The News Roundup For June 5, 2026

This message comes from the Southern Environmental Law Center. No one voted for dirty air and water. That's why SELC is fighting back to defend the healthy environment everyone depends on. Because it's not political. It's fundamental. Learn more at selc.org. Hi, it's Todd, your host for this edition of the News Roundup. Just a quick heads up before we start the show. The news is rapidly changing, and things might have changed by the time you hear this episode.

Stay up to date with all of the latest by listening to your local NPR member station and by visiting npr.org. I'm Todd's Willick, and it's the 1A Friday News Roundup. Things haven't been going President Trump's way this week. He did get a win overnight on a $70 billion immigration bill. But how can you tell that things? aren't going his way otherwise by the things that more and more congressional Republicans are saying and how they're voting. In the GOP-controlled House, the scales on Iran have tipped. For the first time, four Republicans joined Democrats and passed a resolution blocking the president from continuing the war. And in the Senate, enough Republicans voted to block Trump's billion-dollar request for his ballroom. He cares about that. A lot. Talks about it all the time. Meanwhile, enough Republicans are lining up against Trump's $1.8 billion fund to reward his supporters

with taxpayer money that the DOJ has dropped the plan, at least for now. We're going to talk about all of that, plus primary results from across America, a new pick for acting director of national intelligence who the president says will promote his false campaign about rigged elections. All that and a lot more. Arthur Delaney is here, senior reporter for Huff Post. Hi, Arthur. Hi, Wendy Benjaminson is here, Washington Senior Editor for Bloomberg News.

Hi, Wendy. Hi, nice to be back. And also in the studio, we got a full house today. Elena Schneider, national political reporter for notice. Hi. Good morning. Everybody's around the table. It's my favorite kind of roundup.

Remember, we want to hear from you. You can join us around the table, too. Email your questions and comments about this week's news to 1a at wamu.org. The panel is here to answer your question. and let you join the conversation. All right, Wendy, let's start with Iran, which I just mentioned. The House has tried to pass this war powers resolution over and over and over Democrats. Keep putting it on the floor.

The number of Republicans teetering keeps growing, and now it's tipped. What was different this week? Well, I think it's that after four months of this war, there is very little transparency from the administration, even behind closed doors, even to the top members of Congress who need to know what's going on. And the gas prices are stubbornly high. And as, you know, as this will probably be a theme of the show, the midterms are looming. And in many ways, it doesn't look as good for the Republicans as it should, as it should in their, you know, given the president's power. So, so after all of this, enough Republicans finally said, no, let's put the breaks on this. Let's at least speak up against it.

It's largely symbolic. Yeah, does this actually change anything, Arthur, legally? Like, do the bullet stop flying because of this vote? No, you need the Senate to pass one also. And the president to sign up. Right, and he would veto. Yeah. And they would not have the super majority they'd need to override the veto.

But this is a congressional power to stop wars. It's real. Well, yes, that's very, very true, except that there's also so many legal ways to get around this. Marco Rubio said to Congress this past war this week, you know, the war is over. There is a ceasefire in place, so there are no bullets flying. So there's all these ways they can keep running the clock saying that negotiations are going, and then if they need to strike something, they'll strike something. And then the ceasefire starts again.

The ceasefire clock is a big legal question. Sure. And then you have to ask whether a blockade is an act of war, which military experts will tell you it is. Also, missiles are flying. There were attacks around the Gulf this week. Alana Schneider, what do you see in Congress in terms of a broader shift now, Republicans opposing Trump as the election looms? Yeah, I think that there was a certain amount of grace period that Republicans were willing to give the president on this effort and, you know, on this attack in Iran, sort of trying to look at whether or not he could pull off something similar to what they did in Venezuela. Can they do this quickly? Can they do this efficiently? Clearly, we're now four months into this. It's not happening.

A new poll came out this week with seven and ten Americans. said that they want the Iran war to end now. And that's reflective, as Wendy said, of the gas prices. And look, they've come down a little bit since their peak in May, but there's still a dollar and a quarter more than they were before this war started. And there is a real sensitivity within the Republican Party as they look at the midterms that if gas prices stay this high, if they climb up to $5, then they have a real political problem on their hands. So that's one point of pushback in the House on Iran. Let's talk about some more. Before we do, we should quickly clarify the Iran War hasn't quite reached four months just yet.

We're a little over three months at this point. Now, I mentioned this. The Senate overnight passed $70 billion in funding for ICE and Border Patrol. That's a win for the president's immigration crackdown. There's no question about that. But the things that held up this bill before passage tell a different story like the $1.8 billion so-called anti-weaponization fund designed to send money to support. of the president who feel they've been wronged by the Justice Department.

Early this week, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was on the hill, and he said this. We are not moving forward with the fund, period. We, the reasons for the fund is something that President Trump talked about for a long time, which is the fact that there were a lot of people in this country who had their government weaponized against them. The reasons for the fund, I think, were, it remain as important as they were before. but we are not moving forward with the fund. So the fund is dead, and yet, Arthur, some Republicans, including the president, say, no, no, no, it's not dead.

What's the status of this proposed fund? It's gotten such negative reaction from both parties on the hill. It's not dead. He said we're not moving forward with it. He didn't say it's dead. And they said, the Democrats, would you mind putting this in writing? And he said, I would mind. How about you print the transcript of my remarks?

So a court could kill it, a judge who is overseeing the lawsuit by Trump against his own administration, which resulted in the faux settlement that created this fund. The judge said, wait a minute, this is a fake lawsuit. I want to hear your arguments. And another judge said the fund can't exist. But it's still there. They're not rescinding it. And a lot of members of Congress want to actually outlaw it. But they had the chance.

I mean, there were lots of opportunities on the sense. Senate floor over the last 24 hours to vote this thing out of existence. Republicans refused. Why? They didn't mean what they said. They said, we want to get rid of it. They had their chance, like you said, they decided not to. The best example is Thom Tillis. He said to me and every other reporter on Thursday, well, I won't vote for this ICE bill unless it takes the fund out. And he did vote for it. So he changed his mind or he was lying. Is it about the fund itself? They're really not as against it as they seem, or do they not?

want to upend the big thing, which is the immigration crackdown. Is that what it is? It's partly that. Yeah. And John Curtis from Utah said that. You know, I hate the fund, but we do need to fund these agencies. But also they liked Todd Blanche saying we're not moving forward. Right. They said it's moot. Alana Schneider, Todd Blanche was counting votes. So was the White House. They knew that the ICE bill would be in trouble. He had to back off the fund. We're not doing it now. We're shutting it down. That, to me, was designed to say, please just pass the immigration stuff. So they don't have the votes for it. But Republicans in the past have been exceedingly deferential to Trump on a whole range of things. Some of them that they

were very against behind closed doors. What's changing? Why are Republicans pushing back now on some of these items? Well, I think there's a couple of things, right? One, there's a number of senators who he has actively worked against and made sure that they won't be showing back up in the Senate again. So he has a much smaller majority within to work with because there are a lot of Republicans who don't feel quite as beholden to him anymore. And also there's a real awareness about what is coming. again with the midterms. I can't harp on this enough because that is just in everyone's mind is control of this House and the Senate. And the couple of senators who voted against this, Dan Sullivan of Alaska and John Houston of Ohio, they're facing very serious midterm challenges

themselves. And that's a reflection of the political reality on the ground. So, Wendy, there's another part of this. The fund was part of a settlement deal that also shields President Trump and his family from audits by the IRS on their taxes. Where does that part stand, given the stalling of the fund itself for Trump's supporters. Right. Well, first, I just want to comment on something Elena said. I think it was Thom Tillis again, who said to reporters this week, well, the White House doesn't seem to understand there's an election coming up, which was such a window into what they're thinking is. Not that the fund is morally wrong or legally wrong. It's that there's an election coming up and people might not like it.

But this protection from audit is really incredible. IRS policy. is that the president of the United States, whoever he or maybe someday she is, gets audited every year. It's a guard against, you know, unethical behavior. So Trump has been audited as a private citizen many times and his president in his first term. But now there's in this faux settlement, as Arthur says,

there is this provision that he and his family and his affiliates will not be audited for any of, their past tax filings, and that is unprecedented. And that's still in place. That's still in place. I misspoke before, by the way, I failed congressional procedure. I said that the war resolution would have to be signed by the president. That's a joint resolution.

President doesn't have to sign that. I get an F in congressional procedure, but I was properly corrected. Arthur, meanwhile, we talk about Todd Blanche. He says they call it the anti-weaponization fund. It's done for now. Todd Blanche is going to be nominated to be permanent attorney general. How's that going over in the Senate? What's been the Hill reaction so far?

Well, we've had the predictable groaning from a lot of Republicans who also didn't like the slush fund. Todd Blanche actually had been on the Hill last month to talk to them about that because they were mad and complaining to him, I guess, mostly about the politics of it. And he did a terrible job of mollifying them. but I think the president is so happy with this IRS component of the faux settlement that he went ahead and nominated him even though he didn't need to. Todd Blanche can sit there through October, I believe, under the acting secretary rule. But Trump is getting millions of dollars potentially out of those IRS audits being halted. And so this is a huge loyalty move and the president loves it. He loves it.

He doesn't love another thing, Elena Schneider, before we head to a break. no money, a billion dollars for the ballroom, Republicans, all Democrats, of course, but enough Republicans say no. Trump really, really wants this thing. He's obsessed with it. He brings it up all the time, even when it's like not part of the conversation. Why Republicans nicks it now, the same reasons that you mentioned before? Again, can I say midterms one more time? There it is. That's it. Just too toxic. And I think also that the president did not do much in terms of explaining what the $1 billion would would actually go towards. And it was sort of going from, we're going to get private funding for it,

and now suddenly taxpayers involved. All of this meant this was not going to work. Well, we have to take a quick break, but a lot more to come, including President Trump's pick for Director of National Intelligence. Does he have any experience in intelligence? We'll answer that question with you. That's just ahead.

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Don't let stigma stand in the way of support. Start therapy with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash NPR. Welcome back to the 1A podcast. We got this email from Bob on the discussion of Trump's prospects on Capitol Hill, the ballroom, the so-called anti-weaponization fund and losing access to those things during negotiations over ice and border patrol. Bob says one of the tenants of Art at the deal is to open with an outrageous ask so that when you drop back to the more realistic position, the other side of the table thinks that they've won something.

Is it possible that that's what the slush fund and the ballroom asks were all about? Was this just 3D art of the deal chess or did Trump actually lose things he wanted, Arthur? You can actually see this dynamic happening with the slush fund being unpopular in Republicans saying no and Todd Blanche saying, never mind about the slush fund. And then the huge IRS settlement, the unprecedented favorable tax treatment, for the president and everyone around him is just going uncontested by anybody. Well, this week, we got some new polling on another issue. This is actually striking, some striking data across America. We're going to do a show on this new polling from Gallup, revealing that attitudes around

LGBTQ issues are shifting in America. After two decades of steadily rising support, American support for same-sex marriage is now declining the changes mostly among Republicans where support for same-sex marriage dropped 18 points in just four years. Support for transgender issues also dropped. So Tuesday here on 1A, we're going to talk about what's behind these trends and the repercussions. And we'd love to hear from you. Has your own view shifted on LGBTQ issues one way or another? If you're part of the LGBTQ plus community, have you felt a difference in how your city or town is approaching these issues? You can leave us a voicemail.

855-236-1-2-1-2. We want to know how concerned you are about challenges to marriage equality, access to gender-affirming care, other LGBTQ issues. 855-236-1-A-1-A. You can hear that conversation here on the show on Tuesday. Well, we talk about news out of Congress gang. Last night, the House did pass an aid package for Ukraine and sanctioned. on Russia. Again, a loss for the president. The White House and House Republican leaders are against this 18 GOP lawmakers joined Democrats to pass the bill against the urging of Republican leadership.

Again, new aid for Ukraine in their war against Russia. No standalone aid bill for Ukraine has passed since the start of the president's second term. Arthur, why now? Well, this one resulted from a discharge petition, which is where rank and file members of the House can force a force, vote on something, but it takes a certain amount of time. It happened to ripen and become available for this week in the House. And so I think that's really why it happened. It won't pass the Senate, we don't think, because it would have that 60 vote threshold. It's not like war powers where it passes with 50. Still, this is the third example. It's part of this whole trend. A Republican, what Elaine Schneider says is midterms, baby. The midterms inspiring notable but symbolic opposites.

from small numbers of Republicans. Wendy. Oh, you read my face, Todd. Yeah, I think the midterms are less important in terms of Ukraine and Russia. I think there are very few. National security. And, yeah, these are national security hawks who are also maybe concerned about relations with Europe and, of course, relations with Russia.

So I think there's a little policy stuff thrown in there. Let me ask you about something else that flew under the radar a little bit in the House this week with everything else going on that we talked about. Pam Bondi, the former attorney general. testified in the House Oversight Committee earlier about the handling of the Epstein files. You might not have seen much about it because there were no cameras in the room, but there was a transcript release. Wendy, what did we learn? Right. So her testimony was May 29th, and they released the transcript. I believe it was yesterday.

And basically, she tap danced like Ginger Rogers. She deferred. She deflected. She threw Todd Blanche under the bus. Basically, she said that as Attorney General of the United States, she was not front and center on decisions about the Epstein files, that that was all Todd Blanche, which seems odd. And she also, you know, she just said that she wasn't really involved with much. One thing that really jumped out to me is that she claimed no knowledge of Ghislaine Maxwell's transfer to a minimum security prison in Texas that she had, didn't know about it, had nothing to do with it. Every other word out of her mouth was Todd Blanche, which was quite interesting. And it speaks to the dynamic of her department. Elaine Schneider, does that become a factor if Todd Blanche goes in front of the Senate to be confirmed as permanent attorney general? Of course it does.

And Democrats certainly are going to try and uplift that and make that central to whether or not they're going to agree to, you know, they're not going to confirm, but make it really uncomfortable for Republicans to consider voting for him. Yeah, another thing I drew from that transcript, Pam Bondi said she had nothing to do with the transfer of Galan. Maxwell from maximum security with a special dissonation to minimum security in Texas and also no insight into why the president has not reversed that transfer everybody knows about it now the president knows about it now has the appearance of special treatment for Ghislaine Maxwell and it has not been reversed saw no information in that transcript elucidating why well more news out of Washington now that like these other issues we're covering so far in the hour, landed like a thud in the Senate. President Trump's pick for his new acting director of national intelligence. Bill Pulte is

taking over for Tulsi Gabbard, who stepped down as DNI last month. Wendy, who is Bill Pulte? He's the director of the federal housing finance agency. But that title, I dare say, it obscures the role that Bill Pulte has been playing for Donald Trump. In that sense, who is he? Right. Well, so first of all, he is the 38-year-old heir to the Bill Pulte Holmes fortune. And anyone who lives in a suburb has seen plenty of Bill Pulte homes all over the place. So he was given this Fannie and Freddie role and used it at the beginning of his time to use alleged claims of mortgage fraud against prominent Democrats, Letitia James, Lisa Cook, that Trump didn't like. Both of those happen to be black women. And he became Trump's weaponization guy, if you will. He became the guy who went after Democrats and found stuff on them. Rifling through mortgage records for prosecutable crimes. Exactly.

and you may find out some things about the rigged elections, et cetera, et cetera. I think you'd like to do it. I'd like to. I think he wants to do it very much. Got a lot of energy. Director of national intelligence, and here's the president,

Elena Schneider, saying he's going to uncover information about rigged elections. Well, look, similar to Todd Blanche, we've got two people that Donald Trump is putting forward who are absolute loyalists, who have shown how they can be sort of the prime political ally for him in his efforts, in his folks, in his wars of retribution, and his sort of own plans for how he wants to exact his presidency, which is, again, right now, really focused on retribution. And if you ask somebody like Steve Bannon, who told my colleagues over at Politico, that to read into what this was happening here, this was, quote, a middle finger to the Senate. They know that this is going to be a really tough person to get through, but the point is to lay out for people, like, come and get me. Come and try and push against this person, even though I know that he does not have the sort of typical credentials for an intelligence leader. So, Arthur, the president says outwardly, I'm going to use the director of national intelligence to forward my rigged election narrative like a thud in the Senate, am I right? I mean, the president has already said this is not going to be permanent senators.

You don't even get to vote on it. but what can Bill Pulte accomplish in the time that he'll have as acting without Senate input and the middle finger that Elena Schneider referred to? Oh, he'll do lots of henchmen stuff. That's maybe more true word for loyalists. It's been bad in the Senate already. It is a middle finger to the Senate. They actually need to reauthorize the special spying powers that they have under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,

and they voted on it overnight, and it failed. Or they voted on this morning? It failed because of this. I mean, this is a huge factor. Mark Warner, the Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, is the one who gets a bunch of Democrats to vote for these. And he told me, I guess Trump, I don't know how I'm going to tell people to come along with this. I don't think the president wants it reauthorized. So it's, if not like a total middle finger to that whole process that is that Trump supposedly supports this law being extended.

it's just like crazy reckless on the president's part. White House has a big middle finger, Elaine Schneider. I always remind people, the Senate has 100, and they can use them. And they certainly can. And we're starting to see, as we've talked about, throughout this. Actually, 200. My math was off, but yeah. Throughout this hour that they are testing the edges of their willingness to put up said proverbial

fingers. Another hire we have to talk about, this one from the president's consistent campaign to reward the perpetrator. of the January 6th riot. The Washington Post reports that the Pentagon has hired Elias Irizari, a convicted January 6 rioter, to work in the Defense Department's special operations and low-intensity conflict office. That's a team that manages highly classified military operations, and the Pentagon confirmed that Irizari is a political appointee. It did not say who in the Trump administration appointed him. Arthur, what does this say about the Pentagon's

vetting process or their standards for hiring what they're trying to do here. Well, he might be more qualified for his job than Bill Pulte is to be the director of national intelligence. It's a whole of government Trump loyalty machine, I believe. But it follows... He's 25 years old. Yeah, sure. The Secretary of War has been firing everybody. He thinks looks at him funny. He's also been scrapping scheduled promotions for women and minorities. It's the whole government going full tilt on surface level like Trump, loyalty, and culture war stuff. You can see images and video of Irizari climbing into the Capitol on January 6th, peering over the parapet, the parapet during January 6th. It's all documented. Now, he served two weeks in a federal

facility on misdemeanor charges related to invading the Capitol. He was 19 at the time. He said he regrets attending the riot. He called it something truly horrible. Will that contrition matter, Elaine Schneider, should it matter? Is attention on this higher likely to blow over with everything else going on? Look, it's probably going to eventually blow over just like the sort of the grind of news that is constantly coming out of this White House usually does. But I think that it does fundamentally throw into sharp relief questions about the trust people can have in our Pentagon, those who are most responsible for keeping this country safe. And that, I think for a lot of voters who are looking at this White House, that's another mark in, for some, at least, a lot of marks against the trust in this system. So that's the hiring news for this week. Let's get on to some firing news from this week, not in the Trump administration, but at CBS News. On Tuesday, CBS fired 60 Minutes correspondent, former anchor of CBS Evening News, Scott Pelly. He'd been at the network since 1989. And Pelley was just the latest ouster.

CBS news boss Bari Weiss has been on a firing spree at 60 minutes. She already got rid of two other on-air correspondents, the executive producer, other members of the leadership team at that legendary news magazine, which has been, by the way, up in the ratings during Donald Trump's second terms. The New York Times reported that during a staff meeting on Monday, Pelley accused Bari Weiss of, quote, murdering 60 minutes. NPR media correspondent David Fulkinflick, he was on 1-8. earlier this week to explain some of Bari Weiss's recent missteps with 60 minutes.

Pellie mentioned, and this is not the most serious accusations, but he said that one of his stories came within minutes of, you know, this program of blowing up essentially, right, because of dickering around. You know, similarly, she held Sharon Alfonzi's story. I think it was Friday night, Saturday morning for that next morning Sunday show. That's a very late in the process for a program that is so sophisticated, so edited in depth, so lawyered up, so highly produced, so heavily scripted, and it threw the show into convulsions, even that decision alone.

She hasn't understood the rhythms of broadcast journalism, daily broadcast journalism. And the other thing is she really hasn't understand, it seems to be, from the results, how to manage talent. David Fulkinflick here on 1A earlier this week, speaking to Jen White about Bari Weiss and the upending of 60 Minutes. Wendy Benjaminson, what's happening at CBS in 60 Minutes? What do you see? Well, what we see is the effects of Trump pal David Ellison, owning or being the head of Paramount Plus, the parent company of CBS.

And that has trickled down in a way that I haven't seen in my much longer than you guys' time in journalism. But it's incredible. I mean, they have got, they've canceled the Stephen Colbert show, because he was critical of the president. And now they are messing around with this story television show 60 Minutes. and Scott Pelley had had it and went into a staff meeting and reamed out his boss, probably knowing he was going to get fired for it, and the next day was fired. Bari Weiss, however, I think it was yesterday, tried to put out a different version of events that they tried to come to an understanding, that they talked about a path through, and that Scott Pelley wasn't willing to take that on. He fired right back. This has become very public.

He fired right back and said, they mentioned firing me in the first 15 seconds of. of that meeting. And he also put out a mini transcript asking several questions in Barry Rice replying, I'm not, Bari Weiss, I'm not going to answer that question over and over, Arthur. Paramount wants to acquire Warner Brothers, and that's something the government could block. And so this kind of stuff, you know, beating up on 60 minutes, a show that Trump hates is, is a good business for them right now. We should note that all of this started back when Donald Trump sued CBS over his grievances over a report that was edited in a way that he didn't like about Kamala Harris

got to settle that suit not only for, I think, $16 million if memory serves, but also held up. A frivolous suit where you're editing out essentially ums and us and stuff that people who looked at that said that was not going to win. But succeeded in holding up Paramount's merger at the time with Skydance, multi-billions of dollars,

and now when do you talk about the trickle effects? here we are. Yeah, exactly. Before we take a break for a moment, we got this email from Jim, back on the question of the tax return agreement that President Trump and his family have extracted from his lawsuit against the IRS. Jim says can a subsequent administration reverse the Trump tax return agreement? Yes. No. No.

It's part of a settlement. It's not part of IRS policy. Well, settlement wasn't approved by a court. Fort. It's just an order from the Attorney General. You know what? We don't know. Arthur Delaney, non-lawyer, says yes. Wendy Benjaminson, non-lawyer, says no. Elena Schneider, non-lawyer says.

I plead the fit. Well, Jim, I'm sorry we didn't give you a better answer, but you can't say we didn't try here on the round of. Arthur Delaney is here from Huff Post. Wendy Benjaminson from Bloomberg, Elena Schneider, from Notice. When we come back, big takeaways from primaries. across six states on Tuesday and a lot, lot more, including actual answers to your questions, not yes, no, and pleading the fifth. I'm Todd's Willick, it's one-A.

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Sign up today. This message comes from the podcast Pod Save the World. Hosts Tommy Vitor and Ben Rhodes break down the week's most impactful foreign policy news with digestible expert analysis. Listen to Pod Save the World, wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube. Let's get back now to the news roundup.

A glimmer of good news in the jobs world. Out today, new jobs numbers. The economy added 172,000 jobs last month. Wendy, that's more than economy. had predicted, it's good news, the unemployment rate holding at 4.3%, but what's behind the numbers? Well, it seems that employers are not as worried as we thought they would be, but the really interesting dynamic undercurrent here is that stocks and bonds and treasuries all fell on the news of this because they are now baking in a Fed interest rate hike, which if we thought

Donald Trump was mad last week. I mean, that will send him into orbit. If his newly picked Fed share ends up overseeing a rate hike because the Fed with people, with the job market stable, prices going up, they're worried about out-of-control inflation, so they would raise interest rates to quell that. And if he raised interest rates when Trump was really hoping this would be the guy to drop them, not just hold them steady. And not just hoping, I mean, the sustained campaign against Jerome Powell. Absolutely. And who knows what will happen if Kevin Warsh oversees this. So that's the political dynamic. All right, Kevin Warshwell, there's the jobs numbers and you have the assignment. We'll be watching. Let's head to California. There were a lot of votes still being counted. By the way, we're many, many days from Tuesday,

votes still being counted in the so-called jungle primary for governor in California. We're going to talk about why it takes so long there. But let's talk about some of the results, former Democratic Cabinet Secretary Xavier Becerra, also former congressman. He looks likely to make it into November's general elections based on projections now. Republican Steve Hilton, who's a former Fox News host and a British Conservative Party advisor, also Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer, contesting over the other spot. Two people advance into the general election. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, he's not running again because of term limits.

He may run for president. The top two candidates, irrespective of party, as I said, will won. move on to the runoff in the fall. Arthur, it's been a crowded race. What can you tell us so far about the results that we're seeing who's risen to the top of the pack? It looks like Xavier Becerra, Hilton, and Tom Steyer. That's right. The race was totally blown up by Eric Swalwell's flaming out. And so Xavier Becerra was sort of the next most prominent person who had held elective office, is my understanding and Tom Steyer is you know perennially running for things with his own money but it's amusing how long it takes for California to count fonts I understand it's from their ballot

you know mail ballot counting tendencies but it's just not like this in any other state and it opens California up to nefarious actors in this case the president of the United States who predictably is using the delay to claim fraud in California where no evidence or fraud exists. I think that's a pattern that we're used to. But why does it take so long, Elena Schneider, in California? And what are the ramifications here? Sure. So California, it takes a long time to count ballots there. And often it's something as an elections or campaign reporter, you realize your night is not ending because California is so much later than us in terms of when the polls close. But it's compounded by the fact that about 80% of Californians

mail in their ballot. That's a lot of people who are sending in their ballot. And the law says that mail and ballots are valid as long as they are posted by Election Day and arrive to county election officials by June 9th. So that's Tuesday, right? So technically, there are still ballots that can come in and need to be counted as of next Tuesday. So we can't really expect probably official results until a week from today. Will projections cover it? Will we have to wait till every last vote is counted? Absolutely. Most of the time, we don't necessarily need projections. But in some of these house races, it could be pretty tight and that often does happen on election day. So if this is an if, if this race becomes Bicera Hilton, who have roughly, I think they're roughly both around 26% in California, it's a democratic state. Is that advantage Xavier Becerra just based on the fact that California is blue, Wendy?

Yeah. I think, you know, Xavier Becerra, if it is Xavier Becerra and Hilton in the, who advanced to November's election, ultimately, I think Xavier Becerra will be able to pull it out. That's obviously just. a prediction. There's a lot of things that can happen. It's a blue state. It is a blue state. The redistricting has had some impacts on the congressional races, but, you know, Steve Hilton, this is why Trump is crying fraud, right? Because Hilton did advance to the final, probably did, and, you know, may ultimately lose, and that gives him the basis to play fraud. Well, speaking of congressional races in California, let's talk about one, the 11th congressional district at San Francisco, currently represented by one Nancy Pelosi, who is retiring from Congress after a long career. There's a primary there.

Voter chose two candidates to advance. San Francisco supervisor Connie Chan and state Senator Scott Weiner, both Democrats. We have five more months. We're going to get right back up and go to work. And we're going to continue to build a massive coalition in every neighborhood of this city, every generation, every background, every community in the greatest city on planet Earth. That's Scott Wiener, California House candidate in Nancy Pelosi's 11th district seat on Tuesday. Wendy Connie Chan had Nancy Pelosi's endorsement.

Who are these two candidates? What are you watching in this race? Well, look, this is a battle over shades of blue, right? This is one of the bluest districts in the country, and it's Nancy Pelosi's home. And so what's going to be fascinating here is, or what was more fascinating before the end of this race was where the progressive vote was going to go. And Connie Chan, who is a progressive city supervisor, was really battling it out with former chief of staff to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, psychobody, who is a tech engineer, he's made a lot of money himself. He sunk $10 million into this race and ultimately could not prevail over Nancy Pelosi's endorsement, which I think says to everyone that,

at the end of the day, in specific communities and specific districts, endorsements still matter a heck of a lot. And so Connie Shan was able to advance. Scott Wiener is seen as somebody who is more of a moderate Democrat, at least by San Francisco standards. And so now it's going to be really interesting if Connie Chan can sort of rally that progressive base and can prevail over a slightly more moderate Democrat. Well, we're watching interesting primaries all across America for signs of what to watch for in both the Republican and the Democratic. Democratic parties. Let's talk about Iowa where state representative Josh Terrick won the state Democratic primary, beating out state legislator, Zach Walls. Terrick will face off against Republican Representative Ashley Hinson. That's going to be a closely watched race. Terrick is a

Paralympic gold medalist. He was the choice of establishment Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, and Democrats hope that Terrick can help them flip control of the Senate. Every single race that's flippable is now under the microscope because it's going to be a close election. Elena, establishment Democrats haven't been having a ton of victories lately. It appears that they got one here. What are you watching for in Iowa? This is Joni Ernst's seat, right?

And she's retiring from the Senate. Exactly. So this is an open Senate seat. There's actually an open governor's race in Iowa. So this is the first time that the top of the ticket is wide open since 1968 in Iowa. And Iowa Democrats basically see this as egg. existential to their existence in this state. Trump has won it three times over by successive win margins. And that is really a challenge for them as they try to make themselves relevant in this

conversation of whether or not Iowa can still be seen as a purple state. They believe that Josh Turk, he's a state representative from Western Iowa, and has this incredibly compelling story. I was out in Cedar Rapids with him in Iowa City, going out and watching him knock doors. and he literally drags his wheelchair upstairs and then hoist himself into his wheelchair to then knock on the door and talk to people. And it's remarkable to see people. It's the first time I've ever actually been out canvassing with a candidate or watching them canvas and seeing people walk out of their doors, out of their homes to come greet a candidate. Part of that's because he's much more recognizable than your average congressional candidate. But I think also because he's got this really compelling story.

And that's why Iowa Democrats believe that this is the year of all years in which they can finally. flip a statewide. Well, we probe these primaries, as I said, for diagnosing Democrats and Republicans and where their parties are at. And if you stay in Iowa, there's a governor's race. Republicans voters handed Donald Trump a rare primary defeat this week. Zach Lane was, he won, by the way, over representative Randy Fearnstra, who was President Trump's pick, his endorsement. Lane is backed by members of the Maha movement. Wendy, what do you take away from this loss of? a Trump-back candidate. He's usually successful in Republican primaries, not this time and not in Iowa.

Exactly. He just had this string with Bill Cassidy and John Cornyn of getting rid of people he didn't like and elevating the people that he thinks are loyalists. In this case, though, he wasn't actually going after someone. He was just endorsing Randy Feenstra. And I think what's really interesting is that Iowa, which always was kind of a purple swing-ish sort of state until about 10. years ago when Trump showed up, is sort of back in play. I think the farmers, the agricultural community is frustrated. I think there's a lot of Democrats that are frustrated or Republicans who are frustrated by the cost of living. And I think that is beginning to break through. And we may see that in other states that aren't a retribution campaign. Randy Feenstra is not a Trump temperamental type guy. He's really mild and polite. He's a member of the

House of Representatives. And he replaced Steve King. who was incredibly caustic, and that was a factor here. Yeah, and I think this is also important to note that Lon got the endorsement of the Maha movement, which is the first time that Maha has really weighed in and flex their own political muscle that demonstrates that they have an enormous amount of power in these Republican primaries, and we need to keep an eye on that as sort of a force in these Republican primaries moving forward. That's Elena Schneider, of notice, Arthur Delaney of Huff Post and Wendy Benjaminson. of Bloomberg. Look, during the show, we're getting a lot of emails from listeners who want us to talk

about the president's health. He spent some significant time on it last week here on the Roundup. America is talking about it. Just one example. We got this from Dan who says Trump went to Walter Reed for his third annual physical. He's been slurring. He's been off topic, blatantly nodding off on live television at what point do Republicans see a catastrophic national security breach coming and thus remove him from office. Why isn't the mainstream media paying the same attention to this that they did to Biden's disastrous debate before the 2024 election? Look, we're just getting a lot of notes in from listeners comparing this to the understandable outrage over Joe Biden's health and his decline while running for President, Arthur. I think it's completely fair for people to want

that. There is coverage of Trump. I mean, and you know that you can't trust the information we get from as a doctor in the past has said his report was dictated by the president. The information they put out most recently omitted, for example, that he had been taking finasteride, you know, a hair-loss drug that he'd had in all his previous reports. So what's up with that? Why did you stop paying that? And they just refused to say. He's got those bruises.

On his hands. Right. He had the swollen ankles. Which the White House said was due to handshaking and no medical expert I've spoken to, which is several have said that's a credible explanation. You don't shake the back of somebody's hand. You also don't shake both. Yeah, okay.

But I mean, other than that, I mean, he does talk off topic. He's always done that, though. It's perhaps worse, but he's in some ways more vigorous than Joe Biden was at this point. Well, one of the parts of this that's evident to everyone is what appears to be the daytime somnolence, the sleepiness during Oval Office events. I'm sure we'll be hearing from listeners a lot more on this. I wanted to give voice to those. to those listeners because we are getting a lot of requests while we're on the air here.

So we wanted to make sure we covered it. But I do want to, before we go for the hour, I want to make sure we check in on the Supreme Court and on Alabama. Because the Supreme Court cleared the way for a new map of Alabama's congressional districts, one that effectively eliminates a majority black district. Alabama will swap out its map for a new one that leaves only one majority black district, Elena, when it used to have two. What happened here? Well, look, this is all a part of the fallout from various redistricting battles that we've seen both on Trump's offensive efforts in order to redo mid-decade redistricting and now with the Supreme Court essentially gutting much of what was left of the Voting Rights Act.

And so we're seeing all kinds of southern states try to explore various options in terms of eliminating districts that are majority-minority districts that were once protected by the VRA and are no longer. and we're seeing that now come to fruition in a place like Alabama, where the map was 5-2, with two districts that were majority-minority, and now it's going to be 6-1. All right, before we go, Jim, who asked whether a subsequent administration can reverse the Trump tax return agreement. We had no good answers for you around this table, but we got you. According to Politifact, here's the best information. The most likely option, this is Politifact now, for challenging the policy would be for a future administration, to reverse it, the IRS could seek to void agreements with a showing of fraud or malfeasance

or misrepresentation of a material fact. That's according to the Law Tax Center Policy Director, Brandon DeBott, a real expert. So there you go. I don't know. Both of us were right. He was just guessing it, too. Everybody's right. Well, I want to thank Arthur Delaney for Huff Post-Wendy Benjaminson for Bloomberg and Elena Schneider for notice.

Thanks, guys. I really appreciate you this hour. We're just getting started with the week's headlines. When we come back, after a break, we'll have a new panel and all the news from around the globe. Stay with us.

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Visit Schwab.com to learn more. Welcome back to the 1A podcast. I'm Todd's Willick. Let's turn to some international news for our weekly news roundup now. We have a busy hour, fantastic panel to take us all through it. Joining us from Tel Aviv on a reporting trip, Greg Myrie, National security correspondent at NPR. Hi, Greg. Hi, Todd. Great to have you. Nancy Yusuf is here. Staff writer at the Atlantic covering national security and the Defense Department. Always great to see you, Nancy. Always great to be here. Thank you. And Josh Keating is at the table as well,

senior correspondent at Vox covering foreign policy and world news with a focus on the future of international conflict. He's also the author of Invisible Countries Journeys to the Edge of Nationhood. Josh, great to see you again. Thanks for having me. Well, the panel is here to answer answer your questions and our questions. What do you want to know about this week in international news? You can email us 1A at wamu.org as always. All right, let's start with the war in Iran. Stahl talks again and new attacks. This week, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps launched strikes on Kuwait. Iran fired missiles and drones on U.S. bases in the region and on Kuwait's International Airport. The attacks left one person dead also this week. The United States military says it disabled a ship headed to an Iranian port. And while the Iranian foreign minister Abbas

Abbas Araghchi says no progress has been made in further negotiations, Secretary of State Marco Rubio had this to stay when he was on Capitol Hill speaking to Senator Cory Booker in testimony. Iran has no Navy left. They've lost a substantial percentage of their defense industrial base. Iran has lost a substantial percentage of their missile launchers, and their economy is far worse today, and I mean far worse today than it was six to nine months ago. And they are looking at hundreds of billions of dollars of reconstruction costs just to get to where they were.

Mr. Marco Rubio, you keep telling us how we're winning this war. The president keeps saying, well, the war is over now. Completely annihilated. The war is not over. And yet the American people see how we're losing at the pump and with their costs. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Cory Booker on the Hill on Wednesday. So the negotiations on a framework for,

ending the war are stalled on some familiar issues, Josh Keating, including financial relief for Iran, commitments to restrict the nuclear program. Meanwhile, attacks on Kuwait and Bahrain this week, they have echoes of Iran's tactics earlier in the war, striking airports and infrastructure around the Gulf to put pressure on the United States and Israel. How do these strikes once again signal Iran's willingness to both escalate and also put pressure on Trump, who has to have been. has shown clearly he wants a way out of this war and hasn't been able to find it. Yeah, I was interested to see that the foreign minister Abbas Araghchi described the strikes on Kuwait as self-defense strikes kind of echoing the language used by the U.S.

The U.S., of course, has carried out its own strikes on southern Iran. So, yes, I mean, we're sort of back in this stalemate, and, you know, Iran has signaled its willingness to attack U.S. targets in the Gulf to continue imposing costs on the U.S. And despite the economic damage, it is sustained, which Marco Rubio mentioned, in that clip you played, which is all very real. You know, what this hasn't changed is what Iran sees as fundamental existential issues for the survival of its regime. And that's why they're going to continue to try to impose these costs rather than, you know, agree to a deal they would see as compromising on these core issues. Greg Myrie, meanwhile, attacks like this and on Kuwait and on Bahrain, like we

mentioned, have called into question American security guarantees in the region. That's already happened during the prosecution of this war. Is there unity among Gulf countries about what to do next? Are they divided? Are they unified? What's the, what's the read there? Yeah, Todd, the war has certainly led to or exposed some differences here. You see Saudi Arabia, Arabia, Qatar, Oban, they're very much in the diplomacy camp. They want a deal. They want to end the war. They want to get their oil flowing again. Now, the United Arab Emirates, also a major oil exporter, it's much more in on terms of fighting back. It got hit more than any other country, including Israel, by the Iranian attacks during the war. And the Wall Street Journal reported last month that the UAE actually carried out strikes again. against Iran during the war, which hadn't been known at the time. So clearly there are these lines of division and they need to be taken very seriously. But more broadly, I mean, Iran has alienated all the Gulf countries to varying degrees,

and all these countries are very concerned about a future, the model they've had of stability, predictability, steady oil exports, and is really been thrown up in the air. and they're really worried about a wounded yet emboldened Iran that could lash out at them whenever it likes. All right, Nancy, we are 14 weeks in to a conflict the president said would take no longer than six. The president has repeatedly said that he's on the verge of a deal. He's repeatedly made existential threats against Iran connected to being on the verge of a deal. He has said he has red lines about Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon. Then this week, he said, and this is a quote, I don't care if negotiations with Iran are over.

You wrote this week that, and this is a quote, talks have stalled in part because the president keeps aiming for a grand finale. What does that mean? What indications do we have about what he wants? So let's unpack the last iteration of close to a deal not happening, which is roughly two weeks ago. Iran put forward that they wanted to reopen the strait in return for economic relief and that the sort of bigger, heavier issues, its nuclear program, the future of the strait would be dealt with down the road. And the president appeared to be on board with this, but he took a lot of opposition from Republicans and other Democrats and then proceeded to say he wasn't interested in that. And the reason he took those hits is because that deal doesn't give any U.S. wins. it doesn't mean any of the myriad of objectives the administration has laid out in the war.

So the result is we're toggling between the Trump's desire for both these sort of headline-grabbing, wide-reaching deals that matches his initial ambitions in this war, but also a quick resolution. And that's why I think we're going back and forth. I think right now Trump is willing to tolerate the some degree of prolonged instability, which was reflected in that comic, because he believes it preserves leverage. towards a larger outcome. You can see that in some of his comments and some of these flare-ups that were seen that hasn't been responded to in-kind militarily. But the risk is the longer this goes on, the longer these tensions go on, the harder it becomes to contain the economic

fallout from the Strait of Hormuz and the risk of unintended escalation. What did you take away from the throwaway remark to CNBC, I don't care if negotiations are over? It's just a little remark. What did it say to you about the president? attitude in these negotiations and how much pain for the American people economically he's willing to tolerate. Frankly, that he's willing to stay in the space a little bit longer, that he would rather that than give up something that costs the United States long-term leverage, that the political fallout of being open to something more narrow was so much so that he, for now, doesn't

want to give up anything without a major win that comes close to what he was trying to achieve at the start of this conflict. So I want to stay in the region for this new. related intimately to the Iran war, and it's the ceasefire in Lebanon. On Thursday, Hezbollah, backed by Iran, rejected a new ceasefire, announced the day before between Lebanon and Israel. Israel said it would not withdraw troops from southern Lebanon, undermining President Trump's efforts to halt fighting there and to take away at least one key obstacle to a deal with Iran. This is part of the broader issue with Iran is the confrontation between Hezbollah.

in Israel. Now, Greg Miri, Iran has made ceasefire negotiations in Lebanon a condition for any peace deal, as I mentioned, said it might intervene directly in support of Hezbollah, its proxy. If Israel keeps up or escalates attack their Hezbollah is not a party to U.S. brokerate agreements. They are launching rockets over the border at Northern Israel. You're there in Tel Aviv. What's the latest here? What do we need to know about where this ceasefire in name only actually stands. Yeah, Todd, I'm putting ceasefire here in air quote because nobody seems to be taking it very seriously. I mean, if there's any silver lining, it's we're in a different place than we were at the beginning of the week when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was really pushing this

as Israeli offensive. I mean, literally a military offensive when there was supposed to be a ceasefire in Lebanon and calling for airstrikes against Hezbollah offices in Beirut. That prompted a very sharp phone call from President Trump, where he acknowledged, he cursed Benjamin Netanyahu, called him crazy, but they said they made up. But the point was, then it led to this ceasefire. But Hezbollah saying it's not a ceasefire. It's a call for us to surrender. Hesbollah was not included in the talks. It was between the Israeli and Lebanese governments in Washington. It called on the group to stop firing on Israel and to pull out of southern Lebanon. But it made no way. mention of Israel pulling out of southern Lebanon. And so Hezbollah said, no way. And the Israelis,

the last couple of days, have kept up strikes. They are getting fired upon by Hezbollah as well. And this is really the place where Israel and Hezbollah always get stuck. They start shooting across the border as they did in early March. Israel goes into southern Lebanon. It says because it has to drive Hezbollah back and keep them out of the range of hitting communities in northern Israel, then Hezbollah says it won't stop attacking because the Israeli troops are in Lebanon, and Israel says it can't leave because Hezbollah is attacking. And so we're really just kind of in this death loop that we've been stuck in so many times before and small, little prospect for a real ceasefire.

Let's just hear from the president briefly on what he thinks a ceasefire in this region actually means. Pretty much the way it is. It's a different part of the world. You know, I'd say that part of the world ceasefires when you're shooting in a more moderate manner. Shooting in a more moderate manner and assessment from the commander-in-chief. I want to bring it back to Washington just for a moment, Josh Keating, this week that the House has been voting over and over and over again on war resolutions to rebuke the president on the war in Iran. They've gotten closer and closer and then this week, the scales tipped. enough Republicans in the House voted essentially to stop the war. What is that really about? Does it have teeth and what does it say about the attitude of Republicans toward this war now? Well, you know, I'd say the kind of savvy political answer is no. I mean, even if this passes the Senate, it's still, like, unclear if Congress even has the authority to sort of cut off support for this or if Trump will simply continue prosecuting this, you know, what he calls this little detour into Iran.

But, you know, I mean, I'd say that in itself is significant. I mean, the fact that, you know, the branch of government that's supposed to be the one to declare war, you know, is sort of on the verge of declaring this conflict illegitimate. And all of our attitudes are to kind of shrug and say it doesn't matter. I think that is telling about where we are in terms of, you know, civilian or congressional oversight over the president's use of force. Well, Greg Mirey mentioned in passing a few moments ago, a confrontation between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu over the phone this week. Here's what the president had to say about reports that he had a curse-laden call with Benjamin Netanyahu. I would say angry. I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon.

You know, at some point, I said, maybe we've got to stop this. We've got to stop it. But I have a very good relationship. We've done well, done well together. He always is. I think the president did acknowledge that he called Benjamin Netanyahu crazy, and that called Benjamin Netanyahu laughed off. Any suggestion that tensions with his American ally are an issue on CNBC. So we have common goals.

Sometimes we have, as in the best of families, you have these tactical disagreements. We always find a way to work them out. And we do so as great friends. We can disagree in the morning. And by the afternoon, we have common. action. Greg, Mari, I don't know. I mean, Israel's continued action in southern Lebanon seems to be driving a wedge into this negotiation and making a settlement with Iran, the kind of grand bargain that

Nancy Yusuf discusses, harder and harder. So, yes, they're both smoothing this over. What does the confrontation over the phone say to you about the interests and objectives of Israel and the United States and whether they are diverging here? Yeah, well, Iran. has certainly learned that it can drive a wedge between Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu simply by saying, we're going to stop negotiating with the U.S. on an Iran deal if Israel doesn't stop attacking in Lebanon. And so that creates friction right there. And while Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu coordinated very closely when the Iran war began three months ago and they shared the broad goals of toppling the regime, destroying its nuclear program, we've gotten to a point. We've gotten to a

where as we look at it more at a narrower, more granular level, we see these differences. Trump clearly would like to make a deal with Iran to end the war. Benjamin Netanyahu clearly wants to keep hitting Iran and put as much military pressure on Iran as he can. Trump seems to be willing to settle for some sort of deal on highly enriched uranium that would still be negotiated. Benjamin Netanyahu says, no, we need to completely wipe out the nuclear program. Trump at the beginning of the war talked a lot about Iran's missile program, much less now. Benjamin Netanyahu, the missile program is a huge deal for Israel because Israel was getting hit daily with Iranian missiles during the war.

And Greg, both of these men have elections coming, and Benjamin Netanyahu's maybe a little bit more urgent even. He hasn't delivered on his promise to destroy Hamas in Gaza. His plans for regime change in Iran, as you describe, Hezbollah attacks also can. continue in the north of Israel. What kind of domestic pressure is Benjamin Netanyahu under in Israel right now? What's the view from Tel Aviv where you are? Yeah, well, next week, the Israeli parliament is expected to dissolve itself and set a date for elections. So Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition would then crumble, and then it looks like there'd be an election in September or October. they poll constantly here. Benjamin Netanyahu is Lakud Party, would look to be very competitive, but there's no clear favorite. So literally within a week, we could be looking at Israeli elections at a moment when Israel

has troops in Gaza, in southern Lebanon, in Syria, and has just fought over in the skies over Iran as well. Meanwhile, another front that's not to be forgotten this week renewed Israeli strikes in Gaza, the Israeli military says Hamas operatives were killed in strikes on Gaza City. Israel strikes killed at least 11 Palestinians, according to reports, including women and children, dozens more wounded there. Nancy Yusuf, it's been months since President Trump announced his plans for a peace process in Gaza more than four months since he convened the Board of Peace to implement and pay for that grand plan. what's the status of that plan and the board and renewal rebuilding something in Gaza?

Well, the board's ambitions are far, far, far bigger than its impact so far, very simply. I mean, this is something that really had such wide-ranging goals as reconstruction, outside financing, era participation, disarming of Hamas. And we haven't seen much of any of that. And in fact, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is a member of the Board of Peace, and Secretary of State couldn't name the point of contact that the Hill should refer to to find out more details about it. He had to get back to them. And so I think that says something about where this Board of Peace is. I think the troubling part of it is that we heard this from the board's own envoy to the UN a couple weeks ago, is that it risks Gaza becoming permanently divided because the ceasefire implementations broken down.

and these steps towards rebuilding aren't really there. So I think that's a long-term fear. But in the short term, you have all this money that was promised, all these ambitions, and they aren't happening. And meanwhile, we're seeing not only strikes continue inside Gaza, but Hamas come back and say, we're not going to disarm as long those strikes happens. And that disorder creates a vacuum,

and tyranny loves a vacuum. Hamas loves a vacuum. Well, not only that, I think you could see other groups, And we so often talk about Hamas, but there's real resentment inside of Gaza, as you can imagine, towards Hamas. What happens if you have a whole generation now growing up in tent cities and this kind of instability? What kinds of groups form out of it? I think it's not just Hamas we have to think about, but sort of outreach is from that because of this entrenched position that the Palestinians in Gaza find themselves in and the lack of a clear pathway towards some kind of resolution. Well, another facet of the confrontation with Iran, Iranian-backed militias, this time in Iraq, two of Iraq's most powerful Iranian-backed militias said they would begin handing over their weapons to Iraqi authorities this week.

The government there's been trying to rein in these militias. They're supposed to be under government command in reality. They operate independently, and we saw this back in the Iraq war, the experience with Iranian-backed militias in places like some. Sotter City and many other places. Nancy, what can you tell us about these militias, why, how they operate, how they're run, and why they seem to be a little bit more conciliatory, at least now? So you'll remember one of the many goals outlined at the start of this war was reducing the impact of Iranian-backed proxies across the Middle East. We saw Israel launching attacks on Gaza, on Hamas, which is one. We saw the U.S. launching them on the Houthis in Yemen,

and then of course on Hezbollah and Lebanon. The Iraqi-backed proxies have actually taken the least amount of attacks throughout this conflict. However, there is a calculation that's happening and a recalculation that's happening, I think both by the government inside Baghdad and by the Iranian-backed militias themselves. I think the government is trying to take back sovereignty over these groups that have, yes, technically operated independently, but also operated within government and have presented problems throughout. And I also think that these groups are reassessing how they will relate with Tehran going forward. How advantageous is it versus an impediment to them. While we've seen these

groups come forward, I think we should note that Khatib Hasbullah, which is the biggest of them, has not. And so this is a starting point. And one of the most assertive moves we've seen by the government, but it does not mark the end of the militias inside of Iraq. Gosh kidding. We view this through 20 years of look back to the Iraq war and the operation of Iranian-backed. There were plenty of Sunni-backed militias in Iraq also. We look back over the prosecution of that war. What Nancy describing, does it say something good

about the health of Iraqi central authority now that they've kept the lid on these militias while the rest of the region is at war with Iran? I mean, I do think it says something about that, but it also just the extent to, I mean, I think it tells us something about just how formidable a deterrent these militias really are. I mean, I think, you know, for years, it's been one of the factors we talked about when there was a potential war with Iran was the idea that there would be, you know, throughout the region, these reprisals by Iranian-backed militia groups. And it's been probably less than anticipated in many cases. And, you know, many of these groups were somewhat weakened by Israeli prisals after October 7th. One factor I'm watching is we haven't seen much activity by the Houthis.

And, you know, the Iranian government put out a statement last week, threatening to, you know, saying that the next phase of their retaliation was closing the Bob El Mandeb, the straight, going into the Red Sea, which people may remember from the, Israel-Ghazaw war. We're talking Yemen now. We're talking about Yemen now. That could be potential another way that we could see sort of regional international escalation of this conflict. That's Josh Keening of Vox.

Nancy Yusuf of the Atlantic is here and also Greg Mirey, joining us from Tel Aviv with NPR. We're going to talk about the latest in the war in Ukraine as we do almost every week. But first, let's make a stop in central Kenya, the town of Nanyuki.

On Monday and Tuesday, hundreds of people protested the construction of a new quarantine center in that town on the grounds of a Kenyan military base. It was reportedly meant to serve quarantined U.S. citizens exposed to Ebola that spread in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Uganda. People burned trash in the streets, confronted military patrols. The message from protesters don't bring them. or the virus here. Now, Kenya's doctors' union also protested the agreement between the United States and Kenyan government to bring quarantined Americans to Nunuki. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the deal included $13 million for Kenya's Ebola

preparedness efforts. But that's a fraction of the $500 million that USAID had committed per year to Kenya this decade before the Trump administration shuttered that agency in 2025. The Trump administration said the 50-bed center for U.S. citizens was supposed to open today on Friday, but late last week, the Kenyan High Court halted that agreement in the face of a legal challenge. So that's where that stands on the front lines of Ebola in Kenya, U.S. citizens and local protests and just a shade of funding to help prevent Ebola spread in Kenya compared to what was available through USAID. Now, let's, as promised, move on to Russia's war in Ukraine. On Wednesday, Ukraine struck a major oil terminal in Russian President Vladimir Putin's hometown. That's St. Petersburg.

It was just 10 miles away from where Vladimir Putin was just about to kick off his annual economic conference that's meant to help attract foreign investments into Russia. A massive black cloud rose above the skyline there. Flights were delayed. They were diverted. Russian authorities cut sail in Internet service to try to prevent drone attacks. It was not a great optical start to what some people call Vladimir Putin's Davos conference for international investment. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky defended the strike.

Honestly, I don't follow it. I don't have an app that tells me where Vladimir Putin is going and on what day. We are responding to attacks on Ukraine. I believe these are justified strikes. Greg Maury, what's the significance of striking this particular city, St. Petersburg, at this particular time? Well, I think it's both symbolic and substantive. Symbolic, as you noted, because it was the kickoff of this big economic conference that Vladimir Putin has every year in St. Petersburg. It's his hometown. So it just, you know, all the pictures were coming out of delegates walking into the conference center and in the background, you could still see the big plumes of black smoke. Now, it's also substantive because these are some of Russia's biggest oil exporting centers. and Ukraine has been hitting it repeatedly. And the damage is real.

Now, sometimes it's a little hard to tell. You see these big plumes of black smoke. Sometimes the Russians can patch those up pretty quickly, and the visual looks worse than it actually is. But they've been doing this all around the country, and in some places it is causing sustained damage to Russia's oil industry. Volodymyr Zelensky likes to call them Ukraine's sanctions against Russia, kind of mocking what he says or the kind of,

weak Western sanctions against Russia. And it has hampered Russia's oil exports at a time when oil prices have been high and Russia certainly hopes to be gaining more revenue from oil exports. And it has from the oil it can export. But it is suffering problems because of these Ukrainian strikes, which are a very regular thing now. Nancy Yusuf, 680 miles inside Russian territory or at least 680 miles from the border with Ukraine, that's where this strike took place. What does it say about Ukraine's capacity to hit targets deep inside Russia and the message it sends to Vladimir Putin while he worries about the war and his economy? Well, I think these strikes reflect a broader shift in the war that is possible because Ukraine has developed a much more sophisticated long-range strike capability

than Russia anticipated at the start of this war. Ukraine can't always match Russia artillery for artillery on the front lines. And so it's increasingly pursuing the strategy of deep strikes aimed at Russia's economy, its military industry, its energy infrastructures, as Greg was outlining, and ultimately public morale. So why is that important? Two reasons, I would argue. One, it really makes it harder for the Kremlin to argue that this is not affecting everyday Russians. It makes it harder for them to insulate the war from everyday Russians. And secondly, it forces Russia to stretch out its air defense along its vast geography to not only protect its energy facilities, its logistics hubs, its military infrastructure, all very, very far from Ukraine. So I think for those two reasons,

it is proven to be an effective military strategy. Josh Keating, I know there's no very brief answer to this question, but we can try for one. What is the state of Vladimir Putin's economy now? I mean, the economy is, well, there was a hope in Russia, I think, that they would benefit from the increase in oil prices caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. But I think that, you know, Ukrainian strikes have wiped out about 40 percent of that export capacity. So it hasn't benefited them as much as they'd hoped. Meanwhile, you know, inflation is continuing to rise. And the sort of long-term impact of sanctions is starting to bite. So they're in pretty dire straits. Russia also stepped up attacks on Ukraine, launching more than 600 drones and 73 missiles on Monday night

into Tuesday. Ukrainian authorities say more than 20 people were killed by Russian attacks. Meanwhile, Ukraine says it's running low on air defense missiles. President Volodymyr Zelensky is asking for American help. He sent a letter to the White House last week, warning that American military supplies are not keeping up with these Russian attacks. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was talking to reporters this week, and he answered a question about that very letter. We're changing the way we make all those types of important munitions to ensure that our companies are delivering not just a little bit more, but a lot a bit more across the spectrum. Where we can help Ukraine we have, where we can enable Europe to do more we have. And I'm encouraged by the European commitment. If you look at

the amount of money that's been spent, Europe has stepped up and Ukraine has been just as, if not more effective in the process. So we want them to be able to defend and we'll find a way to make sure we can help. Now some facts. President Trump has not approved any new direct military aid for Ukraine since taking office. The Kiel Institute for the World Economy says U.S. military aid to Ukraine fell by 99 percent in 2025. Nancy Yusuf on Thursday, the House passed new Ukraine aid over the objections of the White House, the president, and Republican leaders. Are there any chances of this bill passing, but maybe more importantly, what does it say about how Republican national security hawks are feeling about this war versus how Republican leaders are feeling?

I think the president ultimately veto it. So in terms of passing, it feels unlikely right now. But broadly, I think they are saying that we want to continue to support Ukraine, that we don't embrace the administration's decision to so forcefully walk away from providing Ukraine key military support. And I think it's interesting that the Secretary of Defense made those remarks after Ukraine had been so successful and striking inside Russia. The problem is he didn't offer specifics in terms of what that aid would look like. But I think based on the statistic you were reading earlier and the lack of munitions that are available, frankly, for the United States to provide, I think what we can foresee best case scenario is a more limited and conditional kind of support

going to Ukraine from the United States, both because I don't think the United States wants to be seen as abandon Ukraine outright, particularly amid this political pressure, but also because of its limited capacity in terms of what it could provide, that we're not going to return to sort of Biden-level support, perhaps something short of that. We got this question from Dave in Silver Spring, Maryland. Dave says Russian forces are killing civilians individually using drones. They've murdered thousands. Why not question all security officials and Marco Rubio about the consent? support the administration has shown for Vladimir Putin and Russia despite these actions.

Josh Keating, any thoughts about Dave's email there? Well, I think there has been a significant questioning of Trump's stance on the Ukraine war in general. I mean, at this point, I mean, I think what we're seeing is Russia kind of failing to advance in this war. You know, there was one estimate that they, in May, they had, you know, took Lester. than they have since October of 2023. And I think that's a big reason why, you know, just the Ukrainian use of drones on the battlefield is making it so much harder for them to take territory. And I think that's one reason they're resorting to, you know, heavier use of these aerial attacks on

Ukrainian cities, which means the death of a lot more Ukrainian citizens. Greg, Mare, what did you see when you saw reports of the Republican-controlled House voting for billions of dollars of new aid in Ukraine against the wishes of the president? it. Yeah, it was interesting to see. I believe it was 18 House Republicans voted for the aid, knowing that that's something Trump is not in favor of. That support has actually been there throughout the war among Democrats and a fair number of Republicans. In the Senate, they always talk about having 80 or more votes. They just can't get a vote on it. So that support is there, and it's really Trump and his administration that have prevented it.

And the U.S. is providing just very limited support at this stage, some intelligence support, stuff like that. A little of the aid that was passed two years ago is still trickling in. But there's this real shortage of air defense missiles that Ukraine desperately needs. Europe is helping a little bit, but it's really only the U.S. that could give Ukraine what it needs. And then the U.S. seems to be a little short after the war in Iran. or now that we're to ceasefire in the war with Iran. Well, earlier in the hour, I mentioned to you the name Greenland, and that's a name we haven't heard in a long, long time. Greenland is back. The president's fixation five months ago with taking territory for the United States seems to be back during his congressional testimony on Wednesday.

Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State said talks were underway with the government of Greenland and with Denmark after Representative Sarah McBride of Delaware, if Marco Rubio was aware that Greenland was part of Denmark, the Secretary of State said, for now. And that remark woke up a lot of people in Europe. Newly formed Danish government under returning Prime Minister Meta Fredrickson made resistance against a U.S. takeover of Greenland one of its priorities in that election. And the new government's coalition, their coalition agreement, said it would stand firm on the kingdom's sovereignty. So Denmark is a key American ally, Nancy Yusuf. Get us up to speed after NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte negotiated sort of a climb down over the winner with Donald Trump and his demands for Greenland.

What have the United States Greenland and Denmark been up to behind the scenes? So those initial comments by the president really rattled the alliance, the NATO alliance and how NATO partners looked at the United States. The prospect of having to defend a NATO partner from the United States was really on the table. earlier this year. The talks up until Marco Rubio's comments had shifted away from that kind of threat to take over territory to something a little bit more practical about how the U.S. could expand its military and surveillance capability in the face of competition in the Arctic with Russia and China. And also missile defense, right? That's right. So much more pragmatic and less bombastic. So we've moved slightly from a sovereignty to dispute to

strategic planning. But I think that kind of comment sort of reignited fears among the Danish government and among residents of Greenland that the United States was ultimately still in pursuit of territorial gains. And so it didn't help. And I think it makes it harder to reach these more pragmatic negotiations over how military basing could provide security for the United States and for its NATO partners. Greg, Maury, what's your read on this? I mean, on the one hand, There's a step down. Well, it's about missile offense, surveillance, being able to patrol the Arctic. Denmark and Greenland have said all along, if the United States wants more bases, you can have more bases. We've had this agreement for decades. That's fine, no drama. And then the Secretary of State makes remarks like about Greenland's sovereignty for now. What is this? Yeah, interesting that he brought that up again. I mean, he was asked about it, but that he just sort of raised. the issue by just adding those two words for now. I still think the most likely scenario would

be some sort of update of this 1951 agreement that allowed the U.S. to have, I think, roughly around 10 bases during the Cold War and could put more there if it wanted. You know, Denmark and Greenland have just had not opposed that in any way and announced they would be open to it unless the U.S. has just alienated them to such a degree with the threats. So with so many other things, foreign issues on the burner, it's just hard to imagine the U.S. really wants to pick a fight here. I'm not going to try to predict it, but it just seems like, yes, if they really think this is critical, the U.S. thinks this is critical to update missile bases or early warning systems,

they could do it. Yeah. I mean, again, Denmark has said all along, that's fine. More bases, more patrols, more surveillance, even missile defense. We can talk about it, not this takeover language, right, Greg? Oh, absolutely. You know, the bases were there. You would literally be going back to something that resembled the Cold War era when you had all these bases along the coast, the western coast of Gremlin. And, you know, that's, that's, uh, For the all, really just for the asking. There's no need to fight over something when Denmark and Greenland seem quite amenable to it. No need to fight indeed. Well, before the hour is out, we're going to talk about the World Cup and worldwide implications.

Before we get there, I want to check in just quickly on India and Venezuela because Venezuela's acting president, Delcei Rodriguez. She met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday. And the topic, well, you guessed it. Oil. More oil for India. India has increased its imports of Venezuelan oil so much recently that the country has become India's third largest supplier. Josh Keating, what's going on here? Why the interest in the world's largest country, India, in Venezuelan oil?

Well, India is also the second largest purchaser of Venezuelan oil now after the United States. I mean, and this was the case before. They were a large purchaser of Venezuela and oil before, you know, sanctions went into place. now that, you know, we have the Hormuz situation. India has been threatened with tariffs over its purchase on Russian oil. So it makes sense that they would turn to Venezuela both to meet their domestic needs and as a way of sort of, you know, playing ball with the Trump administration and indicating that they're on board with this priority.

And it also should be said, they have the sort of refineries in India that make them one of the few countries that can actually prioritize. process the sort of heavy sulfuric acid that venous. Yeah, they don't have light, sweet crude there. They have bloopy oil. Yeah, yeah. But India has the sort of refineries that, you know, position them well. They're one of the few countries that can actually use that oil and turn into the sort of jet fuel that the world is very much going to need this summer.

Well, I promised we would talk about the World Cup before the hour is out. Nancy Yusuf, I don't know if you have any deep soccer analysis for us. We don't. I might. You might? Well, I know you have political analysis, so let's stick with that for the other. The World Cup always comes with political repercussions. Yes, we focus and we should on what happens on the field.

But the World Cup begins next Thursdays, 39 days of matches across 16 stadiums in the United States, in Canada, in Mexico. Mexico plays South Africa in Mexico City, but politics are at play here. It's been an ongoing question if teams can play matches. the team from Iran. Will they play in the United States? Will they get visas to play in the United States? Iran's team has relocated its practice facility into Mexico. So Greg Mierry, as you watch the action on the field,

what are you watching for in the backdrop here? Yeah, Todd, I always like to get past all these pre-event stories about security and outrageous ticket prices and that side of thing. looking for a good underdog story, a team that really jumps out that has not necessarily expected to do so. The home team almost always gets a big boost in the World Cup. So the U.S. might surprise some people and do better than expected. Japan and Ecuador seem to be countries that could be sleepers and could bring some upset. So I've had more than my fill of talking about the politics of the World Cup. I'm a soccer fan once every four years, and so I do.

want to see it, and I do want to see an underdog come in and surprise some of the big boys. Yeah, so, I mean, I'd say as a political analyst, I'm, of course, interested in what happens with Iran. It's pretty unprecedented to have a country, you know, playing on the territory of a country that's at war with. As a sports fan, I'm interested to see, you know, the left. It's probably Leo Messi's last World Cup. For Argentina. And as a New Yorker who went to a game back in 1994, the last time it was in the U.S., I'm interested to see if European fans are really going to walk from Manhattan to the Meadowlands

to get around the $150 train prices. On New Jersey transit. That's a pretty epic journey that I'm curious to see if anyone actually undertakes. And all of the analysis that you can attend a game in Philadelphia from New York, possibly more cheaply than you can attend a game across the Hudson in the Meadowlands. that's for another program. Nancy Yusuf, you, you wedded my appetite. You have some soccer analysis or take it where you want to. Well, I mean, I'm optimistic in terms of politics because it is such a great unifier across the globe. I mean, I've been overseas and been here for World Cups, and I just love how it brings communities together. It brings my own house together. It's the one sport that both kids will watch. And so, and the fact that we have more teams this year, as Greg was noting, that there's an opportunity for Cinderella stories. So I'm hoping that this offers an opportunity for. or a little cooling down of tensions

and a really one of these few opportunities for a truly global experience. We have just a quick moment before we have to go. Let's just get a read into your reporter's notebooks, what stories you're watching, what big story you're watching for the coming week. We have a time for just a thought from each of you. So Greg Meyer, you go first.

What's in your notebook? Yeah, I mentioned it earlier, the possibility of the Israeli parliament dissolving in elections being set for September and October. This would be the first election in Israel since the Hamas attacks in October 23. It would be very interesting to see if it moves, has moved the needle at all politically. It may not. Israel has always very difficult elections where no party ever wins an outright majority.

Josh Keating, how about you? Well, you played the clip from Kenya earlier. Kenya has also seen fuel price riots in recent weeks, as have two other countries in Africa. So I'm watching the sort of impact of these commodity, both food and fuel prices. on civil unrest and political instability around the world. Nancy Yusuf. Xi Jinping will be in Pyongyang for the first time. According North Korea.

That's right. Since 2019, and I'm given the cooperation that we've seen with Russia, I'm really curious what comes of those talks. I want to thank Nancy Yusuf, staff writer at the Atlantic covering national security and the Department of Defense, Josh Keating from Vox, and Greg Mirey, National Security correspondent at NPR, who joined us all the way from Tel Aviv today. We appreciate your analysis. on politics, on world geopolitics, and yes, on World Cup soccer.

Everyone, thanks for being here. Mike Kidd is our sound designer and engineer. Chris Kistano is our digital editor. Maya Garg is our senior managing producer. Alexandra Bouti is our senior supervising producer. Aileen Humphreys is our senior producer and editor of 1A On Demand. And Thomas Liu produces our podcast. Special thanks to Matthew Simonson for additional on-demand support this week.

This program comes to you from. WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR. I'm Todd's Willick. This is One-N.

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