atop israeli official is meeting with the house over israel s war over hamas. the lead starts right now. meetings are underway with a close confident and senior white house officials as the administration asks israel to scale back the war strategy and the prime minister says he s not backing down. a new caravan of thousands of migrants is headed to the u.s. border from southern mexico. one day before secretary state antony blinken heads to mexico city in an effort to deal with the crisis. if you re planning to return an unwanted holiday gift, it may cost you. we ll tell you why. hello and welcome to the lead. right now, top biden administration officials are set to meet with ron dermer in washington, d.c. a close confident of benjamin netanyahu. antony blinken and jake sullivan are expected to press dermer are moving israel to a more targeted phase of the war. this as netanyahu vows a long fight in gaza. israel defense forces are using the ground, air and naval troops t
widening war in the middle east after president biden orders retaliatory iron strikes on a group in iraq. plus chaos at the border. america s top diplomat is heading to mexico where thousands of migrants are making the trek to an already overwhelmed u.s. border. local law enforcement are begging for help to deal with the ongoing surge. and lashing out, donald trump spent christmas day attacking his enemies including president biden, counsel jack smith, his christmas message to him, rot in h ell. i m phil mattingly. let s go behind the headlines and inside politics. we start today with the 2024 race where republican candidates are gearing up for their final campaign push in iowa. 20 days, less than 3 weeks until the caucuses, his rivals will be crisscrossing the state trying to chip away at the front runner status. who can we expect to see in iowa? how are they going to make a difference in what has been a race that trump has led by far and away over the course of the
oral arguments on january 9th. that might make the current march trial date for trump s trial untenable, putting his entire 2024 legal calendar in question. so voters may not have a ruling on whether donald trump plotted to overturn the 2020 election until after they cast their ballots in 2024. we should note, if trump wins a second term in the white house, he could and likely would purger himself and charges might not ever see the charges in trial. extra points for coming in on a holiday weekend, so we appreciate that. i guess, to some extent, that might be a bit of a doomsday scenario to say this case may not happen at all in 2024. but what do you think? what are the consequences of this supreme court decision we heard? is it just going to end up back in their laps in a couple months from now anyway? what do you think? the scenario you painted isn t necessarily a doomsday scenario. trump asked to go on bond for the whole circuit to hear. and then he ll have something like
hello. i m lukwesa burak. within the past couple of hours, president biden and the republican house speaker, kevin mccarthy, have reached an agreement in principle on a new government debt limit, ending weeks of wrangling. mr mccarthy said there would be historic reductions in spending, and no new taxes or government programmes. democrats and republicans have untiljune 05 to reach agreement to prevent the us government running out of money. this is how mr mccarthy announced the breakthrough. after weeks of negotiations we have come to an agreement in principle. we still have a lot of work to do but i believe this is an agreement in principle worthy of the american people. it has historic reductions in spending, consequential reforms that will lift people out of poverty into the workforce, reign in government overreach, no new taxes, no new government programmes, and a lot more within the bill. we still have more work to do tonight to finish all of the writing of it. i do want
pass border is constant, over the last few hours we have seen how group after group of migrants get here, and that doesn t stop at night, either, after the immigrants surrender to u.s. border patrol agents at the border, they are brought here to this holding area behind me, where they have to wait to be processed. just yesterday customs and border protection released the numbers of what they call encounters with immigrants with border patrol agents. for the month of november, there were 191,113 apprehensions along the border, and that number rises to more than 242,000, nearly a quarter of a million people, if we add those who seek asylum at ports of entry. as high as those numbers seem, officials say they re lower as compared to the same period last year. congressman tony gonzalez, a republican who represents two-thirds of the texas border with mexico says, help from the federal government here at the border is desperately needed, especially considering that those in charge o