Top Story with Tom Llamas - Wednesday, November 13, 2024

Episode Date: November 14, 2024

Tonight's Top Story has the latest breaking news, political headlines, news from overseas and the best NBC News reporting from across the country and around the world.

Good evening. We start this special edition of Top Story with breaking news. President-elect Trump making a stunning choice to lead the nation's Justice Department. Trump's selecting Florida congressman, Matt Gates, for Attorney General. The announcement sending shockwaves through Washington for Democrats and Republicans alike. Gates is a controversial figure for a number of reasons, and if you're wondering who he is, You might remember this moment on the floor of the Republican National Convention just this summer. If you took that stage, you would get booed off the stage. That tense clash between Gates and former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy underscores why Republicans

might not all be on board with the pig. Gates led the effort to oust McCarthy last October, and Gates has served in Congress since 2017. He's a lawyer. The Trump loyalist is tapped to lead the same department who investigated him for alleged sex trafficking just last year. And though that case ended with no charges, he has still been investigated by the House Ethics Committee. Gates was seen

with Trump departing his plane this morning on the campaign trail. The president elect repeatedly threatened to lock up his enemy enemies. One question tonight is, will Gates try to carry out those threats? The decision is drawing sharp reaction around Congress. The president is smart enough

and his team is smart enough to know that Mr. Gates will never get confirmed by the Senate whatsoever. I like Matt a lot. I know him very well, and I'm confident that if the Senate confirms him, he would do a good job. That announcement coming at the same time, Trump revealed he's selecting former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard to serve as Director of National Intelligence. Gabbard left the Democratic Party in 2022 and became a high-profile Trump supporter. The president-elect also officially confirming Florida Senator, who you just heard from right there, Marco Rubio, as his nominee for Secretary of State. Here's a look at the positions Trump has announced some very recognizable faces among the bunch.

And though Trump's second administration is starting to take shape, there are still a number of top spots still up for grabs. Trump has vowed to fix the economy so Treasury and Secretary of Commerce will be crucial positions. And who could take on the role of press secretary? Our new reporting on who could seek to take questions from the White House podium and how the situation in the briefing room could look vastly different. And we now have a new Senate Majority Leader, Republicans voting South the Qaeda. Senator John Thune to succeed longtime leader Mitch McConnell. That announcement has Republicans gained control of Congress. NBC News projecting that the GOP will retain a majority in the House.

It comes roughly a week after they won a majority in the Senate. The dominant red wave signaling a clear path for President-elect Trump to enact his agenda, and Trump throwing his weight behind Mike Johnson for House Speaker. Johnson was just unanimously voted to be the nominee. He will face an official floor vote in early January. And breaking at this hour, the Pennsylvania Senate race, is heading to a recount, the heated race between Republican Dave McCormick, who is leading right now and Democrat Senator Bob Casey holding a narrow margin

triggering that automatic recount. And so much news happening tonight that you may have forgotten this. Oh, yeah, President Biden welcoming President-elect Trump to the White House, signaling a peaceful transfer of power, something that didn't happen four years ago in the lead-up to January 6th. We're following the break in details as they come in with our reporters. Take a look at this, spread out all over Washington and the country. We start our coverage tonight with NBC's Vaughn Hilliard, who's in West Palm Beach, Florida, the home state of the man, who may be the next Attorney General. So, Vaughn, let's get right to it. Talk to us a little bit about Matt Gates, what we know about him, how this all occurred.

We saw that Gates was on President-elect Trump's plane with Elon Musk when the announcement happened. So talk to us about the Gates-Trump relationship. Right. We actually saw Matt Gates fly to Washington, D.C., here from Mar-Lago this morning with E. Elon Musk, and it frankly wasn't too much of a surprise because you could make the case ever since Donald Trump left Washington, D.C. four years ago that he hasn't had a stronger political ally than Matt Gates, a Florida congressman. But that is when, in the air, back to Mara Lago here today, the announcement was made by Donald Trump that he had selected Matt Gates to be the Attorney General. Let's be clear. Nobody was talking about Matt Gates being

this selection. It was a head turner because he has been not only somebody who was on the front lines of defending Donald Trump throughout the multiple criminal indictments that he faced. I recall back after his first criminal indictment from the New York case back last March, at Marlago, there was a party, essentially a party that night when Donald Trump returned to Florida, his estate. And I remember one key face who was there. It was Matt Gates. Matt Gates has defended him through the thick and thin. And so by tapping him to go to the Department of Justice, if he's confirmed, Donald Trump knows. that he has somebody here who has echoed his claims that there are political prosecutions

that came from the Department of Justice under the Biden administration. Yeah, Vaughn, do we know what qualifications Gates may have to be the Attorney General? He is an attorney, and he has served now for a number of years in the U.S. Congress, and qualifications that think, at the forefront, are not only his loyalty to Donald Trump, but also the faith in the trust that Donald Trump has in him, because the two men have talked consistently about the Department of Justice needing to root out what they call corruption,

rooting out and having the firing of some career of prosecutors inside of the office who they say have acted nefariously to go after Republicans, including Matt Gates himself, who was under investigation at one time by the Department of Justice, but also Donald Trump,

who obviously, it was the special counsel that ultimately indicted him on two charges. So Donald Trump has found somebody who wants to go and do the Department of Justice exactly what he campaigned on doing. Yeah, Vaughn, we rolled that clip from the Republican National Convention when Gates was going after McCarthy. And that essentially was because of this investigation in the House. What do we know about the multiple investigations that involved Matt Gates? Exactly. It was the Department of Justice that actually dropped its investigation and announced that they would not bring any charges against Matt Gates last year after a lengthy investigation. tied to a friend of Matt Gates here in Florida,

who ended up getting sentenced to 11 years in prison for pleading guilty for the trafficking of a minor. And there was an investigation into whether Matt Gates was an associate and a part of that trafficking scheme. Ultimately, the Department of Justice did not bring charges against Matt Gates. But ever since, Matt Gates said that it was nefarious actions of the Department of Justice

that cast a cloud over him politically. And right now, there is still a House ethics committee investigation into him. Of course, that was a key reason as to when Speaker McCarthy was ousted that Matt Gates was on the front lines of calling for him to be removed, and that is where in that video clip you saw that that has been a tension's relationship. I was talking to McCarthy just last year after he left the speakership, and he had suggested to me that it would be only a matter of time in which Matt Gates would be no longer in the Congress because of the allegations against him. Well, it may be accurate that Matt

Gates may not be in Congress, but it's more so because Donald Trump has tapped and nominate him to be the Attorney General. And on that point, that brings me my next question, Senate approval, right? We just went over this. Republicans have the majority in the Senate. You know, will he get the votes to be confirmed? That's a serious question here. They're going to have a narrow majority, and there are already a couple lawmakers who have

spoken out about concerns or even more so surprised. But we have seen the Republican Party largely in lockstep over. over the years, fall in line with Donald Trump's desires and wishes. And so the question here is whether there will be three or four Republican senators who could potentially keep him from taking the reins. This is going to be a notable fight here through the confirmation process, not only getting him out of the Judiciary Committee, but whether Donald Trump really has a true grip on the Republican Party.

Because based off of his nominee so far, there is nobody who is more of a contentious pick in the selection so far than Matt Gates. I want to play something that Gates said at CPAC last year that could really set the tone for his time as Attorney General. Let's take a listen. I don't care if it takes every second of our time and every ounce of our energy. We either get this government back on our side or we defund and get rid of abolish the FBI, CDC, ATF, DOJ, every last one of them if they do not come to heal.

You know, Vaughn, this is interesting, because you'll remember back in 2017 when Trump's cabinet was starting to take shape. You know, a lot of the reporting was that, you know, Trump was picking people that came out of central casting. They essentially fit the part. What we're seeing this time around is that he's picking people that are incredibly loyal. Exactly. Jeff Sessions was his first pick. And at the time, he thought he was loyal to him, but ultimately had him fired less than a year later after selecting him. And nobody is doubting Matt Gates' loyalty to Donald Trump. And Donald Trump has suggested himself that there should be mass investigations,

not only into the Biden administration, but into Special Counsel Jack Smith, into the other prosecutors in Atlanta, New York, that brought charges against him. And so there has been a longstanding tradition in the Department of Justice over the last five decades that any criminal investigations and prosecutions coming out of the DOJ are made separate independent of that of the president, but there are other close allies of Donald Trump who contend that this is the executive branches Department of Justice, therefore Donald Trump's Department of Justice, and the incoming president should have say over the investigations that commence out of that office. And there is no reason really to believe that Matt Gates is somebody who will not take the direction of Donald Trump, because these two men have walked in lockstep for a number of years now.

And as you heard from that clip, Matt Gates is eager to take on the Department of Justice in a very serious way. Vaughn Hillier leading us off tonight here on Top Story. Vaughn, we appreciate that. I want to dig a little deeper on this issue. For more on the Matt Gates nomination in his potential role as Attorney General, I want to bring in senior legal correspondent Laura Jarrett. Laura, always great to see you here on Top Story. As we mentioned, Matt Gates is an extreme loyalist.

In Trump's announcement, here's what he said. On Truth Social, he called Gates a deeply gifted and tenacious attorney who has distinguished himself in Congress through his focus on achieving desperately needed reform at the Department of Justice. And look, I mean, truth be told, this is nothing new, right? John F. Kennedy hired his brother, a loyalist, to be Attorney General. But this is a little different in the sense that Gates is a loyalist and Trump has been campaigning on going after his political enemies. What essentially does that mean?

It means that as the top law enforcement officer in the country, Gates would have the power to bring cases, not saying that he will, but he would have the power to bring cases to use resources, to wield the power of the FBI against whoever he wants. Now, his check, of course, would be the trial system, the jury system. It's not to say that there wouldn't be guardrails in place, but the Attorney General is probably the most important position next to the FBI director. If we're talking about actual criminal cases, something that the president elect, even calling out DOJ officials this evening by name,

there is a significant amount of power that can be wielded. Whip out the instruction manual for the DOJ. If Gates does want to do this, again, this is all theoretical. I mean, we don't know what he's going to do. But he's talking about bringing people to heal, right? We're not just sort of making this up. It's what current DOJ officials are telling me tonight, but multiple current and formal DOJ officials are saying

they are worried about the department being used for political ends. And Trump has said he wants to prosecute several of his political enemies. But what I want to ask you to want you to explain to our viewers. So say Gates has an idea and he wants to prosecute somebody. What are the steps? The FBI gets involved. There's obviously U.S. attorneys that get involved. Talk to me more about the potential guardrails. Yeah. So the U.S. attorneys and all of the different districts throughout the country would be the one who would actually file the charges. They would typically go in front of a grand jury. A grand jury would have to actually indict whoever the chosen person would be.

And then that would go to a trial and someone would have to actually get convicted. But even just being under criminal investigation, as Matt Gates would know, is a significant thing. Even if you're cleared, even if you don't actually ultimately face charges, it's no small thing to be under federal investigation. And Gates has called for the investigation of prosecutors we've seen in the past. Again, not saying that he will do it, but he has used that type of rhetoric. So Republicans will say, and they'll criticize them to say, listen, that's exactly what just happened under the Biden administration.

The president was indicted in both civil court but also federal as well. What you're saying and what you're explaining is that there's a process here. And if there is smoke there, investigators will investigate the FBI, the U.S. attorneys. But if there's nothing there, there are guardrails. And it all, I think, at least according to the officials that I've talked to, leads to a corrosion of the system and leads to people believing that the system is not on the up and up. If you can use it just against people that you think don't like politically. Laura Jarrett, so great to have you to explain all that.

We appreciate it. Tonight, the other major cabinet announcement, the president-elect naming former House Democrat and staunch supporter Tulsi Gabbard to be director of national intelligence. If you remember, Gabbard ran her own campaign for president back in 2020 when she ran against now President Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination. For more on all of this, Ken Delanyan joins us tonight. So, Ken, first, can you walk our viewers through Gabbard's very scattered political trajectory that got her to this point?

Scattered is a good term for it, Tom. Look, she was an Iraq combat veteran and then served in Congress as a Democrat representing district in Hawaii for a number of. of years and then even ran for president in the Democratic primary in 2020 and had a moment where she really went after Kamala Harris. But even during that time, she was taking increasingly extreme positions on foreign policy, really turning more towards the America first notion of getting out of foreign wars, of not projecting power abroad. She even heavily criticized the U.S. involvement in the Syria war and went and visited President Bashar al-Assad in 2017

amid much criticism of that. And then she decided, after her unsuccessful run for president, she began taking more and more conservative positions, decided she was leaving the Democratic Party, became a Republican, not only a Republican, a MAGA acolyte, and began supporting Donald Trump. And even helped him out when he went to debate Kamala Harris. So she's really come full circle.

Okay, and then, you know, back during the 2020 Democratic primaries, there was a lot of speculation from Democrats that Gabbard was sowing heightened levels of distrust in the election process and pointed to Gabbard's alleged ties of possible involvement in this idea of a, quote, deep state, how she was running against it. Hillary Clinton even suggested Gabbard was being groomed by Russia. A lot of allegations here. An article in the New York Times cited data when it came to Gabbard being mentioned by Russian state media back in 29. I want to quote it here.

An independent analysis of the Russian news media found that RT, the Kremlin-backed news agency, mentioned Ms. Gabbard, frequently for a candidate polling in single digits. Essentially, they were covering her a lot, even though she had single digits. according to data collected by the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a group that seeks to track and expose efforts by authoritarian regimes to undermine democratic elections. All right, so Ken, how serious are these allegations? Well, look, they're very serious, but they don't prove anything. Like, the fact that RT was highlighting her

may have more to do with her beliefs than any particular connection that she has with Russia. But it's very true that her beliefs, her worldview, aligns with the kind of propaganda you see out of Russia discrediting the United States as a world power. And in particular, she repeated essentially Russian propaganda that there were biolabs in Ukraine. That was debunked.

And at that time, Mitt Romney said that she was essentially disseminating Russian propaganda. So there are a lot of concerns and always have been inside the intelligence community and the security community about her and the kind of views that she takes. Obviously, she's going to go through a Senate confirmation process where a lot of that can be aired out, Tom.

And, Ken, before you go just briefly, what does the director of the national intelligence to remind our viewers? Yeah, so this was created after 9-11, this department, right, to sort of knit together all the disparate intelligence agencies. And it really, how powerful that office is, it really depends on how much authority the president gives that person. Technically, they outrank the director of the CIA, but the CIA has many more resources. They are actually running, the CIA director is running the intelligence collectors in the field. The DNI is more of an administrative position, but generally, often, the DNI is the person that gives the president their daily intelligence briefing, and that was true in the first Trump administration. So she may see the president a lot and be in the room for a lot of very significant discussions, and she has access to the nation's secrets, Tom. All right, Ken Delaney first. Ken, we appreciate you.

And tonight, there are new questions about that breaking news we brought you last night about President-elect Trump's pick to lead the Defense Department. The Fox News host, Peter Hegeseth, is a veteran of the Army National Guard with combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He also served in Guantanamo Bay. He is a recipient of two bronze stars, but the 44-year-old host of Fox and Friends weekend is largely untested on the world stage when it comes to managing an entity as large as the DoD. And remarks he's made about women in combat are getting fresh scrutiny. I want to bring in our senior national security correspondent, Courtney Kuby, with her new reporting. So, Courtney, you know, your sources are at the Pentagon.

What are they telling you about this nomination? I think in one word, surprise, there was a tremendous amount of surprise that he was selected for this job by President-elect Donald Trump. In fact, there were a number of other names that were swirling around. And Tom, the real reason for that surprise is pretty much what you just went through. It's the fact that he doesn't have the same qualifications and experience that most previous secretaries of defense have had. Now, in recent years, including under President Trump's first term, we saw a number, we saw at least one. Secretary of Defense, who was a four-star general, retired four-star general. We have one currently, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. But that's the anomaly. With the exception of those two and

others further back in the past, most of the Secretaries of Defense come in with a tremendous amount of leadership in an experience in leading a large bureaucratic institution. This Pentagon is an 800-plus billion-dollar budget. There's more than 2.5 million people, active guard, civilians. It's an enormous bureaucracy. Pete Hague Seth, as you mentioned, he's a Fox News media personality. He did serve in the National Guard for a number of different states, did these combat deployments serve for just under 20 years, but he never attained a very senior rank. His most senior rank was major, so he wasn't really leading troops during his time in the guard. It's a very unusual decision, unusual announcement here, and I will say it has been

met with a lot of surprise and candidly a lot of skepticism Tom yeah he's made some remarks on a podcast recently about women's ability to serve in combat roles let's take a listen I'm straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles it hasn't made us more effective hasn't made us more lethal has made fighting more complicated we've all served with women and they're great it just our institutions don't have to incentivize that in places where traditionally, not traditionally, over human history, men in those positions are more capable. So, Cornyn, there's probably people at the Pentagon who agree with him. There's probably a lot of people who don't agree with him, but he's now, he may become the face of the Department of Defense

where a lot of women serve bravely, especially in combat roles. What happens now? Yeah, women have been allowed to serve in combat roles since 2016. And since then, Tom, I have to say they have served in some of the most elite, most difficult, and most dangerous combat rules with tremendous success. So this is a policy that has proven over the last nearly decade to be a successful one. The big question now, and I will say it is a concern among many Pentagon officials who I've spoken with over the last 23 hours or so, is will Pete Heggseth, if he comes in his Secretary of Defense, try to do something to change those rules, to restrict women from serving in combat roles.

And it's not just the impact that that would have on combat. It's the impact that it could have on women in general in uniform. There's a recruiting problem, a recruiting crisis that's been ongoing for a number of years. How could that impact women wanting to come in and serve in the military? And it's not just that. There's the concern that it could have a real chilling effect on the women already serving in uniform. If they look up and see that the most senior person leading the Department of Defense in the civilian capacity may devalue them or not see them as being as strong or tough or capable as their

male counterparts. I got to tell you, Tom, there's a lot of concern about his very clear views on this issue. And then, Courtney, I'm going to kind of put you on the spot here. So besides, you know, what's happening in Ukraine, besides what's happening in the Middle East and Gaza and Lebanon, what do you think are the two most pressing issues the defense secretary is going to face in 2025? Yeah, so those are two obvious one. I will say there is the continuing problem from these Iranian-backed militia groups. They are attacking U.S. service members and allies in Iraq and Syria all the time still. It's not getting a lot of attention because the majority are not successful. The Houthis in Yemen, they are firing off every single day. But it's not

just that time. Think about this term. 2027, that is the date that President Xi Jinping of China has set for his military to be prepared for an invasion of Taiwan. Doesn't mean it's going to happen then, but that is when he has told them to be ready. That will be during this term. That is something people should be watching. Okay. Courtney Cupid for us, Courtney, we thank you for that. We want to get over to Capitol Hill now, where we have more breaking news tonight. House Speaker Mike Johnson confirming Matt Gates has just resigned his seat in Congress in the wake of his nomination for Attorney General.

I want to get right to NBC News congressional correspondent, Julie Sirkin, for more on this. Julie Gates is resigning his seat before being confirmed as AG, and that confirmation is not a sure thing. I want to play a bit more of the reaction you and your team have gotten from lawmakers on both sides. Let's take a listen. I mean, this feels like a red alert moment for democracy. Matt Cates has said we should abolish the FBI, the ATF, if it doesn't get in line with conservative political priorities. This is somebody who is very clearly being put in this position to do whatever Donald Trump says and to fold the DOJ into the White House. It's a serious nomination for the Attorney General. We need to have a serious Attorney General, and I'm looking forward to the opportunity

to consider somebody that is serious. This one was not on my bingo card. The one thing about Matt that concerns me a little bit is I didn't like the way he handled the squabble with Speaker McCarthy. I think it was, I thought it was unnecessary. I thought it was devices. I think that the conference suffered.

So, Julie, what's new is that for the first time, I'd say, in a few weeks, we're hearing Republicans openly speaking out against something that President Trump is doing. Is this what you're hearing across Congress? Oh, absolutely. I mean, the first reactions coming in were OMG, WTF. I mean, every acronym in that direction that you can think of, senators across the ideological spectrum among Republicans, not just like, the moderates that Murkowski and Collins often find themselves in, but also people in Magarold, conservatives who are elected sitting members of Congress who just don't like Matt Gates. Frankly, think the investigations into him are problematic.

You've heard our guests lay that out so well already. Think that his shenanigans with McCarthy are problematic, as you heard Kevin Kramer say there, and think that this is just an individual who is unserious, in the words of Murkowski, to lead an agency as big as the Department of Justice given everywhere that that that's. that agency has their hands in, and it's going to be a long road for Gates and a big test for Senate Republicans who, for the first time, it's been checknotes seven days, eight days since Trump was announced the president-elect, have to see if they want to stand up to him. Yeah. You know, I also want to go to that other major news, right? NBC News projecting that

Republicans will have control of the House of Representatives when the new Congress takes their seats in January. This, of course, means Trump and the Republicans will control all of Washington with GOP majorities in both Houses of Congress and Republican taking the White House. But, you know, it's still unclear the exact size of that House majority, and that will matter for certain things. I know there's been some developing news, as we mentioned at the top of the show,

about Speaker Mike Johnson. Yeah, there has been, and that is that Speaker Mike Johnson announced a couple of minutes before your show, Tom, that actually Matt Gates has offered his resignation from Congress effective immediately. Republicans seem to think that that'll give him an easier time of replacing Gates' seat in very red Florida, giving them more of a window to make that happen. Because as you saw on your screen, House control has been called for Republicans.

There are still several seats that have been uncalled. So far, Republicans are right at that 218 number. That's what gives them the majority. But that doesn't give them a guarantee that they'll be able to enforce and actually put on the floor everything the President-elect Trump wants to do. So definitely some consternation and worries. Steve's first reaction to Gates was stop taking our guys. And we don't think that there's going to be sort of an incursion from maybe far-right Republicans against Mike Johnson anymore? No, and it's because President Trump went behind closed doors with House Republicans this morning.

Sources told me that he could not have been more positive and complementary of Mike Johnson. He said he's done a tremendous job. He called him terrific, according to one lawmaker in the room. That pretty much puts to bed any potential challenge that Johnson can face. And look, he's put in a lot of work. This is somebody who's risen, who nobody really knew when he got the gavel in the first place. He's visited Mar-a-Lago several times. He has plans to go there again later this week. He's tried to be in Trump's good graces through all of this. And Trump has protected him before when Marjorie Taylor Green and other conservatives in the MAGA movement have tried to oust Johnson.

Now that gavel, all but guaranteed with that Republican leadership slate reelected today and new members elected down below. Yeah. And before you go, I do want to move over to this. Senate. We know that Thune is now going to be the majority leader, Senator Thune from South Dakota. It's interesting here, right? Because the vote, it was a secret ballot. So Republican senators didn't essentially have to say who they voted for. And I say it's interesting because you know, Thune wasn't necessarily the Maga World pick, if you will. It seemed like Rick Scott was more that many in the Maga World wanted to pick. But Thune comes out on top. What does that mean? Yeah, Scott was out after the first round of voting. Just 13 people voted for him three more than

two years ago when he unsuccessfully challenged McConnell. What it says is, is that the MAGO universe on X or on social media doesn't necessarily reflect in elected members of Congress, especially among senators who really hate to be pressured to do anything. This isn't House Republicans, this is Senate Republicans. They see their role differently. They see themselves as a deliberative body. So John Thune being elected today was by and large not a shock or surprise to many here on Capitol Hill, but certainly an affirmation or reaffirmation, I should say, of MAGA world's

waning powers, perhaps, and influence on Senate Republicans at least. Yeah, we're going to have to wait and see that. Could change back. All right, Julie Serkin, we thank you so much for that. Trump also confirmed today the appointment of Republican Florida Senator Marco Rubio to the position of Secretary of State, something NBC News had reported earlier this week. Rubio, who is known for his aggressive approach to foreign policy, will be the first Latino to serve in that position. For more on this decision. And what we can expect Rubio to focus on, NBC News Senior White House correspondent, Gabe Gutierrez,

has more from there from the White House, of course. Gabe, Senator Rubio is known to be hawkish when it comes to Russia and China. Now, how do we think it will impact his role in the Trump administration? Oh, hey there, Tom. The Rubio pick could potentially signal a more confrontational stance with Beijing. You know, both he and Trump's pick for National Security Advisor have been backers of a tough China policy, and that could prove a little different for Trump,

who, as you know, Tom, can be very transactional. In his first term, Trump lifted sanctions on a major Chinese telecom manufacturer in exchange for progress on a trade deal. Still, Trump has been touting his support for tariffs now, China. So this more hawkish stance could be exactly what he's looking for, Tom. Do we know about his stances on what's happening in Gaza and Lebanon? Yes, yes we do. Rubio serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Tom, and he's been very outspoken about the Israel-Hamas war and his support of Israel. And he said that Israel

has no choice but to seek the complete eradication of Hamas in Gaza. And his view is that it's the U.S.'s role to resupply Israel with the military materials, needed to finish the job. And, you know, we just heard today from families of Israeli hostages right here at the White House that they've already spoken to Rubio's senior staff about the ongoing ceasefire talks, Tom. Okay. And then, Gabe, I want to play some video of Senator Rubio and President like Trump on their views of TikTok, an app used by millions of Americans every day, the biggest app in the world right now. Let's take a listen. I want to ban TikTok for a very simple reason. They allow the Chinese Communist Party to gain access to all of the private data on

any device in America that's using TikTok. That's our kids, that's phones connected to our kids' phones, and that's a national security threat. But we're going to make our country greater than ever before, and I appreciate all your support. Thank you. And you'll never ban TikTok, that's for sure. I will never ban TikTok. Thank you.

Look, this may not be the most pressing foreign policy issue, obviously, but it's a clear break between the Secretary of State who still needs to be confirmed and the President-elect. Well, a break at this point. It's one of the unanswered questions right now. And TikTok does face a January deadline to find a new owner not based in China or lose access to U.S. users. That's under a law passed in April with bipartisan support. Now, Trump, as he just heard, during the campaign, he supported saving the app. And it's unclear whether Rubio will change his mind.

But, Tom, he didn't get to this position by contradicting Trump. Yeah, exactly. It's a good point. Gabe, before you go, this was sort of a moment, right? But there's been so much news. And I wanted to come back to it. And it was President-elect Trump at the White House with President Biden, something we didn't see four years ago. Talk to us about how this meeting came about and if there were any reporters in the room, because I don't think any questions were asked, right?

Well, Tom, it's incredible. You mentioned that because, yes, it happened just a few hours ago. It feels like it happened at least yesterday. Look, there were no reporters in the room for most of the meeting. The White House called it a substantive and cordial meeting. And President-elect Trump says it was a really good meeting telling the New York Post that, He and President Biden spoke about the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and that Biden shared his views and was very gracious. Now, both of their chiefs of staff were in the room.

And of course, Tom, this comes just days after a brutal campaign where both Biden and Trump referred to each other as threats to democracy. None of that here today, both wanting to project the image of a peaceful transfer of power. Biden even telling Trump, welcome back. And again, the meeting just lasted just shy of two hours. is pretty incredible to watch those photos of them shaking hands there in the White House. Okay, Gabe, we thank you for that. One key post that President-elect hasn't announced White House Press Secretary, but we are seeing some names emerge as possible frontrunners to take up the position in January. Among them, Trump campaign national press secretary,

Caroline Levitt, Trump attorney Alina Haba, and former Trump administration official Monica Crowley, who also served in a spokesperson role. Other names in the mix also include former ESPN host, Sage Steele, CNN contributor, and Bush White House. House official Scott Jennings and model Elizabeth Pipco, national spokeswoman for the Republican Party. This as uncertainty looms over the James Brady Press briefing room where we could see more MAGA-aligned news outlets granted access. For more on that, I want to bring in Axios National Political Reporter, Sophia Kai. Sophia, thanks so much for joining us. Of course. So I want to throw something out you. So there was one name that we didn't see there. So you guys had a lot of reporting

on some of the names. I'm going to throw one more out there, right? And this is pure speculation. But But Megan Kelly did appear with former President Trump out on the campaign trail. She has a podcast where she is defended and taken up a lot of positions that are in favor of President Trump's agenda. Any word on that, and would you be surprised if that was the pick? You know, Trump will surprise anyone, and we know the method that he's been using to make these picks is that he's been sitting at Marilago in front of a lot of monitors, and his aides have compiled TV reels for him to play. and, you know, he has a good relationship with Megan Kelly. He sat down with her. And for something like this really hotly contested role, you know, they're expected to be the face of the new administration handling the very contentious relationship between the press corps and the White House. I would not be surprised. And it's, you know, there's at least half a dozen names out there. And the thing that they have in common is a lot of these people have already been out there day after the day during the campaign trails, the one like the 20th.

37-year-old Caroline Leavitt, or Scott Jennings, who's been on CNN, the Bush alum. A lot of these people are playing for an audience of one showing him that they're willing to go on an limb to really be combative with reporters to defend Trump, defend his surrogates, and defend his policies. Yeah, we have sort of a funny photo of Scott Jennings there. There are other photos of him. He's sometimes more of a serious person than that photo shows. How is the room going to change and or the report?

from what you guys are hearing, who get to ask questions in the briefing room? Yeah, so we know that a lot of MAGA-aligned outlets, for example, Steve Bannon's podcast War Room and also at the conservative new outlet Washington Reporter, which is funded by a lot of conservatives, have already been lining up their applications for credentials. Now, the White House Correspondents Association is the body that's historically been responsible for the seating charts, so determining who sits where in the briefing room, but it's the White House that controls who gets credentialed. And so it's there in that latter bucket that I'm expecting a lot of fights between who's credentialed, who's not. The Trump White House will want to credential

more MAGA media and potentially block or ban reporters that have unfavorable coverage, what happened in the first Trump White House. And then, Sophia, any idea when they might announce a communications director who would oversee the press secretary and or the press secretary, or we're going to be surprised they could have it any minute like most of these things have? Yeah, so I can't tell you when, but I can tell you the top contender for that role is Stephen Chung, you know, no stranger to any of us who've been covering Trump. He's been, you know, the point person since the very start of the Trump campaign. You know, he's been a constant. He knows Trump intimately well. And, you know, another person that's also in the mix there is

Danielle Alvarez. She's kind of a latecomer in the campaign. She used to work at the RNC. You know, it's basically down to these two people, but again, we don't know when Trump will announce that role of communications director. Okay, Sophia Kai, so great to have you on Top Story. We thank you for all your reporting. We want to move on now. President-elect Trump also considering which officials will help shape the economy during his administration, including who will lead the Treasury and serve as his trades are. This has new inflation numbers out today, show prices rising by just over two and a half percent, year over year, accelerating slightly since September, in line with Dow Jones' estimates.

For more on the state of the economy, as President-elect Trump takes office, I want to bring in my friend Brian Chung, NBC News Business and Data correspondent. Brian, I want to stay parked on inflation for a minute. What's happening? What's coming down? Now it looks like it's not moving at least this quarter. And then the big question, will the Fed still cut rates because of this? Yeah, well, I mean, inflation is cooling, especially when you compare it to like the 9% rate

of price increases that we saw in the summer. 2022, but it's still well above what economists say is healthy, which they would really prefer to be closer to 2%. And we know that Americans are feeling that above normal inflation because they took that with them to the polls last week. But look, when it comes to the overall story, inflation again, it's much better than it was about two years ago. And the encouraging thing is that we've actually seen gasoline prices fall. It's down about 50 cents compared to last year. So that's good news. Do we know what's still being stubborn? What's keeping up still hovering up there? Shelter cost is a big part of it, right? So just the cost of putting a roof over your head.

we actually saw that increase by four-tenths of a percent just between September and October. Is that rent? Is that buying a home? What is that? Is that everything? Yeah, well, it's buying a home. I mean, anyone that's tried to buy a home, you haven't seen prices go down. At the same time, mortgage rates have gone up. This is what the Federal Reserve is watching, which, by the way, they're expected to still cut interest rates as we get into the end of part of this year and the beginning part of next year. But they're probably not going to cut interest rates as aggressively because, again, inflation is above their target of 2%. I got you. And then we're still waiting on a number of Trump picks when it comes to your world here. What are some of the names being thrown around? look, when it comes to some of the other cabinet positions, especially on the economic side of things, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Commerce, as well as the FTC. That's a big one, too.

Lena Kahn has a big target on her back. But look, here's some candidates that could potentially be in the mix when you talk about some major finance types, right? Think about Scott Besson. He's largely perceived to be one of the frontrunners. He's someone that is currently ahead of Key Square Group. He was a Yale grad, jumped into private investment. Interestingly, he was big in the Soros world. Again, a lot of conservatives have kind of these theories about how, Soros has funded Democratic campaigns. He got $2 billion from George Soros to start his own fund. He became a top. When you say Soros world, but the world of investing? The world of investing, yes, right. But he got $2 billion from Soros to start off his own fund. He spent many years with Soros as his chief investment officer at the management group. So that's important to work there. Another potential frontrunner would be Howard Lutnik. He's on the transition team. He is currently ahead of Cantor Fitzgerald, the very storied Wall Street firm.

another person that he could be kind of potentially jockeying with for some of these roles, be it commerce or even treasurer, be Linda McMahon. McMahon is also on the transition team. Very close to the president. Right. Formerly with the WWE, you know, one thing that's kind of worth noting is that her husband is facing a lot of serious sexual assault allegations from his time at the WWE. And then one other name that's worth throwing in here is Robert Lightheiser.

He was with the Trump administration, his first run. He was the U.S. Trade Representative. Actually, he had a second stint under Trump. He was also part of that office. in the Reagan administration, maybe he makes a run for potentially the Treasury spot as well. Brian Chung, I know you're going to be here for as soon as we get any word, and it could happen any minute. We thank you for being here. Still ahead tonight, the FBI revealing new details into a phone hacking scheme at the hands of the Chinese government. What we're learning about the

extent of the hack that targeted phones of the Trump and Harris campaign, among others, plus the wildfire burning in Upper Manhattan? You heard us right. Upper Manhattan. The dire conditions fueling the flames in the Northeast. And the dramatic rescue caught on camera, a man trapped inside a car submerged in a pool. The body camp footage of the incredible save. Stay with us. We're back now, and wildfires continuing to burn on both coasts. The latest, a large brush fire breaking out in Upper Manhattan, adding to the record number of brush fires in and around New York City over the last few weeks.

And firefighters still trying to contain the Jennings Creek fire on the New York, New Jersey border. But gusty winds complicating that fire. firefight. NBC news meteorologist Bill Caron joins me now. And people at home may be hearing this going a wildfire in Manhattan happening. This is wild. Yeah, especially it wasn't in Central Park. Imagine if that happened. But yeah, this is at the northern end of Manhattan as you head towards the Bronx and, you know, burning right near the Hudson River. So the red flag warnings have been dropped that were up during the day today. Tomorrow we have what we call a step below that elevated fire risk. It's still very dry. It's just not going to be quite as windy.

And it's really going to take rain to really change things. And this is the rainfall forecast over the next seven days. Middle of the country, you get it. Southeast gets it. Ohio Valley, Tennessee Valley gets it. Southern Cal, you're still waiting for your rain to end your fire season. And in the northeast, you guessed it, no rain over the next seven days. And we're going to see many more days just like today, Tom, where we're going to see these wildfires and brush fires popping up. Okay. And Bill, I know in your world, they're following what's happening in the tropics as well in this system that has developed Sarah. Is it already named Sarah or am I getting ahead of myself? Not yet, but it will. We do expect that to happen in the next couple of days. Maybe not

tomorrow, but maybe the day after that. So this is going to be near Honduras for like four days in a row. And that's a problem, because Honduras has mountains, tropical systems and mountains never mixed. We saw what happened to North Carolina. We're expecting this to linger here all the way through the weekend. It won't start moving towards possibly Mexico and Belize maybe up towards Cancun, Cosmel, by the time we get into Monday. So the first issue is going to be in Honduras. Our rainfall estimates here are 10 to 20 inches widespread, max totals up to 30 inches of rain. Life threatening, flash flooding, mudslides expected in Honduras. A lot of people in Florida want to know, well, is this ever going to make it up our way? So our computer models linger it. Then they take it

up here towards the Yucatan and then eventually curve back towards Florida. But if it's over land a lot, the Yucatan and Honduras, it would be a much weaker system heading towards Florida. If by chance, Tom, it stays off the coast and over water longer, it would be a stronger storm for Florida. So we still have that variable to figure out, and that'll take a couple days. Yeah, Bill, before you go there, because I want to look at the graphic there, if it does turn into some type of system, even if it hits Honduras and it hits the Cozumel area, I think Cancun, if I'm looking right there. And it heads into Florida. This looks at landfall Wednesday as a tropical storm or definitely as a hurricane. Well, if it's over land more, it would possibly be a tropical depression or a tropical storm. If it takes this kind of the blue line or the pink line, it could be a stronger storm, maybe a strong end tropical storm or even a hurricane. So that's the whole key. close does this get to Honduras and does it go over across the Yucatan? If it does that, it'll be weaker. If it's over water, I mean, this could be a major hurricane. So we'll wait and see. We'll have more

details, but not till the weekend. Okay, Bill, we appreciate you. Thank you for that. When we come back, more fire this time erupting along a busy Amtrak route. The flames briefly knocking out service from New York City to New Haven. The investigation underway into what sparked that. We're back now with Top Stories News Feed. Federal investigators confirming Chinese hackers breached several U.S. telecommunication providers. The FBI and CISA say the hackers stole wiretap data and accessed private conversations of people who are primarily involved in government or political activity and copied U.S. intelligence information.

NBC News has reported that the hack allowed the Chinese to target phones connected to the Trump and Harris campaigns. And we're getting new video tonight of a transformer explosion that temporarily knocked out some Amtrak service. You can see black smoke building up from the substation in the Bronx before a fireball erupts. The fire suspending Amtrak service from New York City to parts of Connecticut. No one was hurt, an official still investigating the cause. A Phoenix police officer saving a man trapped inside of a sinking car. Look at this. New video posted by the department showing an officer jumping onto the roof of the car that was submerged in a pool.

The officer breaks the sunroof with the crowbar and pulls the. man inside his safety. That man says he drove into the pool accidentally after hitting the gas too hard. Okay, next to a profanity-laced rant captured on camera at a Southern California high school. The issue here, the person making those rants, an AP history teacher heard railing against President-elect Trump and the people who voted for him. He's now an administrative leave after some parents say he went too far. But students we spoke to are protesting to have him brought back. Here's David Noriega with the tapes. Tonight, a high school history teacher in California now on leave for this post-election

lecture to students. This is not a f***ing game. Can you end up in a concentration camp in your lifetime? Yes. Yes. Can you end up with no human rights? Yes. Will it happen to you?

Most likely not, which is a good thing. But has Donald Trump quoted Hitler? Yes. Clips of the profanity-laced rant recorded during an AP World History class at Valleyview High School and posted to social media by a conservative commentator last week, racking up millions of views. Why would someone who in Wisconsin would vote for Joe Biden, a geriatric old Republican racist, who's running as a Democrat, why would they all of a sudden not vote for Kamala Harris, a young person who has no bad record, and who has a very record?

and who has effective policy for the future. Dariah. She has a vagina. I'll use a different word. She has a vagina in uterus, and what else? She has melanin. She's mixed race. I know a lot of Latino men on this campus,

adults and students, that love Donald Trump. And he's called their mother's rapists. He's called their father's rapists. He's called them criminals. He called them the poison in the blood of our country. They want to vote for it, and they did vote for him. The Moreno Valley Unified School District, which has not publicly identified the teacher,

telling NBC, quote, we were recently made aware of an incident at one of our high schools in which a staff member's discussion about the election results turned unprofessional. We do not condone the behavior that occurred, and an immediate investigation has been launched. We reached out to the teacher and his union about the incident, but have not heard back. Free macawares! Yesterday, dozens of students walking out in support of the teacher. I've never left or ditched a class before.

So me just not having a school-excused reason to leave class was really scary. But I decided to take that risk for Mr. Press because he's done so much for me. There's like a whole list I couldn't even say. Students Damien and Jeline are not in that AP history class. But they're part of a mental health club that that teacher supervises. And they say they felt compelled to speak out. Even if you're not in his class, he's still out. Yeah, that's a thing.

Like, he's, everyone knows Mr. Press as just a generally positive and joyful person. They both signed a student-led online petition, asking to reinstate the teacher. Maybe he could have been taught in a different tone of voice, but besides that, he's an amazing teacher. But one parent told our NBC station in Los Angeles that this kind of language in a classroom. God, they want to be white so bad. They never will be. Hate that. crosses a line.

I don't use that kind of language in my household. So I set myself at a standard, and as an educator, I set you as a higher standard. So, no, it was not appropriate at all. David Noriega joins us now. David, you spoke to some of those students today. They obviously felt compelled to speak out in defense of their teacher, even though some of them realized what he was telling them was inappropriate. We saw at a school board meeting that this has become very political.

There are a lot of opinions online. The story is obviously blown up. What do they tell you about getting caught up in the middle of this? Yeah, Tom, so the students we spoke to and the students who set up this petition, they have indicated that they believe what the teacher said and did in the tone and the venue in which he said it were not appropriate. However, they feel a personal connection to him. They believe that he's a good teacher who made this one mistake and they want him to have another chance. Now, it's also unclear how this video that included the audio recording of the,

the teacher's rant made it to this conservative commentator who posted it on social media, which is kind of what ignited all of this attention. And these students are now feeling worried that their school and their teacher, and potentially they themselves, are now the object of so much attention in such a polarized time that they worry could lead to things like threats and doxing. In general, they feel this tension and they feel some fear about what might happen next. Tom. All right.

David Noriega first. David, we appreciate it. Coming out, the volcanic eruption, it's stranding thousands of tourists in Bali as it spews lava and ash. We'll have the latest on that disaster. That's next. We're back now with new details emerging

about President-elect Trump's plans for the border. NBC News exclusively reporting that the incoming administration is eyeing new immigrant detention centers near major U.S. cities and talking to private prison companies about drastically expanding already existing immigrant detention centers. For more on this exclusive reporting, Julia Ainsley joins us tonight. So, Julia, what have you learned about how large and scale this is all going to be?

Well, Tom, as you remember, this is one of Trump's key promises on the campaign trail. It's something they want to start day one and be able to make a splash on and have a lot of visibility and be able to show the American people what they're doing. So what that means is now they're working on the logistics and how to scale up for that. operation. They are looking at major metropolitan cities across the country where they think that they need to expand detention space because they want to double the amount of bed so that they can hold over 80,000 migrants in ICE detention at one time. So they're looking at cities like Chicago, the New York, Philadelphia, D.C. area, Denver, L.A., Houston, Miami. These are all

areas where they think they need to build ice capacity in those areas, even if not directly, in those cities, but near them. And they're looking to private prison companies, because historically, those have been the ones who can get beds online as soon as possible. It also might mean, Tom, that they have to build tents, or what they call soft-sided facilities that are temporary, because they simply don't have the time to build brick-and-mortar buildings. Another thing we're learning about the plans, Tom, is they plan to bring back family detention. That means holding parents and children together. That's something that Biden administration ended in 2021. But this is indicative of an overall deportation policy that does not keep families as an exemption.

Okay, so there's a lot there that you've just sort of reported on. The tagline throughout Trump's campaign has been that there will be no price tag on this plan, but do we know how much this essentially will cost? No, I mean, estimates from outside groups have put it at $88 billion. That's more than was spent on COVID relief funds. This is something that really the federal government might not have the capacity to do, even if Trump controls both the House and the Senate as. It looks like he will with the Republicans in control of both of those chambers.

But look, it's not just about money. It's about being able to get countries like Venezuela and China and Cuba to take back their nationals when they've historically said, no, we won't take back those people. There's a lot more that needs to become detention space is just one of the steps to get there. But getting these plans and the details of them gives us a window into how they're preparing and just how far they do still plan to go, Tom. Yeah, and you mentioned the prison companies, two of the major ones that do this type of work. Their stocks have increased since Trump was elected?

Yeah, that's right. The two publicly traded ones, Core Civic and Geo Group, their stocks have gone up about 70% each because they are likely to be the ones who are tapped for these contracts. There's also some that aren't publicly traded who are also probably likely to gain business from this. Private prisons, that's something the Biden administration was pressure to. dropped those contracts with ICE. They did close some facilities. A lot of those businesses were hurt under the Biden administration. But now that's exactly who stands to gain under these new policies because they can bring on this detention space so quickly and

sometimes more cheaply than it would be to go through the federal government on its own. All right, Julia Ainslie for us tonight, Julia, we thank you for that. Out of Top Stories Global Watch, the volcanic eruption grounding flights in and out of Bali. The volcano on Flores Island initially erupted last week, killing at least nine people. Ash, rocks, and lava continue to shoot out of the volcano. So far more than 80 flights have been canceled, stranding thousands of travelers there. Worsening smog pollution has sickened nearly 2 million people in Pakistan. Since October, toxic smog, you can see it right here, engulfed 18 districts in Punjab,

residents suffering from respiratory illnesses and burning eyes. Officials closed all schools, parks, and museums in the province for several days over those health concerns. Experts say air quality indices sort above 700 in some cities, numbers over 300 are considered dangerous to health. And Paris's Notre Dame Cathedral finally reopening more than five years after that devastating fire. Following years of renovations, the famous landmark will reopen with a globally broadcast ceremony on December 7th. A mass that will be open to the general public will take place the next day. For now, only individual visitors are allowed. Tour groups will resume in spring of

2025. Okay, when we come back, the incredible show of sportsmanship, a high school runner carrying her competitor across the finish line at a track meet. What both those athletes are saying tonight about this now viral moment. Finally tonight, sportsmanship and strength. A high school cross-country runner carrying her competitor to the finish line in a viral moment, we have the emotional video and the athlete who went the extra mile. Here's Guadvan. The girls cross-country team at Arkansas Batesville High School knows how to finish strong. For Kaylee Montgomery, the final race of her high school career, that looked a little different. The senior approaching the finish line at the state championships noticed her competitor doubled

over just short of the finish line after her legs gave out in the final stretch. She was on the ground. I just saw her in my first instinct and just my first thought that came to my mind was that I have to help her and that I can't leave her. Kaylee exhausted from pushing through a 3.1 mile course at race pace had been chasing down her PR from the year before. Her dad recording this video and expecting his daughter's typical big finish to the end. But instead of picking up her pace, she decided to pick up her competitor, Julia. She says her strength in that moment didn't come from her training. If I was down and falling, you know, Jesus wouldn't pass me by. And so that was kind of what was going through my head that I couldn't leave her, pass her by.

Kaylee and Julia had never met, but in a powerful moment, the two created a team of their own. She started like praying over me, and it really did give me strength to finish and just try to get up. And then every now and then I would look back up and see the finish line getting closer. and she would say, we're almost there, we're almost there, which was really encouraging. The video of the finish, getting over 3 million views on TikTok, Kaylee's dad, Pastor Robert, proud that his little girl is making strides to uplift others one step at a time. It's great for people to see that good things are happening in the world. You know, there's still kindness, they're still love, they're still caring for one another.

Others agree. A few collegiate coaches reaching out to Kaylee about scholarships. They were impressed with my times, but it was also more of my sportsmanship and just caring that I had for others around me. For Julia, it wasn't the finish she and her coach envisioned. She worked so hard to get to a certain level and just let her know that this race did not define her. But what she won instead may be even sweeter. This is an experience that you can definitely form a friendship on. and by her actions alone, like, I can tell that she is a great person that I definitely want to be friends with. And to top it off, Kaylee still scored a personal best.

Guadvanegas, NBC News. All right, that does it for us tonight. I'm Tom Yamison, New York. Stay right there. More news on the way.