Welcome to Meet the Press. Now I'm Dave Butiers in Washington where we're following breaking news as we are now just eight hours away from the government shutting down. And we're expecting a vote anytime now on House Republicans latest plan to keep the government open. This new bill comes after Republicans huddled for hours today trying to figure out a way forward after a Trump backed bill failed on the House floor last night.
That came after the president elects opposition tanked the bipartisan deal that was announced earlier this week. So where are we right now? Well, speaker of the House Mike Johnson said in the last hour that he will brief President elect Trump on the new plan, which according to sources involves a package to extend government funding through March 14, disaster relief and an extension of the farm bill. It does not include what Trump explicitly called for either in abolishment or suspension of the debt ceiling.
That 11th hour demand from the President elect on the debt ceiling was part of the bill that failed dramatically on the House floor last night after 38 House Republicans joined Democrats to vote against it. Now, this afternoon, Speaker Johnson was tight lit on the details, but promised House Republicans were united and that a shutdown would be avoided. There is a unanimous agreement in the room that we need to move forward. I will not telegraph to you the specific details of that yet because I've got a couple of things I gotta wrap up in a few moments upstairs.
But I expect that we'll be proceeding forward. We will not have a government shutdown. We won't meet our obligations for our farmers unit, aid for the disaster victims all over the country, and for making sure that military and essential services and everyone who relies upon the federal government for a paycheck is paid over the holidays. And unlike yesterday when Republicans crafted a slim down bill to appease President Elect Trump without consulting Democrats, today Minority Leader Jeffries telling reporters, quote, the lines of communication have been reopened.
Trump and some Congressional Republicans tried to blame Democrats for last night's bill failure. But the behind the scenes negotiations today suggest the party may be willing to buck Trump to fund the government facing a reality that with a divided Congress, they need Democratic support to get things done. And join me now is our NBC News team on Capitol Hill. Ryan Noble has the latest in the House Republicans plan and Garrett Hake is following the reaction within Trump world.
Ryan, I want to start with you. We're now expecting a House vote on government funding, disaster relief and the farm bill, but no debt ceiling. So how confident are Republicans that they can get Democrats much needed support on this? That is an Open question right now, Gabe, and it is the biggest question that we are waiting to get an answer to.
The House Republican Conference seems pretty settled that this is the path forward. They believe they have the votes. There is even the possibility that they'll attempt to do this with a straight up or down vote and not have to move it under suspension to get the 2/3 majority necessary. But there's still no scenario in which this package ultimately gets passed without Democrat support.
It probably needs at least a few Democratic votes in the House because there are a handful of House Republicans that will never vote for continuing resolution. It certainly needs Democratic support in the Senate, where they still maintain the majority. And the measure would need 60 votes. So Democrats that we've talked to have not been looped in completely on this package yet.
So we're gonna need to wait and see how this process plays it out. And then there's also one new wrinkle that's just developed here in the last few minutes, and it's one we have to pay very close attention to, Gabe, and that is that Elon Musk is now tweeting his displeasure with what he is reading about this potential proposal. We know how that turned out last time when Moss got himself involved. Yeah.
Should be interesting to see what the reaction is there. But I know a lot of people getting on this ride. But without the debt ceiling aspect, is this plan that much different from the bipartisan deal? It is a lot different than the bipartisan deal, and that's because it removes billions and billions of dollars of funding programs and policy proposals that both Republicans and Democrats had agreed upon during the early negotiating stages of this package.
It includes things like, or does not include things like funding for the restoration of the Francis Scotty Bridge in Baltimore. It does not have funding for a childhood cancer prevention program. It removes the reform to the Pharmacy Benefits manager program, which is going to be part of this bill. It also doesn't include the little things.
Well, a little, depending on your perspective, like giving a control of RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. back to the city in order for them to try and move their NFL franchise back within city limits. All of that is out of this bill. It is a very slimmed down, very narrowly focused.
Basically, what Speaker Johnson is trying to do here is alienate the least amount of people as possible so that they can get something over the finish line to avoid at least the damaging effects of a government shutdown. And you know, Ryan, it's been such a chaotic 24 hours. Why did House Speaker Johnson bring that bill to the floor last night if he knew it would fail. It may have been a way to demonstrate to his most vocal critics the reality of the situation here, that you cannot pass something without at least some level of bipartisan support and that Republicans were perhaps the biggest obstructionists when it comes to something like raising the debt ceiling.
There were 38 Republican votes against that measure last night, in part because of the addition of adding in the raising of debt ceiling which Donald Trump wanted. So it put in kind of plain, very real results, the consequences of trying to put a piece of legislation like that together. Perhaps that was something that gave Donald Trump the clear eye here about what it was going to take to avoid a government shutdown. And that may be why we're position that we're in now.
You know, Ryan, take us a little bit behind the scenes here. Are some Republican lawmakers actually frustrated with President Elect Trump even though they won't criticize him publicly. You know, every time he talks to Republicans, you know, privately and publicly, they seem to go out of their way to avoid putting any of the blame on Donald Trump. There we've seen Republicans express frustration about the heavy hand that Elon Musk has had in this process.
They there are a number of House Republicans that are frustrated with the way that Speaker Johnson has handled himself. But it seems as though Republicans in Congress right now are in lock step with Donald Trump. They recognize the results of this last election, that he controls the party and he is someone that has won the favor of the majority of the American people and therefore they have to do what he wants. So the frustration there isn't necessarily directed at Donald Trump.
It's directed at a whole bunch of other people, including Charlie, amongst themselves. They're mad at each other about the way this process has played out. But it's very rare to see any of them criticize Donald Trump publicly or privately. Garrett Hay, excuse me.
Ryan Nobles Life for us on Capitol Hill with the breaking developments. Ryan, thank you so much. And now I want to turn to Garrett Hake, also on Capitol Hill, but also covering the Trump transition. In Garrett, we just heard from Ryan there that Elon Musk has weighed in.
What's the mood in Trump world over the last 24 hours? Well, look, the mood in Trump world has been frustration that they are in this position. I spoke to one source close to Trump familiar with this thinking about this, who told me that he believes Mike Johnson should have tried to handle this dead limit issue a long time ago. A month ago, this person said or in any one of their conversations since when Trump has brought it up now, there's contradictory reporting on this.
It's not entirely clear when the debt limit was first brought up, in what context or what, if anything, Mike Johnson could have done about it. But the bottom line is, I think Donald Trump tried to FL a little bit here, try to clear some things off his plate from early January, try to kind of establish his control over the party. And right now, we're watching that turn into more of a struggle. I think he, or perhaps Mike Johnson realized it would be just get something fairly basic over the finish line in time.
You know, Gary, I know we're waiting for Trump's reaction or reaction, but at what point does doubling down on all this seem like he just doesn't understand the realities of legislating? Right. Well, look, I think there's two parts to that. I mean, Trump doesn't want to be seen backing a loser.
Right. If he realizes that this bill is going to have the votes and then opposing it again, if, you know, if he opposes it and it still passes, that's definitely not the way he wants to start his holiday break and start his presidency early next year. But if he can be the closer to kill off another thing that doesn't have the votes, he might do it. He has been pretty cavalier about the prospect of a shutdown because he believes it won't damage him politically.
It probably won't damage House Republicans who would vote to get him there, and there would be Jo Biden's problem to clean up. I'm not sure if any of that is true, but that's your viewpoint. Why not continue to try to press what you perceive as your political damage in this moment? You know, Gary, after this week, is the Trump Johnson relationship ruined?
No matter what happens with all this? I don't know that ruined, but it's definitely strange. I think the first go round about the debt ceiling was problematic. I think the fact that, you know, Johnson came out last night and said they had a deal that then Trump backed, that then had 38 Republicans ultimately vote against it created further strain.
I mean, Johnson has done it as well as anybody can in managing Donald Trump and his expectations from the start of his speakership until now, those expectations are going to go up when Donald Trump is back in the Oval Office and Johnson's majority is only going to get smaller. So this is the hardest job in Washington to be speaker of the House in this moment. And it's not clear how much longer Johnson can do it. I mean, perhaps the best thing that informs I don't know if there's anybody else who could do a demonstrably better job.
That may be part of his argument for keeping, you know, and Garrett Trump's also read the primary challenges, threatened primary challenges to those who defy him. How much do Republicans care at this point in January, after December, after election in November? I think they care very little, candidly, Dave. I mean, we're back in the world of Trump news cycles where these kind of things could flash and become two stories for a day and then be completely wiped out by the next thing the next day.
I don't think anybody in Congress right now is worried about a vote they're taking in December of 2024 affecting their position in November of 2026 or, you know, the spring of 2026, when we're going to be seriously thinking about primaries, especially so many news cycles between now and then dare to offer us on the Hill. We really appreciate it. And we're gonna go back to the breaking news on Capitol Hill in a moment. But we got breaking news out of Germany to bring you right now.
Officials say a suspect is in custody after a vehicle drove into a crowded Christmas market in the eastern city. Officials there say one person has been killed and 68 others injured. Want to warn you that some of the video is disturbing me. C News correspondent Danielle Hamanjan has been covering the story, and she joins me now.
Danielle, what do we know exactly about what happened at that market? Well, there's still a lot we don't know, but as you say, officials have confirmed that one person was killed, but I have to say that number is expected to rise as the evening progresses. Dozens have been injured, at least 68 people. There's currently an extensive police operation in place.
And the video that's been circulating certainly is absolutely shocking to watch a car ramming into a crowded Christmas market in Germany. You can see dozens and dozens of people just enjoying really just a Friday night out, days before Christmas. Now, Magdeburg is a city west of Berlin. This is a big tourist attraction.
Hundreds of thousands of people every year come to this Christmas market. The city itself is home to about 240,000 people. Again, we're still waiting for official information to come in who this driver was, is what his motives were. We do know that he has now been detained.
I can tell you that among the 68 people who are been confirmed injured, 15 of them were seriously injured, 37 moderately injured, 16 slightly injured. But again, if this all sounds familiar to you is because eight years ago, almost to the day it was December 19, back in 2016, when in Berlin at a Christmas market there, an Islamic extremist attacker had plowed through a crowd of market goers with a truck, leaving 13 people dead that day, injuring dozens more. The attacker was later killed in a shootout in Italy. Again, we're waiting for more information to come in as the evening progresses.
But as you can imagine, this is just absolutely shocking. It is heartbreaking. Christmas markets are sort of part of the, part of the culture in Germany. You know, this is the kind of place where people meet after work for mulled wine.
It is family friendly. It's not uncommon to see children there. There are live bands, carousels. And again, this is one of the most popular Christmas markets in Europe.
Hundreds of thousands of people come every year to the Magdeburg Christmas market. And so again, according to local officials, one person confirmed dead so far. But that number, as I say, is expected to rise. Remarkable, as you say that about eight years ago there was another similar event sparked in Germany.
We know that you'll continue to follow this breaking news and we'll bring you any updates as we get them. Thank you, Daniel. And coming up in the nightmare before Congress be averted, I'll talk to House lawmakers on both sides of the aisle about what's going on behind closed doors. And we're the last minute effort to reach a funding deal stands now.
Plus, a live report from the Pentagon on the surprising number of US Troops revealed to be in Syria right now as top US Officials descend on Damascus to meet with Syria's new leaders. You're watching Beat THE PRESS now. Welcome back. We're following the breaking news on Capitol Hills.
Lawmakers work to avert a government shutdown in less than eight hours. And for more on where things stand, I'm joined now by Republican congressman and vice chairman of the Republican Governance Group, Carlos Jimenez of Florida. He voted in favor of that government funding bill last night. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us here on MEET THE PRESS now.
And a point of personal privilege, privilege. It is great to have a fellow Cuban American from Miami on the show. We appreciate you being here. It's my pleasure.
So there are less than eight hours, Congressman, until the government shuts down. Have you seen the latest proposal and have you received any guidance on when there could be a vote? Yeah, we know what the latest proposal is. Latest proposal, there are two of them.
One of them is if you go through a what's called a suspension, it's a one bill that basically gives a clean cr. In other words, we Continue to fund the government at the same rate that's being funded. And right now we give about $100 billion in aid to those suffering from natural disasters, say in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, from those hurricanes. And then there's also another $10 billion in aid to farmers.
That's the suspension. It's all rolled into one that would have to go before the House and it needs the two thirds of the House to vote for it. The only difference between that proposal and what we and what some Republicans and all the Democrats voted against basically yesterday was that it doesn't have a an increase in the debt ceiling of the United States. The other proposal is to go through a rule.
And a rule means that it has to go through the rules Committee and then it'll be voted on separately. A clean CR separately, aid to our farmers separately, and also replenishing the disaster funds separately. And then that one those things that pass then would go on to the House. That can't happen though until after midnight.
So are you gonna go for it? Yes, I will. I'll vote for the CR becomes to that or it becomes an individual individually. After midnight.
I'll vote for all three. All right, Congressman, I wanted a reaction to a tweet from Elon Musk just a few minutes ago. He said, so is this a Republican bill or a Democratic bill? What's that you.
I say it's a Republican bill. I mean those things that I just spoke about are actually things that we want. The Republicans want that. The fact that Democrats may want that too, that's great.
But we want that. And so those three items I think are things that both parties can agree to and have agreed to, not because of any back and forth negotiations, because we really want to do that. So I guess, you know, you have to put your money where your mouth is. If the Democrats really want those things, then they'll vote for it.
And they don't, then they won't. Are you frustrated that Elon Musk is meddling this? Elon Musk is a private citizen and we see tweets all the time. And so no, he has a right to tweet whatever he wants, like every other American citizen has a right to tweet whatever they want.
And so now it doesn't bother me one bit. Well, he's a private citizen who happens to be billionaire and have the ear of the President elect of the United States. He seems to have out to influence here. Would you not say I agree with that?
It all depends on the individual whether he has an undue influence or not for me, Elon Musk is a private citizen, has a right to tweet and I'll listen to him. Yeah, everybody knows who he is. But will that sway me one way or the other? Unless he has a compelling argument.
He needs to have a compelling argument in order to sway me. I've already told you that this is a Republican bill. I'll be voting for either the CR or if it comes to a rule, I'll vote for that too. Congressman, couldn't all this chaos have been avoided if President elect Trump didn't make that last minute demand on the death seal?
Well, he wants a debt ceiling lifted and I think he has every right and actually supported him doing that and supported the CR yesterday. And the majority of the majority, the majority of Republicans supported that, that, that CR yesterday, something not all the Democrats did not. So obviously yesterday's bill was a Republican bill that the Democrats didn't like. This bill is still a Republican bill.
Let's see what the Democrats do with it. But I intend to vote for it, for it either way as a CR or as a, as a, as a rule. And on that point, do you think you'll get support from House Democrats on this latest proposal? And was it a mistake to not include Democrats in the budget negotiations last night?
Well, look, the, what was put on the table last night, the only thing that was added was that the Democrats hadn't seen before was the inclusion of the, the debt, raising the debt limit of the United States. I understand why the Democrats didn't vote for it. They want leverage. All right.
On that into the next, into the next Congress. I didn't say I don't understand why they did it, but it's only because they want, they want leverage. Look, nobody here wants us to default on the credit of the United States neo Democrats or Republicans. But if you're in the minority party, you can use that as leverage for whatever it is that you want to see in next to the next Congress.
I understand why they did it, but it's not something that you should fall in short for. Let me tell you something your colleague Congressman Burchett said yesterday. So how can President Trump blame Democrats when the Republican House can't get on board with something to pass on their own? Well, I think it's better to watch me shift here, but I think it's better to blame the system.
We're elected to do a job. We're elected to pass a budget. That is what we're constitutionally mandated. The one thing we're Actually, in the d Constitution is a budget, and we abdicate that duty every time.
House Republicans will have an even slimmer margin come January. So, Congressman, why should Americans have any confidence that Republicans will be able to get anything done? We'll get things that we'll have. We'll have a President of the United States, we'll have the Senate, and now we have the House.
So we'll actually get a heck a lot more done now than in the last Congress when we didn't have the Senate and we didn't have the President, United States. We're going to make such a changes and we're going to change the direction of this country. Now that we have the House, the Senate and the President, are we going to have disagreements inside our conference? Absolutely.
But I'm confident that we're going to get through those disagreements and we're going to start leading this country in the right direction. And President Trump is going to be at the helm. And so, yeah, I'm supremely confident that we will be able to do a much better job than the Democrats did when they had control. Speaking of confidence, Congressman, do you still have confidence in Speaker Johnson should he remain speed?
Yeah, I do. Look, Mike Johnson is a smart, honest, decent person, and he has my full confidence. It's hard to control 220 different personalities, 435 different personalities, and everybody thinks that it's an easy job. It's not.
And so I think he's doing as good a job as anybody can trying to navigate through all those personalities and differences of opinions. We need to come to a consensus. We need to come to an agreement. Sometimes it's not easy, sometimes it's not free.
But I'm sure he's gonna get us there at the end. Congressman Carlos Jimenez of Florida, we really appreciate, appreciate your time on this busy afternoon at the Capitol. Thank you. Thank you, thank you.
And up next, we'll hear from a top House Democrat about how the first bipartisan agreement fell apart, the musk effect, and where the White House is in all of this. With less than eight hours until shutdown, Congresswoman Debbie Dingle is standing by for us. Don't go anywhere. They're watching me, the President.
Welcome back. We just heard from a House Republican on this party's efforts to avert a government shutdown. So let's now turn to the other side of the aisle. Joining me now live is Democratic Congresswoman from Michigan, Debbie Dingle.
Congressman, thank you so much for joining us here on the press. Now, do you plan to vote for this latest government funding proposals. So our caucus hasn't met yet. I've heard so many rumors in the last few days, so many mistruths.
I want someone to tell me exactly what's in the agreement, what it's going to be, and then we'll as a caucus discuss it and figure out what we're going to be doing. But our caucus hasn't even been scheduled yet. I do hope it's soon. So if this doesn't fly, are you willing to stay in Washington through the holidays to get this done?
That's my job. We can. I think our job is to keep the government open. I think a lot of people don't understand how many we take government for granted, how many people are working and are worried about what's going to happen at the holidays, about not having a paycheck, what's going to happen at the airports to essential services.
So none of my colleagues don't want to keep the government open. But if we don't have something that's going to protect working men and women, we can't vote for it and we'll have to see what's going to be presented. So Congresswoman doesn't have a meeting scheduled yet. How quickly could this happen?
Well, we did not return. We recessed. We will come back together fairly quickly, I would guess with 20 minutes, half an hour notice. Great, fine black lines up in the Hill.
But you don't know what's true. And what's not true is that you may try for an early evening vote. So but I think it's really important. The American people have heard a lot of things that aren't true about bills in the last three days.
And I'm not talking about anything without knowing exactly what the facts are. We haven't even seen the bill. We don't have language. It's not printed.
Congresswoman, there's already a lot of blame going around, isn't it, on all lawmakers to have gotten this done before, just a few hours before they needed to? I am tired of these shutdowns. I don't think it's a responsible way to run our government. The problem is we should be doing 12 appropriation bills and the Republicans cannot agree within their own pockets to even bring a bill to the floor.
And I know the Republicans, they're as frustrated as I am. So yes, it is incumbent upon all of us to try to do this. We had a bipartisan deal. The corners, what's called the four corners.
The leadership, Republican, Democratic leaders of both House and Senate agreed to it and then suddenly Elon Musk, an unelected billionaire who started as well since Donald Trump became president, stamped his figures and by the way, tweeted almost 200 times on Wednesday with mistrusts about the bill all day. That's not the way our government's supposed to work either. Congresswoman. We often say that there is one president at a time.
That president right now, of course, is Joe Biden. So would you have wanted him to be more involved in this process? You know how involved he's not been involved. There were negotiations going on for weeks, months about bringing this deal together.
Then suddenly both Elon Musk and former and about to be President Trump spoke and the deal fell apart. The speaker didn't talk to Hickeen Jeffries for more than 24 hours, including anything that was being put forward yesterday. So people got to talk to each other to know what's happening. So I think people understood the importance of communication.
I want to work with my colleagues across the aisle, but you know, it's not, it's Congress's job to do this. Congresswoman, The White House has said that they've been in touch with Democratic leadership on this, but the President hasn't spoken publicly about this in the last several days. He has answered questions from reporters today. His White House press secretary did say that that was part of the strategy, essentially that it was Republicans mess.
And so essentially the White House is getting out of the way here. But shouldn't Americans hear from the President of the United States just several hours before government shutdown? I know that the President spoke to the key within the last couple of hours. I know that he and staff are standing very close to all of this.
I'm not quite sure that the Republicans have been wanting to speak to Democrats a lot about this. They've been talking among themselves and trying to reach agreement within their caucus. So I'm not gonna let people put the blame on President Biden. It is a Republican bipartisan negotiated deal that bell apart inside the Republican caucus.
We all want to work with everybody. I don't want to shut the government down. I've seen a lot of things come together in this kind of time and I hope we're able to do that. At some point.
Congress will also have to decide on what to do to get ceiling. So Trump says he wants to get rid of Democrats. Agree. Senator Warren posting on X yesterday.
I agree with the President elect that Congress should terminate the debt limit and never again govern by hostage taking. Do you agree? This is what I'm going to say you don't just throw it out the way that it was thrown out. I think it should be a discussion.
I probably agree with this hostage taking, but I also. You don't agree with throwing it out in the middle of what's been weeks and months negotiations and doing it because you want to get billionaires attacks. One of the first things that you want to do, I want to make sure that the people that I represent are also protected in everything that's going to happen. And we need to understand the whole picture.
That's what is very important in all this. And we're not getting all the vaccine, the whole picture. That's important. Congressman Donald Trump will be sworn in in exactly a month.
So are there areas where Democrats can work with him? For example, he told Person Walker he wants to do something to protect viewers. Look, I think it would be wonderful if we could protect viewers now in the area. I will work with them.
I think terrorists are tool in the toolbox. And when he first asked the one that told everybody he could have been elected in two, 16 Democrats did a terrible job about talking about trade. I worked with them and we still have to fix the usmca. And I want to work with them on it.
So yes, there are we should try to work together in all areas. But they're very specific areas. I totally agree with him on trade. China is one.
So you may agree with him at least in part on tariffs. At least that's something you can work with him on. It's a tool in the toolbox. Yes.
After we've seen Trump pull the rug out from under Speaker Johnson on the budget, can Democrats trust any deal they reach with Trump? Right now, I think that that's a question people are going to ask and they're going to be very skittish about anybody giving a word on any deal. Congressman Debbie Dingle, we really appreciate your time on this busy afternoon on Capitol Hill. Thanks so much.
And we're keeping a close eye on all the developments as they're happening on the Hill. We'll bring you any of the breaking developments as we get them. So after the break, it's time to meet the Cabinet with a profile of President Electron's pick for secretary of state with just one month to go until Inauguration Day. You're watching Meet THE Press now.
Stay with us. Welcome back. Senior U.S. officials arrived in Damascus today for the first diplomatic mission to Syria since the fall of Bashar al Assad's regime earlier this month.
The delegation met with members of the rebel group known as hts, which is acting as a de facto government in Syria, HTS remains a U.S. designated terrorist group. But after today's meeting, U.S. officials lifted the $10 million bounty on the leader of the group.
And it comes as the Pentagon announced the number of US Troops stationed in Syria is more than twice what was previously disclosed to the public. For several years, the Pentagon reported roughly 900 troops in the country. But yesterday the Pentagon revealed the number has actually been closer to 2000. And he sees Cory Cutie joinsing now from the Pentagon.
What do we know about that meeting between HTS and the US Diplomatic mission? Well, two big headlines that came out of a cave. Number one, as you mentioned, the head of hts, this rebel group that overthrew the Assad regime of a family that's been in power in Syria for decades. Well, this rebel group, the leader, met with the US Delegation that you mentioned, led by Barbara Leaf, the top diplomat, State Department for the USA Department for that region.
And in that meeting, she notified HDS that she was taking their leader off of that, taking the bounty off of that leader, that the US Was going to agree to do that after the meetings. She and others. You saw that video then walking out of the meeting. Actually, you can see Roger Carsons there.
He's a special envoy for hostage affairs of the State Department. They briefed reporters via phone and they explained that the meeting actually went pretty well, that they had their HCs, the rebel leaders, they were saying the right things. They seem to be moving the right direction. Now, they both stressed that HTS has to back up their words with actions.
And that is critical here. But the reality is, Gabe, I mean, a month ago, if we had been talking about the possibility of senior State Department officials being in Damascus, meeting with members, leaders of hds, who is listed as a terror group in the United States, we wouldn't believe it to be true. But it happened today. You know, Courtney, those new developments seem to suggest that the group, that the group's path towards international legitimacy moved way forward to that.
It absolutely did. And it's not just the US who is conducting these meetings and these phone calls. Other allies are. I think the next thing we will see here is allies really discussing and maybe even moving forward with taking HTs off the terror list.
Now, what's critical here, Dave, is the US and others can still talk to them, negotiate with them with this group now, even without delisting them. So they may take it a little bit slower, but they're definitely moving in that direction. And then, of course, the Other big thing here is Roger Carson being there. His mission is to find Americans, to bring them back home all over the world.
He's been extremely focused on Austin Tice ever since he took over in that role. And he is clearly there to talk to them about any evidence they might have about where Austin could be in Syria. According, as we mentioned yesterday, we learned that the actual number of US Troops in Syria is close to double what was previously reported by the Pentagon. How's the Pentagon explaining that?
Yeah, this. I mean, I know a lot of viewers may say, okay, so there's an extra 1100 or 1200, whatever it is, US troops in Syria. But I can tell you this is a pretty blockbuster development here. So now, for years, the US Military, particularly the Central Command, have been telling the American public that There are about 900 US troops in Syria primarily focused on the counter ISIS mission.
We found out that for at least months, if not longer, there have been more than 2,000 U.S. troops there, all supporting counter ISIS mission. Why this is so confounding is the mission there has not fundamentally changed. This is not in response to what's happened with the fall of the Assad regime.
It's not even in response to the attack on October 7th and just all of the tensions that emerged in the region since then. This has been a long standing, additional deployment, doubling of the number of troops there. And the reality is we still don't have a good answer for why the US Military needed to have those additional troops. The US Continues to take strikes against isis.
There was a successful one just yesterday. We will see more of those going forward. But again, the mission there has not fundamentally changed in this time. So it's not clear why those numbers have gone off so dramatically.
Yeah, the White House didn't give us a great answer that year and punted it towards the Pentagon. Courtney? Qv, I know you'll continue to be on that for us. We appreciate your time.
Thanks. All right. Syria and the ongoing instability through the Middle east will be one of the top foreign policy challenges facing the incoming Trump administration. And Senator Marco Rubio, Trump's pick to be a Secretary of State.
It will be fun and centered when it comes to managing those crises. Today we're kicking off a new series digging into the background of the folks slated to be some of the most influential members of President Elect Trump's new cabinet. Here's me. Campaign ended.
Alex Tabit for the first installment of our Meet the Cabinet series. Together with Donald Trump, we are going to make America not just great, but greater than it has ever been before. Florida Senator Marco Rubio is President Elect Trump's pick to be America's top diplomat. Job the Secretary of State is to execute on foreign policy set by the elected President of the United States and hope to have the option to do it.
Rubio was born in Miami to Cuban parents who fled the island in 1956, a few years before the rise of Fidel Castro. I'm often asked for got me interested in politics. Well, it's hard to be apolitical when you grow up in a community of political exiles. A young football fanatic, Rubio would go on to play in college and keep a football near.
On the campaign trail years later, Rubio got his law degree from the University of Miami. Then he jumped into politics as the Florida State White coordinator for Bobdale's 1996 presidential campaign. He was elected to the Florida House in 2000, became speaker in 2006 and ultimately a U.S. senator in 2011.
There is still at least one place on this planet where it doesn't matter if your dad was a bartender and your mom was a maid. You can accomplish anything you want if you're willing to work hard for it and play by the rules. In its early days in the Senate, Rubio was part of the Gang of Eight by partisan group of senators who tried and failed to pass immigration reform. It is not good for this country to have millions of people living in shadows.
A member of both the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Vice chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence, he's known as one of China's toughest critics. The Chinese Communist Party is a challenge to the United States, unlike greater even than what the Soviet Union was because they are a commercial rival, a technological rival, a geopolitical rival, a diplomatic rival. On Trump's promise to quickly end the war in Ukraine, I would be comfortable with a deal that ends these hostilities and I think it's favorable to Ukraine, meaning that they have their own sovereignty, that they don't become a satellite state or profit state. And tensions in the Middle east to where both Rubio and Trump disagreed during the 2016 presidential campaign.
They've been locked step in their fervent support for Israel since October 7th. I wanted to destroy every element Hamas they can get their hands on. These people are vicious animals who did horrifying crimes and I hope you guys post that. Rubio's worldview as a hawk on China, a pragmatist for Ukraine and a supporter of Israel has him positioned to implement Donald Trump's foreign policy agenda and then he see Zox Habit joins me now.
Alex, Rubio was seen as the establishment choice here. Why do you think Trump won with him? Well, Gabe, Rubio and Trump have come a long way since those spats on the debate stage, all the way back in the 2016 GOP primary. Remember, Rubio was on Trump's shortlist to be his running mate this summer before Trump ultimately went with another senator, J.D.
vance, of course. But even after that snub, Rubio remained loyal to Trump, hitting the campaign trail with him, stomping on behalf of Trump and many of the key battleground states. Now, given Rubio's hard work on the campaign trail, given his recent loyalty to Trump and given his foreign policy expertise, it is perhaps not surprising that he ended up being Trump's pick for secretary of state. Gabe?
Alex Habit, thanks much for that. And up next, the breaking news. House Republicans just announced that the vote on the new plan to fund the government will happen in less than an hour. That just happened.
You're watching MEET THE PRESS now. Stay with us. We're back. Breaking news from Capitol Hill.
House Republicans just released a text of its new government funding plan and scheduled to vote for the 5pm hour. The plan does not include an increase to the debt limit and will need two thirds support to pass. And for more, here's the panel. I'm joined by Kevin Fry, Washington correspondent For Spectrum news, New York 1, Simone Sanders Townsend, former chief spokesperson for Vice President Harris and co host of MSNBC's the Weekend, and Mike Dubkin, who served as a White House communications director during Donald Trump's first term.
Thank you all so much for joining me. So let's turn to the breaking news. Kevin, what are you hearing? Right.
So I mean, look, Democrats are now we have to make their decisions. We don't really know where they're going to land quite yet. It really comes down to the ball being in their court because if they're going under suspension, which is how they're proceeding, they're going to need a fair number of Democrats to run with Republicans to actually get this done. We're waiting to see what Jeffries is advising them to do, exactly how they're planning to proceed.
But we knew that lines of communication have been open with Jeffries. It's unclear exactly where he's landed. Yes. So just a few minutes ago, we heard from Congressman Dingle.
She said that there had been no Democratic caucus meeting yet, that she was waiting for that. And now in the last few minutes hear Republicans and scheduled to vote. Well, I called this before we came on like three Democrats, I'm like, nobody's texting everyone. I just had a text from a senior Democratic member of Congress who said we meet at 5pm and this member says they expect the vote to be there as long as they confirm there are no poison provisions.
So to me, that says a couple things. One, that Democrats want to home and two, that they want the corner, Mike. And two, that they do not, they don't want to play with people around Christmas. You know, they're looking for their, for their, for things, for their tracks.
They don't, they don't want bun. But my concern is that they're not signing President Democrats had to deal with the Republicans, okay? Now some stuff happened in the Republicans order, Mike. Speaker Johnson has to manage buses tweeting out there.
So this is, I don't think a good precedent. This is not the deal that Democrats originally had known. You think they should stay fight? Yeah, I would, but you know, I'm not elected.
So. Hold on. There we go. Mike, does this seem like the Republicans are trying to muscle this through?
I mean, Democrats haven't even met yet. We've got a countdown clock. You've got a countdown clock corner of the screen. So I think, you know, everyone's looking to get out of town for this and I just say welcome to the next four years.
This is just the start. I have no idea where President Biden is or, you know, any. We will get to that. I asked the President about that, but no.
You may be on Musk's tweet just in the last hour or so asking is this a Republican or a Democrat though how much influence Elon Musk have and should he have this one? I don't understand this weird obsession that the Democrats. I kept referring last night to President Musk or President he is a useful tool right now for President Trump and he is getting quite a bit of free advertising for X at the moment. Every time the news media puts up a tweet by Musk, you know, it's all part of this orchestration that's coming out of Mar a Lago that I think, you know, we saw that first vote go down, the second vote, that never happened.
And now we're under plan C. Could it be that that tweet we saw a few minutes ago from Musk, I mean, do you really think he tweeted out without talking to Trump? Was that, you know, perhaps floating out to see what the reaction would be then? Trump doesn't have to take a position as a non billionaire I don't know who first, but no, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be surprised at all if they didn't have a discussion.
Can I just say there is rummaging made for a senior advisor to Elon Musk because he doesn't understand politics. Mike, I'm not saying I'm your agent, but I do. I just want you to call Elon Musk because he doesn't understand how it's working. And I do think that with a little more knowledge he could actually be more effective because he frustrated more programmers.
So Kevin, listen to what Simone just said. The possibility that Democrats might go along with this might. We don't know. But how do you see the next couple hours going with this plan's way?
And he seems to be kind of getting his way in some degree, especially if what you're hearing is correct. Mike, back to the point you made previously. President Biden has not spoken out publicly about this. Simone, you're shaking your head.
I ask. That's right. Oh, that's right for you, Jean Pierre. I asked her, is the President leading right now?
She said yes, he is. And she said that the strategy essentially from the White House House was to get out of the way like Republicans. This is Republicans mess that they are talking with Democratic leadership, Jeremy Schumer about messaging. But the President doesn't need to go out there and talk about this because it is not his mess.
He's the President of the United States. We have a Democrat in the White House. We have a Democratically led Senate. We're linked up with a Republican led House.
How as we end 2024 is this not Joe about it? Because it is the Republicans job to get their caucus in order and Democrats Republicans have a deal. And then Mike Johnson said great, this is it. They want everybody like we're happy RK Stadium was coming back to D.C.
they're going to get control, going to build that warfare. Now that's not probably happening. And then what happened? Elon Musk tweeted, now Trump put out the state with JB's name on it and now chaos.
So I don't think the President should have said anything if he was gonna say anything. It's like trying to tell, yeah, you got your wish. Because he didn't say anything. Yes.
What do people want Joe Biden say? Really? What should he have said? Okay, well so no, no, I'm asking you a same question.
Is he leading right now? Joe Biden didn't make this mess. Yes, he's leading to the President of The United States. If there's a deal that happens in Gaza, it will be because of what Joe Biden's administration has done.
Those are the negotiators. But on this, you want to bide the call of Speaker Johnson say this is how I said get shoot off with Donald Trump. There was a question yesterday, has he reached out to Speaker Johnson? You're saying he shouldn't do that as the president.
It is not on Joe Biden to clean up the Republican Party's mess and the Republican caucus in Congress. And I also argue that's the same for Democrats. So House Democrats or they're saying a very bad president for the next four years. So speaking of the next four years, you're seeing this with Kia Capitol now.
What do you expect in March I asked personally today who was very frustrated at one with how Speaker Johnson is handled this whole scenario. She called the Republican Party with larger not bronze conversation when they were crafting a scale to begin with. She called it, I'll use not the word that she used but mishandled I think was the word that she used. She can insert a cursor in there before that.
But this all opens up this question that they are as part of this deal making a handshake agreement to do this debt ceiling and negotiation that alliance for the reconciliation process where you are going to need because of the makeup of the House, all of the Republicans in line get things through and send it over to the Senate. If they can't get this done without so much chaos, one can only imagine how the next years are going to play out as we started one down here. Dave Weigel tweeted yesterday. I want to put it on the screen.
He said one refrain I've heard from Dems voters are kind of desynthesized to this. Nobody's losing elections because of how they voted on shut down brinksmanship, quote, the price of failure has been devalued according to Congressman Dan Kildy of Michigan. Do you agree with that is the price? Does anybody care anymore if the government shuts down?
I mean I think part of the thought with Dan Kilde being perhaps the exception for the Democrats was if you look at the last two years of Republicans being in charge of the House, you saw the speaker about battle one, speaker battle two and ongoing brinkmanship. So shouldn't that have set up the idea that Republicans can't be trusted to lead and they were given another two years apart? I mean Democrats bill on that every single time though they worked with the Republicans. I don't think that they did a good enough job of ensuring that the people knew that they were the reason that M.
Johnson Right now this is a lot of chatter and people are looking at Washington and in fact, they're probably not even looking at Washington. They're trying to figure out what the last gifts and stocking stuff are going to be. But until we have a shutdown and you can't board that plane and you don't get that Social Security channel, that's where the American people are going to pay attention to, not this Blakemanship. And Mike to close.
Does my Constance drop his house speak after this? I think. I think so because no other human being wants hard agree. And on that note, we can all agree on that.
Kevin Simone, Mike, thank you all for joining us here on the panel on Meet THE Press now. I'm Gaby Pierce and we'll be back Monday with more MEET THE PRESS Now. And if it's Sunday, it is a special edition of MEET THE Press on your local NBC station. Kristen will have exclusive joint interviews with Senators Raphael Warnock and James Langford on finding common ground.
Don't miss it. The news continues with Yasmin Vesuvian in for Hallie Jackson right now. He was a young Marine. She didn't care about convention.
They made a life together. Then one night the Marine died. And then the death investigation took a wild, unexpected and utterly bizarre turn. I'm Josh Makeowitz and this is Trace of Suspicion, an all new podcast from Data Lab.
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