Assad’s fall opens power vacuum in Syria

Plus: What Trump said on “Meet the Press”

Good morning! It’s Monday, December 9, 2024. Inauguration Day is 42 days away. Here’s what you need to know this morning…

1. What’s next for Syria?

The shocking overthrow of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad — in which an extraordinary 11-day offensive ended a 50-year regime — threatens to create a power vacuum in the Middle Eastern country.

Much of Syria is now controlled by the Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, and its leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani. The group, which has ties to al-Qaeda and is formally considered a terrorist organization by the U.S., is promising to moderate after Assad’s ouster; this morning, they released a statement pledging to protect personal freedom and not to impose restrictions on what women have to wear.

However, other armed militias are jockeying for power as well, as noted by the New York Times:

While Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is now the most influential group in Syria, it is competing for influence with another Turkey-backed group based in northern Syria, as well as a secular Kurdish-led alliance in eastern Syria that is supported by the United States. And southern Syria is dominated by local rebel groups, including militias led by the Druse minority, an offshoot of Islam.

Other players include the Islamic State, or ISIS, which controls parts of Syria; Turkey, which exchanged fire with the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces in northern Syria this weekend; and Israel, which crossed into Syrian territory this weekend for the first time since 1973 and took control of key locations along their border.

Assad, meanwhile, has fled to Russia, where he was granted political asylum; his downfall amounts to a major strategic setback for both Russia and Iran, his longtime allies whose attention had drifted from Syria amid separate wars in Ukraine and Gaza, respectively.

And then, of course, there’s the U.S., which is now snapping focus back to Syria after years of relative disengagement. According to the Times, the U.S. has been going through the Turkish government to pass secret messages to HTS in recent days, trying to gauge their intentions. The U.S. is also attempting to ensure that ISIS doesn’t seize more power, launching airstrikes against more than 75 ISIS sites in Syria on Sunday.

“We’re clear-eyed about the fact that ISIS will try to take advantage of any vacuum to reestablish its capabilities to create a safe haven,” President Biden said in a White House address on Sunday. “We will not let that happen.”

But Biden isn’t the only figure with influence over U.S. foreign policy right now. “The American tradition is that the nation has only one president at a time. Right now, that president looks like Donald Trump—because President Biden is ceding the spotlight,” the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.

And while he did use the moment to call for a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire, Trump has said that he wants the U.S. to play no role in Syria’s future. “Syria is a mess, but is not our friend, & THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday. “THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!”

2. DJT on MTP

Speaking of Trump… Here are the key points from his first network TV interview as president-elect, which aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press”:

• He said that members of the January 6th committee should go to jail. “For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail,” Trump said, referring to Liz Cheney and other members of the panel. He said he wouldn’t order the Justice Department to prosecute them or other political enemies, however, saying those decisions would be left to the attorney general.

• He indicated that he would pardon at least some January 6th rioters on his first day in office. It was unclear exactly how many, though. “Those people have suffered long and hard,” Trump said. “And there may be some exceptions to it. I have to look.” He did not rule out pardoning those who attacked police officers, focusing much more on how the rioters are being treated in jail than on the crimes they committed.

• He suggested that he would attempt to deport “mixed-status” families, whose children are U.S. citizens but whose parents are undocumented. “I don’t want to be breaking up families, so the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back,” Trump said. He sidestepped other questions about the logistics of mass deportations, such as whether he would seek to deport undocumented immigrants who hadn’t been convicted of other crimes or how he would handle “Dreamers,” those who entered the U.S. illegally as minors.

• He said he would seek to repeal birthright citizenship — but it wasn’t clear how. Asked how he would get around the 14th Amendment’s requirement that anyone born in the U.S. is a U.S. citizen, Trump said that “we’re going to have to get it changed. We’ll maybe have to go back to the people.” It was unclear exactly what he was proposing.

• He indicated that he would “probably” not try to restrict access to abortion pills. But he opted against flatly ruling out such restrictions. “I don’t like putting myself in a position like that,” he said. “So things do change. But I don’t think it’s going to change at all.”

• He denied that tariffs would raise prices — but wouldn’t promise it. “I can’t guarantee anything,” he said, when asked if he could promise that American families wouldn’t pay more because of his tariffs. “I can’t guarantee tomorrow.”

3. The day ahead

President Biden and Vice President Harris will each deliver remarks at the 2024 White House Tribal Nations Summit and attend the White Holiday Ball for members of Congress.

The Senate will hold a procedural vote on a judicial nomination.

The House will vote on up to 12 pieces of legislation.

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Kousisis v. United States and Feliciano v. Dept. of Transportation.