for, you know, two, three hours and reach far more people and you're far more in control of what you're saying. one name, actually, that i left out from my list that i should add, and we can talk about in a later sit—down podcasts for, edition of path to the presidency, is, of course, kari lake, who donald trump wants to see as head of voice of america. now, it's not directly in his gift

all we can do is put in a plug for everyone to turn to the bbc, as always. on all platforms. as we track the path to the presidency. hello there. well, it's a very windy weekend in store and it's a big one for travel too with the run up to christmas, so watch out for some travel disruption caused by the strength of the wind, particularly for the western half of the uk. also, maybe some icy surfaces on some of the roads on saturday night into sunday as the air turns colder and there will be some wintry showers pushing down from the north west. here's our area of low pressure. it's been approaching

from the north west, this huge mass of cloud. the winds really picking up very brisk westerlies out towards exposed coastal areas of northwest scotland. there could even be some gusts of wind of up to 80 miles an hour through the day on saturday, but widely gusts of 50—60mph an hour across northern ireland and into northwest england, too. now, there's an area of cloud and rain gradually pushing further southwards and eastwards across england and wales as we head through the second half of the day. sunny spells but also blustery showers digging in behind. the winds are pretty brisk towards the south as well, although lighter than further north and west, and this is how we'll end the afternoon. still, that mild air hanging on towards the southern half of the uk, 12 or 13 celsius, but it will soon be replaced on saturday night into sunday by these much colder—feeling conditions. sunday by these much low pressure pushing eastwards towards the north of the uk, so the winds come down from the north west and there's a tight squeeze on the isobars, so it remains very blustery out

towards the northwest, with some of the strongest of the winds transferring a little further southwards as the as the night wears on, wintry showers watch out for those icy surfaces. for those icy surfaces. it could be very tricky it could be very tricky for travelling with those for travelling with those strong gusty winds. strong gusty winds. and this is how we'll start and this is how we'll start off the day on sunday, off the day on sunday, on a much colder—feeling note. on a much colder—feeling note. now, this is the area now, this is the area of most concern on sunday. of most concern on sunday. this is where we'll see the this is where we'll see the strongest winds of up to 50—60mph. strongest winds of up to 50—60mph. so, that now includes much of wales so, that now includes much of wales and down through south west england. and down through south west england. and there will be some more and there will be some more showers around again, showers around again, likely to be wintry likely to be wintry over the higher ground, over the higher ground, particularly across particularly across the hills of scotland, the hills of scotland, although it will turn quite quickly although it will turn quite quickly back to rain, i think, back to rain, i think, as we head through the afternoon as we head through the afternoon with some slightly with some slightly milder—feeling air. milder—feeling air. but elsewhere it is set to be really but elsewhere it is set to be really quite chilly through the day. quite chilly through the day. a lot of added wind chill and temperatures won't make a lot of added wind chill and temperatures won't make

here in washington, the us government looks set to avoid a looming shutdown after the house passed a spending bill at the eleventh hour — you can see live pictures there from the floor of the us senate — where senators are preparing to take their own vote on the bill. and in germany, authorities are investigating a deadly attack on a christmas market. let's begin with that developing story in germany, where a car ploughed through crowds at a christmas market, leaving at least two people dead — including a small child — and injuring over 60. emergency services and police are still in attendance — and all hospitals are preparing for a mass casualty event. the suspect is said to be a 50 year old doctor who's a saudi

national and who has been in germany since 2006.