Christmas Cheer (and Fear) this happy Yuletide! Greetings from the American South where the inflatable Santas are bigger and better and BBQ pork is a seasonal delicacy.

Robyn Curnow is hopeful that the Trump team's better angels will sing this time around. She's hoping the push and pull between his Disrupters and his Enforcers will create a less chaotic Presidency and lessen the worst instincts of The Don. For various reasons, Americans have trusted Trump with the country - will he leave it in a better place or not?

Gorani Street, Aleppo, Syria is where Hala Gorani's family lived for generations. As an American-born child of Syrian immigrant parents she and her extended family across the world are watching what is happening in Syria with a personal interest. As a journalist, Hala is reluctant to make predictions on how a post-Assad Syria will play out because she says disappointment is baked into the Syria expat experience.

Hala Gorani and Robyn Curnow were correspondents and anchors together at CNN for over twenty years. When Hala left CNN she wrote a memoir called You Don't Look Arab and other Tales of Unbelonging. Now she is an NBC correspondent and avidly watching events in Syria.

Robyn and Hala talk about about covering the Middle East, Hala's great, great grandmother who was kidnapped as a child and raised in a Constantinople harem and why they're both happier since leaving CNN.

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Is there going to be a Balkanization of Syria after the fall of Assad? Robyn Curnow, who has covered Syria since the rise of ISIS, argues that even though President Trump doesn't want America to get involved there are opportunities for the US and allies like Israel, the Kurds etc in a post-Assad vacuum.

Will the country break up and how will fragmentation play out? How many backchannel conversations have there been with US forces in Syria and the rebels now in Damascus? What games are being played out behind closed doors?

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