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In today’s issue:
- Netanyahu thanks Biden, Trump for truce help
- Rubio, Bondi head for easy confirmations
- Ex-lobbyists among Trump’s team
- Californians grapple with fire insurance
Gaza ceasefire: Will it last?
Fifteen months of fighting in Gaza is poised to end in the coming hours, as Israel and Hamas approve a ceasefire deal that has been months in the making.
In a Wednesday Oval Office address, President Biden praised the cooperation between his administration and that of President-elect Trump in sealing the deal.
“This plan was developed and negotiated by my team, and it will be largely implemented by the incoming administration,” Biden said. “That’s why I told my team to keep the incoming administration fully informed. Because that’s how it should be: Working together as Americans.”
Negotiators from the U.S., Qatar and Egypt have been working for months to end the drawn out, destructive conflict, only for talks to repeatedly fail at the eleventh hour. In the 15 months since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel — during which 1,200 people were killed and 250 were taken hostage — more than 46,000 Gazans lost their lives and a majority of the enclave’s population has been displaced.
The hard-won agreement will bring the first real break in violence since a weeklong truce expired Dec. 1, 2023. Referencing his decades-long career in foreign policy, Biden said Wednesday that reaching a deal was “one of the toughest negotiations I’ve ever experienced.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke Wednesday with both Biden and Trump. Netanyahu thanked the president-elect for “helping Israel bring an end to the suffering of dozens of hostages and their families” in a post from the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office. He also “spoke with U.S. President Joe Biden and thanked him as well for his assistance in advancing the hostages deal,” the prime minister’s office said.
What happens now? The ceasefire takes effect immediately once finalized. It is expected to begin Sunday if Israel’s Cabinet and Supreme Court allow the deal to proceed — the day before Biden leaves office and Trump takes power for a second time.
Netanyahu’s office today said it is delaying a vote on the ceasefire deal over last-minute disputes with Hamas, which the group denies. The prime minister has faced immense domestic pressure to bring home the hostages, but his far-right coalition partners have threatened to bring down his government if he makes too many concessions.
When implemented, the truce’s first phase will last six weeks, during which hostages will start being released — including two U.S. citizens. About 100 hostages are thought to still be in Gaza, although the Israeli authorities believe around 35 of those people are dead. Additionally, Palestinian prisoners will be released from Israeli prisons as part of the deal.
While Israel will also begin to withdraw its military from Gaza, it is expected to hold on to significant “assets,” including high-profile Palestinian prisoners convicted of terrorism and territory in Gaza, to use as leverage in a second stage of negotiations to ensure that all hostages are released, The New York Times reports. That phase of the deal will begin on the 16th day of the truce.
Mediators of the ceasefire proposal vowed in a statement that leaders from Egypt, Qatar and the U.S. would act as guarantors of the agreement. Their role is to work with Israel and Hamas to ensure both parties implement all three phases of the agreement in full.
▪ The Washington Post: Here’s what we know about the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal.
▪ The New Yorker: In Israel, grief and frustration about a long, brutal war is mixed with joy that some hostages may soon return.
▪ Reuters: World leaders react to the ceasefire deal.
▪ Time magazine analysis: A Gaza ceasefire is here. Why did it take so long?
A permanent plan for Gaza’s future remains unclear. Under the ceasefire, much-needed humanitarian aid will reach the enclave at significantly higher rates, a Qatari official told The Hill, adding that hospitals, health centers and bakeries will be rehabilitated. But rebuilding could take decades.
Speaking Wednesday afternoon at the White House, Biden acknowledged in some of his sharpest terms yet the suffering that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have endured as Israel waged war on Hamas. His administration has faced backlash for not doing enough to press Israel to avoid civilian casualties in its military offensive.
“The Palestinian people have gone through hell,” he said. “Too many innocent people have died. Too many communities have been destroyed.”
ProPublica: A year of empty threats and a “smokescreen” policy: How the State Department let Israel get away with horrors in Gaza.
While the ceasefire took months to broker, within hours a battle had erupted in Washington over who deserves the credit for it, The Hill’s Niall Stanage writes in The Memo.
“The EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November,” Trump insisted on social media shortly after noon Wednesday. “We have achieved so much without even being in the White House.”
Trump had warned of “all hell” breaking loose in the region if Hamas did not release hostages before Jan. 20, and his special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, worked closely with Biden’s negotiators to reach a conclusion of the deal. The president said Wednesday that the deal was based on a framework he proposed last May.
Biden offered acknowledgment of the Trump team’s efforts Wednesday. He said that while “the deal was developed and negotiated under my administration … its terms will be implemented, for the most part, by the next administration.”
“We’re handing off to the next team a real opportunity for a brighter future in the Middle East,” Biden said. “I hope they take it.”
Axios: How Trump and Biden joined forces to broker the deal.
Trump’s nominee for secretary of State, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), on Wednesday faced his Senate colleagues at a Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing as news of the ceasefire broke. Rubio gave credit to both the Biden team and the Trump transition team for working side by side. But asked if he supported a Palestinian state, the end goal of the Biden administration’s diplomatic efforts in the region, the Florida Republican would not commit.
“Part of that [ceasefire] deal has this very tenuous but important six-week period, [to transition] to a civil administration, that could serve as a foundation to build upon. We don’t know yet,” Rubio said.
Meanwhile in Gaza, celebrations rang out as Palestinians heard the news that a ceasefire agreement had been reached. Farah Hathout, 20, who has been displaced nine times throughout the war, told The Washington Post she woke up to check the news and couldn’t believe it at first.
“Is it real? Have they signed?” Hathout, who is studying to be an English translator, said she asked herself. “I pray it goes through. May God compensate us for what we experienced.”
SMART TAKE with NewsNation’s BLAKE BURMAN:
Is major change coming to the Federal Emergency Management Agency? I heard real concerns from both sides of the political aisle.
Consider what Rep. Judy Chu, a Democrat who represents the Altadena community in Los Angeles County devastated by wildfires, told me Tuesday.
“I am hearing about frustrations with FEMA because they have done what we asked, which is to sign up on the disasterassistance.gov site, and then some of them have gotten denied approvals or non-approvals,” Chu said.
On the other side of the country, Rep. Chuck Edwards, a Republican who represents Asheville, N.C., told me his community is facing housing struggles four months after Hurricane Helene hit. “We need a new director, a new administrator. And we’ve got to change the culture of FEMA. There’s too much government bureaucracy and not nearly enough caring about the folks that they should be tasked to help,” he said.
A new administration should signal some change, but how big of an overhaul might there be? That will be up to soon-to-be President Trump and his team.
Burman hosts “The Hill” weeknights, 6p/5c on NewsNation. The Hill & NewsNation are owned by Nexstar Media Group.
3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY:
▪ Biden took some parting shots at Trump and the power of the wealthiest during his farewell speech Wednesday with a call for a constitutional amendment to counter a Supreme Court ruling to clarify that presidents don’t have immunity for crimes committed while in office. He also warned about “oligarchy” in America.
▪ Inflation is more stubborn than policymakers had hoped. The consumer price index for December, released Wednesday, was up 2.9 percent year over year. Meanwhile, Trump has recently said lowering prices for groceries, as he campaigned to achieve, will take time.
▪ The Supreme Court as of this writing has not ruled on legislation that goes into effect Sunday to ban TikTok. Biden officials are “exploring options” for the law’s implementation so the popular app does not go dark Sunday. And Trump, who becomes president at noon Monday, is weighing a possible executive order that would suspend for two or three months the law’s nationwide ban while options for a TikTok sale are examined.
LEADING THE DAY
© The Associated Press | Alex Brandon
REPUBLICAN REALISTS AND RENEGADES? Trump nominees Wednesday tried to balance fealty to Trump’s personal worldviews with perspectives aimed at lining up bipartisan Senate support to quickly assemble a Cabinet.
Rubio, once a Trump challenger and now the president-elect’s choice to be secretary of State, appeared to be moving swiftly toward a bipartisan job promotion as he fielded friendly questions from his Senate Foreign Relations Committee colleagues.
Rubio, 53, said he backs NATO — a touchy Trump topic because of the president-elect’s “America first” sensibilities — but said Europe needs to do more to protect itself. He reinforced his hardline approaches to governments in China, Venezuela, Iran and Cuba, the homeland his parents fled.
Noting his record of criticism aimed at Beijing, he said, “My role now as a secretary of State is to lead the diplomatic wing of the country, and that will involve engaging them.”
Ending the Ukraine war, which began with Russia’s military invasion in February 2022, will require concessions by both nations, Rubio said. Trump during his campaign told voters he would end the war by seeking a negotiated settlement, even before his inauguration. Trump has said he hopes to schedule a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Hill: Five takeaways as Rubio pledges to make the State Department “relevant again.”
Trump’s pick to be attorney general, Pam Bondi, sought to balance her agreement with Trump about a “weaponized” Biden-era Justice Department and FBI with senators’ concerns that Trump will move quickly to erode the department’s independence under law.
The Hill: Bondi grilled about Trump’s influence over the Justice Department.
Bondi, 59, a former Florida attorney general who later did legal work for Trump, presented herself as both loyal to the president-elect and to a Justice Department independent of politics. She backed the president-elect’s assertion that the Biden administration “targeted” Trump by bringing two criminal cases against him. But she told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee she would not pursue “political” prosecutions as attorney general, if confirmed. Some Democrats on the panel sounded skeptical, but senators in both parties predicted Bondi would be easily confirmed.
▪ The Hill: Republican Russell Vought, Trump’s choice to serve as director of the Office of Management and Budget, signaled Wednesday some bruising spending clashes ahead, accompanied by expansion of White House sway over the bureaucracy.
▪ The Hill: Fracking CEO Chris Wright, nominated to lead the Energy Department, appeared poised for confirmation despite clashes Wednesday over climate change during his hearing.
▪ The Hill: Former John Ratcliffe, Trump’s pick to succeed CIA Director Christopher Wray, who will resign ahead of the end of his 10-year term, edged closer to confirmation Wednesday. The former Texas lawmaker vowed not to fire or force out agency employees for their political views or opinions about Trump.
Confirmation hearings continue today for contenders who would lead Trump’s second-term Treasury, Interior Department, Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Housing and Urban Development. Among the group is Interior designee Doug Burgum, the former governor of North Dakota and onetime primary rival, and Scott Bessent, a billionaire money manager who would help navigate Trump’s enthusiasm for tariffs and tax cuts as Treasury secretary.
Transition collaboration: At the White House as confirmation hearings took place on Capitol Hill, some of Trump’s incoming Cabinet picks joined senior officials with the Biden administration for a tabletop exercise mandated by law to practice handling emergencies that would require an all-government response. The hypothetical crises they practiced? “Preventing and responding to terrorist attacks” and “managing pathogens such as bird flu.” Rubio, Pentagon pick Pete Hegseth, Homeland Security candidate Kristi Noem and Treasury designee Bessent were among those in attendance, according to the White House. Not present: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s choice to lead the Health and Human Services Department. Jim O’Neill, HHS deputy secretary designee, participated.
National Institutes of Health Director Monica Bertagnolli, a physician and scientist, is resigning effective Friday ahead of expected changes ahead at the Health and Human Service Department and on Capitol Hill. Biden nominated her in 2023.
The Hill: Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) will not be House Intelligence Committee chair in the new Congress. The decision by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) means Turner, who joined the panel in 2015, is no longer a committee member.
WHERE AND WHEN
- The House meets at 9 a.m. The Senate convenes at 10 a.m.
- President Biden will be interviewed by MSNBC, to be broadcast at 10 p.m. ET. The president will speak at 2 p.m. during a Defense Department farewell ceremony for the commander in chief accompanied by first lady Jill Biden and Vice President Harris at Joint Base Myers-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Va. The Bidens will return to the White House by 4 p.m.
- The first lady also will host a White House Joining Forces event with veterans and their families at 11:30 a.m.
ZOOM IN
© The Hill | Courtney Jones; Adobe Stock
Five former lobbyists have been appointed or nominated to Trump’s Cabinet, which is not surprising among presidents from both parties who have ambitious legislative agendas. The turnstile into and out of lobbying among executive officials (and congressional aides) has been brisk enough over the decades to inspire special ethics rules. Biden on Inauguration Day in 2021 issued an executive order laying out ethics commitments among executive branch personnel.
On the campaign trail last year, Trump said he was “not a big person for lobbyists” and floated a possible ban on government and elected officials who jump ship to lobby, The Hill’s Taylor Giorno reports. His top transition team signed ethics pledges covering their work before taking executive posts.
Trump’s incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles and Bondi have former ties to the lobbying firm Ballard Partners, helmed by one of the president elect’s top campaign bundlers, Brian Ballard, and staffed with Trump administration alums. Wiles, Trump’s campaign co-chair, was also a registered lobbyist with the firm Mercury Public Affairs as recently as the first quarter of 2024.
▪ USA Today: The Biden administration approved its last major batch of student loan relief Wednesday, greenlighting $4.5 billion in forgiveness for 261,000 borrowers.
Sen. John Fetterman’s (D-Pa.) recent meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago put him squarely in political news headlines. Representing a state with plenty of Trump voters, Fetterman has said he will back some of the president-elect’s Cabinet picks and agrees that deporting some migrants who are convicted criminals serves the nation’s security interests. The president-elect praised Fetterman as a “commonsense” Democrat, much to the consternation and speculation of progressives.
“I don’t judge people [by] who they choose to meet. I hope no one would do the same,” Fetterman recently told the Pennsylvania Capital-Star.
ELSEWHERE
© The Associated Press | John Locher
The wildfires scorching Southern California are turning neighborhoods into ash, decimating expensive properties and exacerbating an insurance crisis that predates the infernal blazes. Costs are quickly mounting as the Los Angeles area’s disaster continues to unfold, with AccuWeather’s Global Weather Center now estimating total economic damages of between $250 billion and $275 billion. The insurance sector alone is now expected to incur about $30 billion damages, according to new data released by Wells Fargo Securities, which accounts for more than 12,000 structures destroyed and average property values of $3 million.
“I think it’s safe to say, based on history, that when insurers get hit with the kind of claims that they are going to be processing here and paying on here, they will definitely seek to influence statewide rate increases,” Amy Bach, executive director of the consumer advocacy group United Policyholders, told The Hill’s Sharon Udasin. “There will be some impact on everybody. The worst of it will be in the areas that already have wildfire risk.”
▪ NPR: How climate change is reshaping home insurance in California — and the rest of the country.
▪ The Wall Street Journal: California’s incarcerated firefighters battle wildfires for minimal pay.
▪ The Hill: Debate about federal disaster funding for California pits congressional Republicans, who are demanding concessions from the state, against Democrats, who are unyielding in their pushback.
OPINION
■ After the Gaza ceasefire, getting serious about peace, by David Ignatius, columnist, The Washington Post.
■ MAGA is misreading its mandate, by David French, columnist, The New York Times.
THE CLOSER
© The Associated Press | J. Scott Applewhite
Take Our Morning Report Quiz
And finally … It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for this week’s Morning Report Quiz! Inspired by the upcoming presidential inauguration, we’re eager for some smart guesses about inaugurations in history.
Be sure to email your responses to asimendinger@thehill.com and kkarisch@thehill.com — please add “Quiz” to your subject line. Winners who submit correct answers will enjoy some richly deserved newsletter fame on Friday.
Before the ratification of the 20th Amendment in 1933, inaugurations happened in which month?
- April
- September
- March
- July
Which president was the first to skip his successor’s swearing-in?
- Millard Filmore
- John Adams
- John Quincy Adams
- Donald Trump
Which vice president was drunk during his inauguration (having imbibed whiskey to numb the pain from typhoid fever) and slurred his oath?
- John Tyler
- John C. Breckinridge
- Spiro Agnew
- Andrew Johnson
President Reagan successfully quit a smoking habit by eating this candy, a blue version of which was created specifically for his inauguration to complement the existing red and white flavors. (Three tons of the candy were used for inaugural celebrations.)
- Sweet Tarts
- Jelly Belly jellybeans
- M&M’s
- Skittles
Stay Engaged
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