Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.
It was another busy day on Capitol Hill with a lengthy slate of confirmation hearings for incoming Trump administration nominees. Jonathan Allen sorted through them all and offers his takeaways. Plus, Andrea Mitchell looks back at the long road that led to the ceasefire deal in Gaza — and the roles the outgoing and incoming presidents played.
— Adam Wollner
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Pam Bondi takes her turn in the hot seat during a jam-packed day of confirmation hearings
Six of President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees faced Senate confirmation hearings Wednesday, previewing a parade of policy and political fights that will define his second term.
The person who was in the hottest seat was former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, Trump’s pick to be the next U.S. attorney general. She faced questions over whether she would stand up to a president who had pushed out the two men he previously appointed to be attorney general, as Ben Kamisar and Ryan J. Reilly report in their wrap-up of her day on Capitol Hill.
Courtesy of Jonathan Allen, here are the key takeaways from Bondi’s hearing, as well as the parade of hearings for other Cabinet nominees who appeared before senators.
Bondi wouldn’t say Trump lost in 2020: Bondi pointedly refused to say Trump lost the 2020 election fair and square under questioning from Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., at her hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“President Biden is the president of the United States. He was duly sworn in, and he is the president of the United States,” Bondi said. “There was a peaceful transition of power. President Trump left office and was overwhelmingly elected in 2024.”
Durbin, the top-ranking Democrat on the panel, noted that Bondi did not give him a yes-or-no answer.
Later, Bondi declined to retract her past statement that Trump had won Pennsylvania in 2020, and she pushed back against Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., for interrupting her.
“I’m not going to be bullied by you,” she told Padilla.
Democrats grill Bondi over Trump’s — and Kash Patel’s — influence: Bondi told Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., that she would not use the attorney general’s power to target political adversaries — even though Trump has often called for investigating and prosecuting his rivals.
“There will never be an enemies list within the Department of Justice,” Bondi said.
Last month, Trump told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker that decisions about whom to investigate and whom to prosecute would fall to Bondi and Kash Patel, his selection to head the FBI.
Patel has said judges, lawyers and journalists should be prosecuted for perceived impropriety in pursuing investigations of Trump after the 2020 election. Bondi defended Patel — to an extent.
“I don’t believe he has an enemies list,” Bondi said, adding that “Kash is the right person at this time for this job.”
But she told senators that they would have to ask Patel directly about his promotion of QAnon conspiracy theories.
No one ruined their confirmation chances: In addition to Bondi, the following nominees also sat for hearings: Marco Rubio, for secretary of state; Sean Duffy, for transportation secretary; John Ratcliffe, for CIA director; Chris Wright, for energy secretary; and Russell Vought, for director of the White House Office of Management and Budget.
The bottom line: None of them appeared to say anything that would cost them support from Republicans, portending a smooth road ahead.
Read more takeaways from the day’s hearings →
Biden and Trump both seek credit after a long road to a Gaza ceasefire deal
By Andrea Mitchell
After 15 torturous months of fruitless talks, there is finally a ceasefire and hostage deal in Gaza, with two American presidents taking credit — one on his way out, the other on his way in.
Even before President Joe Biden announced the agreement, President-elect Donald Trump proclaimed it on Truth Social before he released a lengthy statement that said, in part, “This EPIC ceasefire agreement could have only happened as a result of our Historic Victory in November” and “We have achieved so much without even being in the White House.”
An hour and a half later, Biden said from the White House: “This deal was developed and negotiated under my administration, but its terms will be implemented, for the most part, by the next administration. And these past few days we’ve been speaking as one team.”
Asked how much credit he gave the Trump team, he replied, “I told my team to coordinate closely with the incoming team to make sure we’re all speaking with the same voice, because that’s what American presidents do.”
But collaboration apparently goes only so far. As Biden was leaving, a reporter shouted: “Who deserves credit for this, Mr. President? You or Trump?” Biden stopped in his tracks, turned, and said, cracking a smile, “Is that a joke?” and left.
In fact, Trump did pressure Hamas to compromise when he threatened on multiple occasions that “there will be hell to pay” if Hamas didn’t make a deal before he took office.
That warning also pressured Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to finish the deal. Negotiators also credited Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, for resolving last-minute snags in the last few days.
It was a dramatic finish: According to a senior administration official, U.S., Israeli and Qatari negotiators in Doha, Qatar — and the Hamas team in the same building downstairs — thought they’d finally sealed the deal at 3 a.m. Wednesday. But a few hours later, Hamas made new demands. After more haggling, it backed down, and it was done.
Talks almost failed back on July 31, when Israel took out Ismail Haniyah, the Hamas negotiator, while he was in Tehran. Then, a month later, the negotiations came to a complete halt when American hostage Hersh Goldberg and five others were killed in a tunnel in Rafah on Aug. 31.
What followed changed the balance of power in the region. Israel responded to Iran’s missile attack, destroying its air defenses. Then, Israel killed Hezbollah’s leaders in Lebanon, resulting in a U.S.-negotiated ceasefire there. Finally, Iran lost its other major ally, Syria, when Bashar al-Assad’s regime collapsed next door. With Iran severely weakened, Hamas was more willing to compromise.
None of that would have happened without intensive, nonstop negotiations over 15 months by White House envoy Brett McGurk, 19 trips by CIA Director William Burns and 13 visits by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, each with stops in multiple countries. And McGurk now heads to Cairo to implement the deal and make sure the hostages start coming home. No matter who gets the credit.
That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner and Ben Kamisar.
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