WSJ What’s News - Trump Expected to Nominate Marco Rubio for Secretary of State
Episode Date: November 12, 2024A.M. Edition for Nov. 12. WSJ correspondent Thomas Grove explains how Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Mike Waltz – Trump’s pick for White House national security advisor – could steer U.S.... diplomacy. Plus, rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah craft a plan for Gaza’s postwar recovery. And Shell wins an appeal against a landmark carbon-emissions ruling. Luke Vargas hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Interior Chinatown is an all-new series based on the best-selling novel by Charles Yu about
a struggling Asian actor who gets a bigger part than he expected when he witnesses a
crime in Chinatown, streaming November 19th only on Disney+.
Marco Rubio emerges as Trump's pick for Secretary of State.
We'll look at how he could shape U.S.
foreign policy.
Plus Republicans lock in a 53 to 47 majority in the U.S.
Senate and rival Palestinian factions craft a plan for Gaza's post-war recovery.
Hamas is largely defeated militarily.
The Fatah-run government is facing a financial crisis.
So both sides are very weakened and they are talking together to try to find an understanding.
It's Tuesday, November 12th.
I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal and here is the AM edition of What's News,
the top headlines and business stories moving your world today.
We are reporting that President-elect Donald Trump is expected to nominate Florida Senator
Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, potentially placing a more establishment figure in the
role of America's top diplomat.
Spokespeople for the Trump transition and Rubio didn't immediately respond to requests
for comment, and Trump could still change his mind on the move.
Meanwhile, Trump has asked Florida Representative Mike Waltz to serve as White House National
Security Advisor, a cabinet-level position in which his skepticism for America's support
for Ukraine and his calls for Europe to do more to ensure the collective defense of NATO
members could have a major bearing on U.S. foreign policy.
And joining me now with more on what Trump's potential picks for top diplomatic and national
security roles could tell us, I'm joined by Wall Street Journal correspondent Thomas Grove.
Thomas, what's your read on Rubio and Walz?
Picking them together, you certainly see a lot of overlap in different areas.
On China, they seem to both be aligned on being tougher on China.
When it comes to Ukraine, they're also quite aligned there as well.
Rubio has come from a point of ardent support for Ukraine and I think has changed that position
slightly and slowly over the last three years. And what we're seeing now is somebody who
wants to see the conflict end as soon as possible. He's criticized US funding as funding a stalemate.
Waltz has some very interesting positions which echo Rubio's for sure. But one of the things that he is proposing is that if Vladimir Putin
doesn't come to the table to negotiate, the U.S.
could take the brakes off of some of the longer range weapons that could be used
inside Russia.
Having Rubio and Waltz here is certainly going to be a lot tougher on Putin than
what Trump is suggesting through his public comments.
But I think we have to really dig beyond that and see exactly what they're going to be doing
on a policy basis here.
And finally, Thomas, in terms of what happens between now and Trump's inauguration, we saw
over the weekend, Ukraine and Russia launching their largest drone attacks. Yet in the conflict,
Russia has also amassed a lot of fresh troops, Ukraine, meanwhile, trying to hold together
its electrical grid, not
lose too much ground on the front lines.
I mean, what are we likely to see between now and mid to late January?
This is the point at which both sides are going to be putting up the best fight they
possibly can.
And with Russia, that means probably an imminent offensive in Kursk.
That's the territory that Ukrainian troops were able to occupy after a cross-border
invasion in August. And Russia is also going to try to make a fresh push on various positions
on the battleground inside Ukraine. That's mostly in the East. Ukraine, which has a great
disadvantage in terms of manpower, will be doing whatever they can. And that means probably
a lot of drones. That's one area in which they've really shown that they can do a lot. And this is a point in which the quantity of drones that they've sent across the
border is starting to have qualitative effects in various ways. Journal correspondent Thomas Grove.
Thomas, thanks. Thank you so much. And before we leave U.S. politics behind, Democrat Ruben
Gallego has defeated Republican Kerry Lake in Arizona's Senate race, putting the final Senate split
at 53 Republican seats to Democrats 47.
Lake's loss was part of a broader trend of Republicans in battleground state Senate
races underperforming Donald Trump as Democrats won races in Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin,
all states that Trump carried.
Coming up, Palestinian rivals Hamas and Fatah edge toward a post-war recovery plan in Gaza,
and Exxon's CEO says that Trump should keep the U.S. in the Paris climate agreement.
We've got those stories and more after the break.
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Get your ghost pepper sandwich today at Popeyes before it ghosts you for another Long bitter rivals, the two main Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, have come to an
agreement on a plan to help oversee aid distribution in Gaza and
the eventual rebuilding of the territory.
And as journal correspondent Benoit Faucon told me, key to the deal is that neither group
will be in charge.
For many years, Hamas, which is the Islamic faction that runs Gaza, and Fata, which is
a secular faction that runs the West Bank, have been at loggerheads.
Hamas kicked Fah out of Gaza in
2007. But now the world has changed after October 7. Hamas is largely defeated militarily. In the
West Bank, the Fatah-run government is facing a financial crisis, is facing extension of settlements.
So both sides are very weakened and they are talking together to try to find an understanding
whereby they'll work to set up a Palestinian committee that would be made of independent
Palestinians. The idea is that it's known that the international committee wouldn't
accept Hamas to run humanitarian affairs there. They'll be worried about sanctions and diversion.
And Benoît, would this potential plan be acceptable to Israel?
Well, we know the main focus of Israeli thinking is really to find ways to secure the Gaza
Strip. So for instance, through various corridors where they could do fast-track interventions
rather than the governance and civilian side. What remains to be seen is really what the
Trump administration is going to say about this reconciliation, about this independent Gaza committee. That's going to be the key and
is still the unknown.
And finally, Benoît, this is coming as aid groups today are reporting that Israel has
failed to meet U.S. demands issued 30 days ago to surge more humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Would this plan by Hamas and Fah address that immediate situation in any way?
Dr. Klaus-Helmier Reconciliation is not something that affects
humanitarian endeavors immediately. However, no side wants a vacuum here. So at least you have
a ready-made solution to handle humanitarian deliveries if there was a ceasefire. And the hope
is that will help the notion of ceasefire because you have a plan that
potentially is acceptable for everyone. That's not going to be impeded by Hamas, by Fatah,
by Israel or the US. So the idea is it would help automatically any immediate aftermath
of a ceasefire. But for now, for this minute, yes, it's not impacting the situation.
That was journal correspondent Benoit Faucon.
We are exclusively reporting that ExxonMobil chief executive Darren Woods says President-elect
Donald Trump should not pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement, telling the
journal that Trump's proposal to exit the international pledge for a second time would
create uncertainty that's unhelpful for business.
Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement in his first term before Biden rejoined it
in 2021.
Wood's remarks come as he attends the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, where
he said that policymakers are becoming more receptive to the idea that limiting fossil
fuel supplies and forcing expensive green
energy alternatives into the market isn't working. The summit has also been
dominated by talk of China taking a greater lead in climate policy ahead of
the Trump administration likely putting the issue on the back burner. Here was
US climate envoy John Podesta yesterday.
In January we're gonna inaugurate a president whose relationship to climate change
is captured by the words hoax and fossil fuels.
He's vowed to dismantle our environmental safeguards and once again withdraw the United
States from the Paris Agreement.
That is what he has said, and we should believe him.
Oil and gas giant Shell has won an appeal in a Dutch court against a landmark 2021 ruling
that said it was partially responsible for climate change and must sharply cut its carbon
emissions.
At the time, a district court in The Hague ordered the company, which was then based
in the Netherlands, to reduce its carbon emissions by 45 percent by the end of 2030 from 2019
levels.
The Dutch arm of environmental group Friends of the Earth, which led the civil suit against
Shell, called the decision a shocking setback, but didn't say whether it planned an appeal
to the Dutch Supreme Court, which could extend the legal fight for years.
Shell's chief executive, Wiles Sawan, said the company believed the court's decision
was the right one for the global energy transition.
Shell's share price is little changed in midday trading.
And in other news moving markets today, SoftBank returned to a net profit in the second quarter,
boosted by gains in its tech-focused Vision Funds business.
The Japanese investment company said its net profit was about $7.7 billion for the three
months ending in September, compared with a net loss a year earlier, when its bottom line was dragged
by losses related to WeWork's bankruptcy in the U.S.
Bitcoin's streak of setting new record highs continues, with the cryptocurrency briefly
topping $89,000 in early trading today as Trump's election victory continues to reverberate
through markets.
Ethereum, Solana, and Dogecoin, the meme token that Elon Musk likes to promote, have also jumped.
And U.S. airlines are suspending flights to Haiti after a Spirit Airlines plane that took
off from Fort Lauderdale, Florida appeared to be hit by gunfire while attempting to land in the
country yesterday.
Spirit said it had suspended flights to Haiti until further investigation, and the damaged
plane was put out of service after it was diverted to the Dominican Republic.
American Airlines and JetBlue Airways said they were canceling their flights to Haiti
until at least Thursday.
The Spirit Airlines incident came a day after the country's acting Prime Minister was
fired by a ruling council created to restore order. Gangs have seized on the ongoing insecurity in
Haiti and have ramped up attacks on the capital Port-au-Prince in recent months.
And that's it for What's News for Tuesday morning. Additional sound in this episode was
from Reuters. Today's show was produced by Kate Bullivant.
Our supervising producer was Daniel Bach.
And I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal.
We will be back tonight with a new show.
Until then, thanks for listening.