the militant group palestinian islamichhad — has told the bbc they've agreed to free the israeli civilian hostage arbel yehud — on friday — in exchange for 30 palestinian prisoners. president trump says he'd like to see a—million—and—a—half of gaza's residents taken in by other arab nations — including jordan and egypt. he is calling the strip "a demolition site" where "something needs to happen". lebanon accuses the israeli army of firing at residents trying to return to their homes in the country's south. officials say at least twenty—two people have been killed and over a hundred wounded. alexander lukashenko is on track to win a seventh term as belarusian president with 87.6% of the vote in sunday s election, according to an exit poll. lukashenko, has dismissed speculation that he might hand over to one of his three sons. now on bbc news —

the president's path. we were on the path to the presidency. now we're on, drum roll, please... both: the president's path. i was waiting for you to say it. president donald trump has delivered on his promises so far to be fast and furious in everything that he's done since he came into office. he's officially back, i think, in every way, physically, you know, policy—wise, news wise, news cycle wise. i mean, it has been nonstop since he's taken that oath of office. yeah, it really has been. somebody described it as the whiplash effect that, you know, you had in the first term. and it does take some getting used to. and also seeing president trump back in the white house leading press conferences himself.

that's something we obviously did not see from president biden. and, you know, the fluidity with which he can hold those press conferences and really dominate them as well. but at the same time, that adversarial relationship he has with the press corps was made clear as well as people are pressing him on some of those executive orders we're going to talk about. so itjust kind of is a reminder of, yeah, this new era that we're in, again, with donald trump back in the white house. it's almost as if the last four years hadn't happened. right? i mean, there'sjust a confidence there with him coming in this time that just wasn't present in 2016. and i think they've really, you know, i think part of the aim was to come in fast and furious, right? but they've enacted their agenda aggressively. and the thing that i wanted to kind of kick off with you guys, in terms of talking through some of these executive orders,

which have obviously dominated the news cycle this week is, of course, immigration being one of the major themes coming off of this. you know, the first three days he's been issuing immigration orders, he declared the national emergency we talked about, deploying troops to the border, halting refugee resettlement funding for the us. you know, going after sanctuary cities, seen to be, you know, not cooperating with the federal mass deportations, which we're expecting, you know, just a whole string of really aggressive immigration policies. and i think thatjust speaks to one, you know, this is somebody who widely thinks he won the election on immigration. we talk about the economy, but i think trump believes immigration put him back here.

and two, just test the limits of his power with some of the executive orders that we've seen. you make that point about donald trump thinking he won the election on immigration. and we've heard him say that, i think, almost every single time that he's spoken since monday lunchtime. you know, "immigration is the number one issue," when all of the polling before the election day and the exit polls on the election day, everyone said economic matters, inflation, cost of living and so on were their most important reason for voting for donald trump or for how they cast their vote. and to your point about how sort of organised he is as well, i think that's really interesting. you know, he was saying — and we were talking about it last week — "i'm going to do 100, 200 things on my first day". and he has, and he had all of these memos and executive orders and executive actions ready to go. and everything that he promised

he was going to do, he's done. and i think, you know, when you're saying he was gone for those four years, it's almost like he used those four years to be so prepared and to have everything and all the think tanks and organisations that have been assisting him, that it was really, truly a movement, like we used to talk about the silent majority in the 2016 election. people kind of liked the feeling or the vibe of donald trump, whereas this was a movement for action. it was, itjust feels a bit different in that way. and, you know, we've all talked to many democrats who have admitted that the immigration system simply isn't working. they wouldn't necessarily agree with the measures that donald trump has taken in these executive orders. but the fact that he has declared a national emergency at the southern border, is surging troops there. these are all things that he telegraphed, didn't he? i think there are two aspects that did surprise me. one, the refugee resettlement programme and cancelling all of those flights also

for around 1,600 people from afghanistan who are either family members of active duty service members or had helped the us military. we know that this is an issue that has broad bipartisan support to help resettle some of these afghans in the us, so the fact that those flights have been cancelled — of course, they're reviewing it for three months, so it could be that they come back to this — that surprised me. and then the birthright citizenship issue that we saw a pretty broad and, pretty wide—reaching look at birthright citizenship. this is something that donald trump talked about on the election... on the campaign trail, rather. but the fact that the order on birthright citizenship specifically also points to citizenship for children of people who are here on temporary visas legally, right? so who are here as students. that is, i'd say, a step further than i had anticipated it would go. but what do you guys think? yeah, i mean, ithink the birthright citizenship,

you know, certainly is a big one. and we'll see, you know, how that plays out in court. i think the battle over that will absolutely will be focussed in the federal courts. we've already seen legal challenges there, of course. and it's enshrined in the constitution, right? so there's questions there about whether he can actually do that. you know, let's say congress passes a constitutional amendment on this, it still needs a two thirds vote in the house and the senate and then ratified by three quarters of the, you know, the states, right? so it's a long journey. but i think it speaks tojust how much he believes, you know, just how far right this country has shifted. and this will be a test, right? i think also for the american public in terms of how this is received. this is something, as you said, he talked about on the campaign trail. it's something he talked about even in his first term, right?

but we've already seen, you know, congress line up behind some of the rhetoric around this. i mean, as you mentioned, the democrats have agreed that the system is broken. we saw some of them vote for the laken riley act, which ramps up deportations for migrants with criminal records, right? and that has already shown that there is this rightward shift. the question is, just how much has this country shifted? and with the refugee resettlement stuff, too. i mean, itjust completely reshapes the us role, global role, on being a place, a sanctuary for refugees and immigrants. and the question is, will that still be the case over the next four years? and a couple of interesting points on both of those. on the afghan issue, the pull—out from afghanistan was one of the big sticks that donald trump was using to beat

joe biden with in terms of foreign policy and why he was a failed president. so it's really interesting to me that that's one of the first things that donald trump goes after when he spoke about, you know, he uses words like "mess" and all kinds of things about that withdrawal. and that has left this issue of these people that the united states essentially left behind and whose lives are at risk now, they say, from the taliban rule. but also on the birthright citizenship. i drilled down into the numbers a little bit to see, you know, how big of an issue is this, if you think it is an issue. so there are about four million babies born in the united states every year, and for the last 20 or so years, around about a fifth or a quarter of them have been born to what are called foreign—born mothers. now, that includes people who are undocumented or illegal, but it also includes legal immigrants, and it includes people who are from puerto rico or the us virgin islands territories of the united states, and therefore

entitled to citizenship. so in one way, it's a million babies are born to foreign—born parents under those statistics. but the court cases that we've seen happen already this week are talking about it impacting 150,000,160,000 babies each year. so relative to how many babies are born in this country, that's really a tiny amount. so to prioritise it in this way, and knowing that it will probably end up all the way in the supreme court and it may take a few years, seems to me like it was a move to deliver on a promise, but more it's the pr of it, or the marketing of it in a way, that, you know, president trump is going after these things, but they don't actually, you know, if he's talking about trying to deport ten or 11 million undocumented people in this country, 150,000 babies a year is really a very small

percentage of that. i just want to add we are recording on thursday afternoon, and i'm just seeing that a federaljudge in seattle actually has temporarily blocked the executive order to end birthright citizenship, saying "it's blatantly unconstitutional and that it boggles his mind". so that's in seattle, in washington. so just a brief update to your point there, courtney, on this having to go through the courts. and obviously that's an uphill battle for trump. but interesting to see that come out already of course. so that is one policy that won't come into fruition because some of the, i mean, there are 22 states taking court actions, and some of the named people are pregnant women now in this country who are wondering what happens to their child. so we have to get the details of that injunction as to how long it will be stayed for. but it's just another, i suppose, point of, you know, how this country moves forward now from all of these executive actions and what they will mean

for people's lives. we expected many of these executive orders, didn't we? you know, donald trump talked about a lot of them, including on deia. so diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility programmes in the federal government. this is a big deal. merit. our country is going to be based on merit again. - can you believe it? he had said that he wanted to rid the government of those. so the fact that he passed this executive order, making sure that these schemes are stopped and that the workers are put on paid leave is perhaps not that surprising. i think what's interesting is this pattern that we're seeing of taking a one step further, because we've now seen this letter and i'm just pulling it up here. a friend of a friend who works in the federal government had passed it on. and it's identical to all the letters that we've seen circulating. that there was this letter from the acting secretary of homeland security, benjamin huffman, saying that they want people

who are aware of any change or contact description of personnel, basically to obscure any links to deia to report that, and that does send, you know, a bit of a signal to all of those in the federal government that not only will these programmes be rid of, but that they're expected to report on their colleagues as well, if you will, almost as whistle—blowers. well, we heard lots of reports of that last week, didn't we, in advance of president trump taking office and elon musk�*s doge and the efforts to shrink the federal workforce. that people were reportedly reportedly changing their titles, theirjob titles from, you know, roles that may be dei but also may look like political appointees into more staff, appointees or long service public servants, essentially, to try and save theirjobs. and it's definitely caused a ripple around washington dc,

you know, including the other eo about ending the working from home directive and ordering all the federal workers to go back to work as well. that has caused chaos, i can tell you, in the parents groups that i'm in, as people are now panicking about childcare, about dropping off to school at a certain time and still making it into work. and i think that's exactly what president trump wanted to do. he wants all federal workers in there and not having sort of advantages of working from home that perhaps others in other parts of america don't enjoy that. you know, if you're working in manufacturing or somewhere where you have to clock in and clock out every day, you don't have the luxury of working from home and being able to manage your household in a different way. and the other interesting thing on the dei was including environmentaljustice officers in that initiative as well. so it's notjust people, you know, chief diversity officers or inclusivity officers, it's environmental justice officers as well.

so again, just reaching into a different space and trying to reach into the private sector as well and just really having blanket approaches to things. yeah, it speaks to a couple things for me. one, you know, some of the real world effects of some of these executive orders, which every president does, right? at the beginning of an administration, they want to set the tone, they want to set the messaging. and some of these are for the base, as we talked about, you know, with birthright citizenship, the uphill battle there, right? and then some of these have these real world effects on people's lives. now, this one obviously is specific to the federal government, which is a huge operation. but i think it also speaks to donald trump's, you know, drive to drain the swamp, right? and this overarching theme of rooting out people

who are not loyal to him, people who are not willing to carry out the policies of this administration. and also his overall theme of, you know, rooting out the sort of the so—called woke culture that they talk about, right? as caitriona, you mentioned, this isn't something thatjust is affecting the federal government. we're seeing it throughout corporate america. we're seeing companiesjust left, right and centre removing their dei policies to fall in line with where, you know, the conversation is right now. and i think this is one of the executive orders that certainly will have real impact on people's lives. and this declaration from president trump as well. and he's repeated it in some of the speeches that he's made since he was inaugurated, including in front of all those business leaders in davos.

this decision that there are to be only two genders, male and female, and that there's a ban on any federal funding being used for any gender reassignment surgeries or anything like that. and just these policies, i think they were well—flagged, but maybe a lot of people thought they wouldn't actually come to fruition. i mean, they're really causing a lot of upset. we've spoken so much on the pod about how polarised this country is, and 77 million people voted for him. 75 million people voted against him. but some of the beliefs are so, you know, they're so polar opposed to each other that it's you kind of struggle to see how society is going to evolve once all of these policies are fully transposed. if, you know, you identify in a certain way and you're sitting beside somebody else who just thinks you don't exist, or you don't have the right to exist,

how do you carry on your life like that? certainly, in this environment, and i was speaking to a democrat member of congress who was saying, look, "what this also shows us is that the republicans and donald trump in particular, have won the culture war issues. "they have won those, you know, even more so than having won a decisive victory in the election, particularly on these cultural touch points like transgender issues and dei, quote, wokeness in federal institutions". you know, as we were discussing a few minutes ago, everything coming into the election was about it's the economy, it's cost of living, it's cost of housing, it's affordability, and a lot of the focus on what president trump has done since his inauguration has been on immigration and dei, and these issues that we've been discussing there. and while he has also signed a lot of executive orders that are related to economic issues, there hasn't been a big sweep

of the pen on something that's going to immediately make cheaper houses for people or put cash in their back pockets. you know, one of the orders was on affordable housing, sort of directing housing agencies to reduce the price of housing, but how do you do that? and if you put tariffs on goods coming in from abroad, is that building materials, does that then actually drive up the cost of housing? and how all of this is going to link together and actually deliver cheaper housing for people is just not clear to me at this point. and i suppose, to be fair to president trump, we're only a few days into his administration, but i think these are areas that people were really waiting to see action on. and it's a more complicated subject to actually deliver upon. what do you guys think? i think you hit the nail on the head. i mean, there was a lot of people waiting with bated breath about some of the tariffs he talked

about on day one and how that would have an effect on american consumers. there was an order, you know, as directing all agencies to reduce consumer prices. and then every 30 days, he'd get a progress report from his top white house economic adviser. that's all fine and great, but that doesn't change, you know, the hardships that voters and americans are facing. and for, you know, the very reason they put him in office, according if we're looking at the polling, right? and so it will it, you know, it obviously is very early days, but i am interested to see with, you know, some of these orders he's issued on trade and economic policy, you know, directing all these agencies to, you know, file these progress reports or investigations into trade deficits or unfair practices, where that leads us,

where that goes. i mean, he's spoken to, you know, tariffs coming in february, but you know, it's the real world effect of some of this stuff. you know, i think people are going to be watching very closely as he's settling into his administration. and i've seen some democrats already taking this as a line of attack, saying, "it's day two. "it's day three. "it's day four of the trump administration, and the prices of eggs are still as high as they were before the election". and of course, that's perhaps an unfair standard. although donald trump said he would bring prices down on day one. inflation is sticky. it's hard to bring down, and it's clearly not, you know, there's not one executive order that would bring down the price of eggs, necessarily. there are a number of factors that go into why grocery prices and a number of other things like housing, why those prices are so high right now. at the same time, i think that the fact that we've seen these executive orders

on immigration and that we've heard donald trump talk about tariffs, that is a way for him to address the economic issues without perhaps being able to bring down those prices right away. i just don't see this — and i wonder what you guys think — ijust don't see this being a liability for donald trump, that people would grow frustrated with him within a week or two weeks because prices are still high because he is still delivering on many of the promises that he made on the campaign trail. he's delivering on almost all of the promises that he made on the campaign trail. and i think people are — it's notjust us in the media, but in a bit of a tailspin because he is doing so much so quickly. i mean, he'sjust blitzing records about what presidents usually do in the first few hours or days, and a lot of it is to do with deregulation and removing regulations on things, which is a deeply unsexy topic, in many ways, to talk about and impenetrable in other ways as well. but, you know, one of his big gripes is how long it

takes to get things done, particularly in relation to housing. you know, he's always referring to "this is my business. "i build things, i build beautiful buildings and houses and hotels and apartments and the thing that ramps the price up a lot of the time is regulation and red tape". so we've seen him remove a lot of those, particularly around environmental regulations as well. and, you know, an environmental reports that have to be ordered before construction can start and all of that. so there's a bit of a longer lag with some of these economic policies, i think, in terms of how long we have to wait for something to be delivered upon. and then the other big thing, of course, and again, it's related to inflation and costs are all the energy policies and the national energy emergency as well, and the "drill, baby drill". it's not an episode of the podcast if i don't get to say "drill, baby, drill". but you know, the beautiful liquid gold that he's always

talking about and again, spoke about it when he was speaking to those world leaders and business leaders at davos. and that's a big thing that there's a lot of bipartisan support for as well, is, you know, increasing america's energy production as a way of bringing down costs. and, you know, i don't know what you guys think of when we might see that or what impact you think that will have. part of it also is just repealing all of the environmental efforts that the biden administration put forward, right? it's, you know, all the regulation. he's looking at repealing, you know, some of the guidelines for implementing climate related provisions of the inflation reduction act, which is largely seen as one of biden's big legacy pieces. so part of this, of course, is feeding into that campaign promise of drill, baby drill. but it is also unwinding the environmental legacy that his predecessor had built over the last four years.

ladies, this has been a fantastic the president's path. first round of this. our maiden voyage. yeah, the maiden voyage. a long way to go. and we'll be there every step of the way, so do stay with us for that. ok, i guess we got to go back to work. donald trump has probably signed four executive orders in the time that we've been speaking here. hello. a deep area of low pressure has again taken charge of our weather during today. another storm system, this one named by the spanish weather service for impacts it is having in spain. but storm herminia also bringing impacts here. met office yellow warnings for wind and rain remain in force through the rest of today into tomorrow. the satellite picture shows this storm, the centre of the storm, well out

to the west of us, but through today we've been watching this development here, a hook of cloud appearing along the line of this weather front. actually, we've spun up another very small scale area of low pressure, and that will be shifting northwards through this evening and tonight, bringing a spell of very heavy rain. yes, across england and wales, increasing the risk of flooding. but also as this little feature works its way northwards just on the southern edge, see the little hook in the rainfall pattern there? we could have some very squally conditions for a time. a few places could see gusts of 60—70, maybe 80mph, but that will be quite a localised feature, in other places it willjust be a blustery night. and these small—scale features are always hard to predict in terms of the exact track they will take, but it may well be that we see some heavy rain first thing across eastern scotland. if it gets a little bit further west, well, it could turn to snow over high ground. another band of rain driving out of northern ireland, northern england into southern scotland.

again some snow over high ground, some blustery heavy downpours into wales, the southwest of england. very windy around these southern and western coasts. gusts of 60—70mph, a sustained period of strong winds, pretty brisk winds inland across the south as well. so another rather disturbed day weather wise on monday. as we look ahead to tuesday, well, our area of low pressure will still be with us, but it will be weakening, it will be filling. and so while we will continue to see some showers or longer spells of rain, the weather generally looking a little bit calmer with more in the way of dry interludes around, some spells of sunshine and temperatures of around seven to ten degrees. now, as we look a little bit further ahead on wednesday, southern parts could see another dose of heavy rain, another area of low pressure moving through. a little bit drier further north and it does look a little bit calmerfor the end of the week.

live from london. this is bbc news.

the palestinian militant group islamichhad tells the bbc it will free israeli civilian hostage arbel yehud on friday, in exchange for the release of 30 palestinian prisoners. it could pave the way for israel to allow tens of thousands of palestinians to return to their homes in northern gaza. egypt and jordan reject president trump's suggestion that they take in one and a half million gazans because the strip is — quote — "a demolition site". i would like egypt to take people and jordan to take people, you are talking about probably 1.5 million people and we just clean out that whole thing. lebanon says israeli troops have killed 22 people, as thousands of villagers tried to return to their homes in the south. and exit polls give alexander lukashenko 87% of the vote in a belarusian presidential election dismissed as a "sham" by the us and eu.