The News Roundup for August 7, 2026

25:36President Trump made a trip west this week. He went to California and Nevada to raise money and shore up Republicans ahead of the midterms. His focus? Selling his handling of the economy. Here he is Wednesday in Las Vegas. Just yesterday it was announced that American exports are totally on fire in a positive way. This is a positive fire, not a negative. Sometimes you say, oh, that's too bad, you know. They'll say, that's too bad. It's on fire. It's on fire in a very positive way. And they've skyrocketed exports to the highest level in American history. Think of that, exports. Exports of U.S. goods did hit an all-time monthly high in April of this year.

26:17That's according to the Bureau for Economic Analysis. Exports have fallen back since then. In his remarks, the president also called democratic socialists the greatest threat to American life. He complained about his polling numbers and said, I don't get credit for anything. Courtney, what stood out to you from the president's trip this week? It was meant to be a trip to highlight his affordability agenda. This White House has tried on multiple occasions, lots of false starts, to try and shift the president's message to focus on his economic agenda. There was a point earlier this year in which Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said that he would travel every week across the country to talk about his affordability agenda.

27:02That has not happened, of course. But it was supposed to focus on his no tax on tips policy, lowering prescription drugs, the savings accounts for kids known as Trump accounts. but as you mentioned, he focused a lot of it about warning of the dangers of progressive candidates if Democrats retake Congress in November, which is part of a big messaging push by this White House ahead of the midterms. But in a place like Nevada, that doesn't really resonate where residents are grappling with the housing crisis and huge discrepancies in housing costs higher than average gas prices, you know, cost of a gallon of gas in Nevada is more than 70 cents higher than the national average.

27:51So I did see this as, you know, another missed opportunity for the White House to talk about the economic message that Republicans are reaching out for and asking for to take home, you know, while they're campaigning ahead of November. And I think that underlines the frustration with this White House on the messaging around affordability. I just want to zero in quickly on something else President Trump said in his Las Vegas speech. Here in Nevada, we've created over 40 ,000 new jobs and lifted nearly 100 ,000 Nevadans off of food stamps. They don't want to be on food stamps because they've got new jobs.

28:32They've got jobs. They don't need food stamps. So are there 100 ,000 Nevadans off food stamps? The president's actually talking about a nationwide trend. Participation in SNAP has declined nationally. What do we know about how changes in the new work requirements for the Trump administration, how that's played out in terms of these numbers? Oh, well, lifted off is the administration's euphemism for kicked them off. These reduction in enrollment is entirely from the bill they passed. And they use this, the money for SNAP to help pay for tax cuts, mostly for the wealthy. and it's one of the most rapid drops in national SNAP enrollment ever.

29:10More to come after this short break. Stay with us.

29:36Oh, hey there. I'm Brittany Luce. And I don't know, maybe this is a little out of pocket to say, but I think you should listen to my podcast. It's called It's Been a Minute, and I love it. And I think you will too. Over the past couple months, over 100 ,000 new listeners started tuning in. Find out why. Listen to the It's Been a Minute podcast from NPR today. At NPR, there's a little something for everyone. If you need advice for that big life change, try listening to Life Kit. If you want to know more about that new TV show, check out Pop Culture Happy Hour. And if you want to dive deeper into your favorite podcasts and enjoy perks like bonus episodes, archive access, and more, check out NPR+.

30:17Find out more and support the shows you love at plus.npr.org. Let's get back to the roundup. Courtney, I want to ask you about the Labor Department's job report this morning. As we were just talking before the break about the president's glowing assessment of the economy, we know U.S. employers cut 23 ,000 jobs in July. The gains that were reported in May and June were revised down. What should we make of these numbers? I think it signals that the labor market is facing some hurdles after, you know, some surprising strength earlier this year. rising prices, uncertainty from the war on Iran. This, of course, could put some pressure on the Fed to raise interest rates as they focus on inflation.

31:05We heard from Kevin Hassett this morning. He has been making the rounds, giving media interviews and noting that there's positives with construction and manufacturing, which they attribute to AI infrastructure development, which is something that this White House is obviously prioritizing. But I do think that, you know, this signals that maybe the economy is not exactly where this White House and the president is saying that it is. Let's talk about Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who cleared a hurdle standing in the way of his Senate confirmation this week. He formally rescinded President Trump's $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund, the major reason Senate Republicans John Cornyn and Tom Tillis had given for blocking his nomination in committee.

31:54They wanted written, not just verbal confirmation that he would scrap the fund that could have provided settlements to Trump allies, including January 6th rioters. Is the fund really dead now, Taylor? Democrats argue it's not. Republicans argue it is. This comes down to technicalities. Democrats say there's a loophole that will allow the Justice Department and the president to basically directly direct those funds elsewhere and still, you know, kind of do a workaround to get allies of the president those funds if they want access to. Even in this written statement that two Republican senators who were initially holding out, Tom Tillis from North Carolina and John Corner from Texas, got blanched to say the fund is rescinded.

32:34They argue there's that workaround. There also is this idea of tax audits for the Trump family, for President Trump, his adult sons, Don Jr. and Eric, and their businesses. And Democrats argue that even though it was narrowed the scope of the audit provisions in this settlement deal that the president got through the IRS when he sued his own government that he was leading, Democrats say that still isn't going to stop the president from getting kind of tax breaks on the money he's making right now in the White House. We know he made a couple billion dollars last year alone. They left tax immunity fully intact for the president and his family.

33:11And they narrowed it so that there was concern that it could apply to almost anybody they'd ever talked to. But it's a potential tax break for the president worth millions and millions of dollars, which is pretty unusual. It's like Todd Blanch gave the guy a bag of money with a dollar sign on it. But because it's taxes, people don't think of it in that direct financial benefit sort of way. But that's what has happened. So there's been a lot happening even this morning with who is voting for this nomination, who is not. Arthur, can you tell us who's said no, who has said yes at this point? Does he have the votes for confirmation by the full Senate?

33:50Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, Republicans, have said no. And because Mitch McConnell's sick and absent, it comes down to Bill Cassidy. And if he says no, Blanche fails. And if he says yes, then Blanche will be confirmed. So I'm looking. We'll keep an eye on that. Do we have a sense at this point when the Senate vote on his nomination will be scheduled? Does it matter what Bill Cassidy says? Well, you know, this is a symbolic rebuke, really. If they say no to Blanche, Blanche can remain as the acting attorney general. And the president has said, well, I'll renominate him later. Tom Tillis and Bill Cassidy, those are two Blanche skeptics.

34:29They'll be gone after this year. And so Trump still sort of gets his way. But the idea of Senate Republicans standing up to the president, I think, is actually pretty important. This whole confirmation process and the hurdles that Republicans have faced over it is also a good reflection of how President Trump steps on his own feet because he went after a lot of these Republican senators in their primary challenges or he forced them or coaxed them into retirement. And they felt more emboldened to express their discomfort with things like this anti-weaponization fund. So, yes, ultimately, Senators Cornyn and Tillis, you could say, folded and gave in to the president to support Blanche.

35:05but they held out for a while. And someone like Bill Cassidy, who President Trump endorsed a primary challenger because Cassidy voted to convict him after January 6th. It's just another example where in such a thin margin where Republicans control the Senate, if President Trump mended some of these relationships rather than pour gasoline on them, he would have a much easier process getting people like Todd Blanche confirmed. But Arthur's point is legitimate. Blanche could just stay acting attorney general until 2027, and then they'll have some new Republican senators in theory in place who will go along with the president and he could get confirmed then.

35:36Courtney, what have we heard from the president about Todd Blanche this week? Yeah, I was just going to say, I might add the president gave an interview this morning and said as much he would just keep Blanche in an acting position if this nomination falls apart. And I should note that Blanche has been in an acting capacity since April after Pam Bondi's departure. So, you know, I think he sees, you know, he sort of shrugs this off as he can find a workaround as he has for much of his administration. But I do, to Taylor's point, think this does really underline some of the cracks in the party and some of his personal sort of vendettas against some of these lawmakers who he's primaried really shining through here.

36:31And what does that mean for the party moving forward? He certainly does not have the stronghold he did maybe a year ago. So that's Courtney Subramanian, who covers the White House for Bloomberg News. Taylor Poplar is at the White House for Spectrum News, and Arthur Delaney covers Congress for HuffPost. We learned more this week about the extent to which the Iran war has depleted U.S. missile stockpiles, according to Reuters. The U.S. has burnt through nearly all of its highly accurate long-range missiles over the last five months. Taylor, the obvious question first is what does this mean for U.S.

37:07military capabilities and readiness right now? Do we know? So a lot of the sources who have spoken with Reuters, Washington Post had a great piece too, as did CNN. They're saying that clearly because the war in Iran is still going on, that raises concerns about our military's capabilities. But also if another conflict happens to pop up, let's say with China or if the U.S. gets into some other war there or has to protect itself, there are deep concerns that we won't have enough munitions to defend ourselves or to go on offense. It's something that even Vice President J.D. Vance, not specifically reacting to these stories, but throughout the Iran war, has expressed a broader concern of.

37:43He has a military background and he says, I was skeptical of this war because of I didn't want to deplete all of our munitions. We've seen the Trump administration firmly push back and say that everything is fine, that a lot of munitions and stockpiles are being replenished and that the president is overseeing it all. But they were particularly sensitive to the Washington Post story that said President Trump last week at a cabinet meeting at Camp David confronted Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and said, I thought the munitions issue was fine. And Hegseth apparently defended himself and blamed his deputy.

38:14The Trump administration insists that is not the case, but it's a good example. We're at day 160 of this war, and there are just concerns about if there's no end in sight, what happens to these stockpiles. From a budgetary standpoint, what does it take for the government to replenish this stockpile? Well, they need to pay companies to make more missiles, and that is why Pete Hegseth has been begging Congress for more money for the Pentagon, but been unable to get it because of how much Republicans can't stand the war and they can't get any cooperation from Democrats because they don't like it either, obviously.

38:46And so it's another example of the president's unwillingness to work with Congress working against his own agenda. Yeah. And the president said that these stories are totally untrue and that we have plenty of missiles. But he's also saying he's going to hunt down these leakers and have them prosecuted, which he's saying it's treasonous and that they deserve long jail sentences for raising this while he's asking for a record budget for the Pentagon. So you're not you're not leaking something treasonous if it's not true. So let's move to some health news now. The FDA on Wednesday approved the first mRNA flu vaccine.

39:24The new shot is from Moderna. That's a drug maker that also created a COVID vaccine using the same technology. It's approved for adults age 50 or over. And one clinical trial found the new shot is significantly more effective than the standard flu shot. The shot's going to be available this fall just in time for flu season. Courtney, despite its efficacy, experts weren't sure if it would be approved. We know that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has openly criticized mRNA technology. What does this approval signal for Secretary Kennedy's influence at HHS? I mean, he canceled$500 million in funding for mRNA vaccine research last year.

40:06But I do think this puts him in a position where he is somebody who's had to go against what he said publicly previously before he took over as health secretary. One example of this was he gave an interview on CNN and was pressed on the issue of the measles vaccine. And he was pressed by Dana Bash about whether or not people should get these vaccines. And they should. But in the same breath, he also repeated unfounded claims about vaccines' links to autism. And I will note, my colleagues reported this week that the administration is actively considering issuing an executive order on further research for autism and vaccines.

41:04So I do think, you know, this shows he continues to play a role in shaping health policy, but maybe not in the way that he had anticipated since first becoming health secretary. Before we get to the reporter's notebook, we just wanted to bring you the latest on the legal battle over temporary protected status. On Wednesday, a federal judge lifted a ban allowing the Trump administration to officially end TPS for 350 ,000 Haitians after a Supreme Court ruling in June. In July, we spoke with Elizabeth Bellevue, a 28-year-old Haitian TPS holder, about whether she ever thought she'd have to go back to Haiti.

41:40As a child, I never really went back to Haiti to visit. my life is in the United States. So all I know is the United States of America. I've built a career here. That was always the plan for me. So no, I've never really imagined that until, you know, just recently. Many former TPS holders now face detention and deportation, even though the U.S. State Department says Haiti is too dangerous to travel to. One more headline, weeks after the Supreme Court shut down the president's attempt to end birthright citizenship. Trump signed two new executive orders seeking to limit the number of people who were eligible for birthright citizenship and cracking down on, quote, birth tourism.

42:23It was not immediately clear how the newest orders would be enforced. We've got a few minutes left here. I know we've talked about a lot of different stories. Breaking news update on Todd Blanche. Bill Cassidy, while we were speaking, he spoke on the Senate floor and said he's a yes for Todd Blanche. So Todd Blanche will be confirmed as the full attorney general. And the idea of Republicans standing up to Donald Trump will have to wait for another day. And part of what Cassidy said in his speech is that he was worried that if he voted against Todd Blanche, that Trump would install somebody more controversial as another acting attorney general.

42:58So that's Cassidy trying to save face while also giving the president a big win. We just have a minute or two left. Courtney, a story that you have been following that you that we missed this week or what you're looking at next week? The administration's AI safety framework, we started the week out with a big bang, a lot of focus on it, and then it's sort of a meeting to update the companies involved, sort of quietly passed, and the administration has been downplaying it. They are keeping the safety framework private for now and not publicly releasing it. So I am interested in what is exactly in that framework, how they are adjusting to the wave of revelations of models acting on their own and creating cyber and safety threats?

43:45Are there more hacks out there that we haven't learned about? And what does this mean for sort of the laissez-faire approach the administration has mostly adapted in the race for AI? Thanks for that, Courtney. Arthur? An appeals court Friday morning finally weighed in on the ballroom. Remember the challenge of the ballroom? And they said, no, you can't build a ballroom. That means it's potentially another thing Congress has to do for Trump. But construction continues. We talked about it before, but I'm really interested to see if President Trump and Vice President Vance end up trying to force Congressman Max Miller out of the race in his seat, especially throughout this August recess.

44:20The midterms are a big focus, and that's a showdown that could help Republicans or hurt Republicans maintain control of the House. Thanks so much to our panel today. That's Taylor Poplarz, national political reporter at the White House for Spectrum News. I want to thank Arthur Delaney, senior reporter for HuffPost, and Courtney Subramanian, White House correspondent for Bloomberg. We're just getting started with the week's headlines. When we come back after the break, we'll have a new panel and all the news from around the globe. Stay with us.

45:02at schwab.com slash oninvesting or wherever you get your podcasts. We're often told to bring our full selves to work, but my guest says that's actually a trap. You gotta run, run girl. You in danger, girl. Listen to NPR's Code Switch podcast in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the 1A podcast. It's the international half of our weekly news roundup. Could the proposed deal between Iran and Oman help end more than five months of war between Iran and the United States? We'll get into the details of that agreement and fact-check claims of who emerges victorious. Later in the hour, a dire immigration crisis in Spain fueled by misinformation.

45:50What has it highlighted about immigration policy across Europe? And we get into details on how many missiles are left in the U.S. stockpile and how it's influencing decision-making. President Trump says on his social media site, there's no munition shortage and, quote, the leakers of these treasonous statements are being hunted down, end quote. Grateful to have all of our guests in studio to discuss all of that and more. Jack Datch, a defense reporter at Politico. Hello, Jack. Good to be here, Nyla. Andrew Roth is The Guardian's global affairs correspondent, just back from a reporting trip to the occupied West Bank.

46:24Welcome, Andrew. We're looking forward to hearing about that. Thank you for having me. And Akbar Shahid Ahmed, diplomatic correspondent at Notice and author of the upcoming book, Crossing the Red Line, Biden, His Advisors, and Israel's War in Gaza. Akbar, hello. Welcome. Thanks so much. Thank you all for being here. Also, for those of you listening, as always, we're taking your questions and comments. On the week in international news, you can email us 1a at wamu.org. Let's start with the war in Iran. In this week's messaging from the president, here he is speaking to Fox News on Tuesday. The strait's going to be open very soon, or they're going to get hit very hard, and then the strait's going to be open.

47:01We were going to a tremendous attack, the biggest since World War II. And they called me and said, very politely, please, can we talk? Can we talk? They didn't want. And I said, yes, we can talk. Let's get it done. Finally, let's get it done. On Wednesday, Iran's deputy foreign minister denied that Iran is negotiating with the U.S. over the Strait of Hormuz. He described discussions with Oman as strictly bilateral and that a deal was close. You'll remember Iran has enforced a near total closure of the Strait of Hormuz after both Tehran and Washington called an end to the June 17th Memorandum of Understanding.

47:38Before the war, ships freely moved about a fifth of the world's oil and gas supply through the strait. Jack, can we start with this proposed deal between Oman and Iran over the strait? And can you remind us here of the geography with the strait, the UAE and Oman and what the steel would look like? Yeah. So this would put new lines in the sand. It outlines new shipping corridors through the strait. Inbound traffic through the waterway would pass by the Iranian side. So Iranian waters, outbound traffic by the Omani side. On the other side. Correct. So it's a massive departure, I think we have to say, from the status quo pre-war where American ships, ships of any nation transported 20 million barrels of oil through the strait every day.

48:19Now we're down to 30 to 50 ships per day. This would happen, of course, without any Iranian say so without tolls. Now the Iranians and Omanis are talking about anywhere from three to 7 % tolls of total cargo value. So that's billions upon billions of dollars that would be in play. And if this does go through, I think it's a clear sign of where the administration is right now. They're very, very desperate to get a deal, almost any deal, to end this conflict, even one that would be antithetical to American interests here. It's big concessions for the Trump administration. Right. And we've heard Marco Rubio and J.D.

48:52Vance say again and again, right, an Iranian toll on the Strait of Hormuz would violate international law. Trump at one point said he wanted to charge his own 20 percent toll. So the message here would be, look, like we don't have the cards, even despite what we're saying. It's clear that the Iranians have a lot of leverage here. Andrew, can we just go through the fees again? What would this mean in regard to fees for traversing the strait? Because we've heard a lot of back and forth about that. Right. So we don't know exactly what the fees will be yet, and that's still under discussion. But we have seen legislation moving through the Iranian parliament that's suggesting numbers that could be as high as 5 to 7 percent of crude that's moved through the straits.

49:33That would be an enormous windfall for the Iranian government, and that would be a huge concession from the U.S. side if they agreed to that deal. You know, we would go, if we were to go back to pre-war levels of trading through the strait, we would see Iran possibly make up$100 billion a year if those numbers are correct. So at the very least, Iran is making a very aggressive statement saying that we should be taking a considerable amount of the money that's moving to the strait and that should be taken by us. And the big question is, once again, as Jack mentioned, is the U.S. willing to push back and is the U.S.

50:06in a position to be able to stop Iran from doing that? And it doesn't look like the U.S. is at the moment. It seems that the U.S. is out of options. Dorothy shared their thoughts with us. Since the U.S. is using amateur negotiators, the current dealmaking between Oman and Iran on the straits seems to indicate the U.S. is almost irrelevant or too incompetent to be taken seriously. What are we hearing, Akbar, particularly from diplomatic channels, about the fact that Oman is engaged with this with Iran and the U.S. is sort of like on the sidelines here? So Oman certainly is a trusted U.S. partner.

50:40It was also integral to the Iran nuclear deal that was signed by President Barack Obama and, of course, abandoned by President Trump, leading to a renewed Iran nuclear crisis. So it's not like the Omanis and the Americans are not in constant communication. What we can take from this moment, I've been talking to a lot of regional diplomatic sources this week about this, is there's not a sense of any predictability or trusted point of contact in the White House. So J.D. Vance had put himself forward as that person. He's not seen as being able to get any firm commitments from Trump to rein in his unpredictability.

51:15Marco Rubio, yes, of course, has heft on foreign policy, has been in this role for a long time, very much seen as so close to Israel, which has consistently been opposed to diplomacy with Iran, has warned, you can't make deals with them, you can't trust anything they see. And let's not also forget that in this moment, this is all chosen by the U.S., right? We're not talking about any of the issues that the U.S. was meaning to address. the US put itself on a path where it's now really begging to get out of this without any compromise on the outstanding issues about Iranian human rights violations, Iranian ballistic missile production, Iranian nuclear enrichment.

51:56None of that is on the table, certainly in these Omani talks. And then to the point about lack of expertise, when, if this is signed, even if it's signed, the amount of spoilers that are really possible to come out here, whether it's the hotliners on the Iranian side or on the American side, there's no strategy from the administration for dealing with any of those. Andrew, can I just ask if we think about what leverage does the U.S. have? Where does this deal leave the U.S. when it comes to leverage, particularly when it comes to military might or the blockade on the street? We can see Donald Trump try to address that right now.

52:38So when he comes out and says, if we have a deal, let's do it, because otherwise I'm going to launch the largest strike since World War II against Iran. And a lot of people at this point are rolling their eyes about that, because so many times, dozens of times at this point, Donald Trump has said, I'm going to launch the largest strike in years, decades, etc., if Iran doesn't do this. And more and more, we know, the Iranians know, that the U.S. military options in the region are becoming more and more limited. The U.S. has expended a lot of its munition stockpiles in terms of both defensive and offensive weapons.

53:11And it's shown that even though the U.S. has an enormous tactical advantage against Iran and it can strike tens of thousands of targets inside of Iran, Iran has a strategic advantage. It's very easy to close the Strait of Hormuz. Iran can do it even if its military is severely depleted. And the U.S. hasn't found an answer to that. So ironically, you know, with the U.S. having the strongest military in the world, it still has a kind of fundamental weakness in this battle. And it's, as Akbar said, over something that nobody thought was the main point of this fight in the first place, which is the Strait of Hormuz.

53:44Jack, we've been talking about regional allies. You wrote this week in Politico that many of America's allies across the world are more comfortable just waiting this out. European and Asian diplomats said their countries aren't ready to risk the safety of their citizens. What are you what did you find from your reporting about European and Asian allies leverage or interest in bringing this war to an end? Yeah, this has been consistent from the end of February until now. Europe and Asia have consistently told the Trump administration this is not their war. And that's held firm. The U.K. and France, of course, are involved in naval discussions about what clearing the strait might look like after a war.

54:22But remember, the Trump administration didn't consult Europe. They didn't consult Asia before they ordered the first U.S. missile salvos. And all of the allies on the European side, on the Asian side, have been very clear. As you said, they're not putting anyone into harm's way. They're waiting until the shooting stops. They want to see something that's signed, sealed, and delivered that guarantees their access. So they're expecting new requests. They're expecting more pressure from the Trump administration. The U.S. in particular, not in a good spot when it comes to mine-sweeping capabilities.

54:50The Iranians have left significant mines in the strait and around the strait. They're going to get more pressure on basing and access from the United States, particularly for Spain, for other countries like that. But I don't think their position has changed. And is the position really we're going to stick out oil prices or ride all of that out because we don't want to get involved with this? I think that's one of the biggest pressure points. One of the things I just keep consistently hearing is this isn't our conflict. We didn't join into this. It muddies the waters for the Europeans, right, because they're focused on building up their arsenals to deal with Russia in the future to help Ukraine right now.

55:26They don't really have the political or the military bandwidth to do this. And I'll just add to this point of partners, Secretary of Defense, Pete Hexat, has just come out with a statement talking about if Trump were losing this war, none of these initiatives would be happening. We're witnessing increased American influence and increased partnerships. This is just outright lies from the administration at this point, right, which tells you that messaging and PR is spiraling out of control. They're not they were not seeing any evidence of a kind of greater U.S.-led order as a result of the Iran war.

55:55Let's move to the West Bank, where settler violence against Palestinians has intensified. Israeli settlements that are illegal under international law are expanding in the occupied territory. Violent settler groups have continuously attacked Palestinians and their properties. On Thursday, Israel charged an Israeli settler with reckless manslaughter over the shooting death of Palestinian activist Aude Hathalin. The settler was charged after firing his gun toward a group of people, including children, in June of last year. Aude Hathalin was 31 years old when he was killed. His activism was featured in the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land.

56:34Akbar, an Israeli human rights group analyzed more than 1 ,700 cases of Jewish extremist violence in the West Bank from 2005 to 2024 and found that 94 % of investigations ended with no indictment. Why is it so rare for settlers to be charged in cases like this? So there's several things I understand here about the Israeli sort of body politic, right? There's a very strong far-right settler movement represented, including in the government, by some of the top ministers. That doesn't necessarily directly translate to what happens with the judiciary. But the sense that Israel's kind of blurring of lines between its politics, its judiciary, and the broader society has affected this is very strong.

57:19So do people want to lead to these prosecutions? They'll know that there will be a huge public backlash and outcry. and leaders like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu know that it will potentially threaten their rule. There's also, Naila, a really important dynamic here between the Israeli security establishment and the political establishment. So you see commanders, you see national security experts, people from the Shin Bet, people from even the IDF come out consistently. They did this just in July again, saying, we want the Israelis to act on what they call Jewish terror, right? They say we want the U.S.

57:52to pressure Netanyahu on this, and that's never really been the case. It's been a consistent lack of U.S. action. As the core funder, the U.S. is not only implicated as Israel's chief military backer. Many of the settlement enterprises have funding ties to the U.S. The Biden administration, the Trump administration, you've consistently not seen action from Washington. Andrew, you just reported from Termas Aya in the West Bank for The Guardian. That's a Palestinian village where 80 percent of the residents are actually U.S. citizens. The village is located near an Israeli settlement that Mike Huckabee, U.S.

58:24ambassador to Israel, visited twice. The settlement that this settlement, the U.N. calls a breach of international law. What did you find in your reporting about how Palestinian Americans are doing right now as violence is escalating in the West Bank? This is, you know, it's incredible to see, I think, in person because this is a village that has kind of everything going for it. 80 % of the people there are American citizens, and they're usually very wealthy American citizens. They've built these kind of incredible houses looking over this valley in the West Bank, not far from Ramallah. And, you know, when you're there during the day, you feel very much like you could be in an affluent, you know, American town.

59:02There's American flags even hanging from a lot of the buildings. So it looks just like an American suburb? It could be anywhere. I mean, you know, it's a little bit different, obviously, but it could be an American suburb. And what's incredible is that at night you have the exact same problems that are happening in lots of Palestinian villages and towns across the region, which is, you know, 20 or 30 people, Israeli settlers, have set up camp nearby and will maraud through the village. You know, they'll take out ATVs. They'll set houses on fire. People are throwing Molotov cocktails. And this town, which should have all the inroads that it could possibly have, not just with the Israeli side but with the U.S.

59:41embassy in particular because these are U.S. passport holders, have found that they really haven't gotten much of a response from the U.S. embassy at all, as you said. And what about for Mike Huckabee as he's visited those Israeli settlements? Has he visited the U.S. citizens? He hasn't visited this town. And one of the heads of the town basically said to me that Mike Huckabee drove right by this town twice when he was on his way to the neighboring Israeli settlement and didn't bother to stop in. They have sent dozens and hundreds of requests to the U.S. embassy for help for cases going from soldiers attacking houses or occupying them to local settlers attacking Palestinian Americans in this town.

1:00:20And they really haven't gotten much of a response from the U.S. at all. People said to me that essentially what it says to them is that, you know, it's okay to be an Israeli or Jewish American in the West Bank, but the embassy doesn't think it's okay to be a Palestinian American in the West Bank. So there's a clear case of double standards taking place with the Palestinian American community there. And with the double standards on the killing that you mentioned of Odell Hatlin, we have to think about the kind of other high-profile cases. I mean, Shireen Abu Akhli, one of the best-known journalists in the entire region, U.S.

1:00:51citizen, killed in 2022, to still no real sort of move forward towards justice for the IDF soldier that did shoot and kill her, right? So lawmakers have been raising this consistently, including to Democratic administrations, and it's been fully on deaf ears. Let's move to Gaza. Last week, the Trump-created Board of Peace unveiled a plan for Gaza that would include the disarming of Hamas. It now seems that plan is up in the air. Jack, President Trump has said the situation is complex. A day after announcing that Hamas agreed to a full disarmament. What is the status of all of this right now, a week later?

1:01:24Yeah, I mean, this is something that Trump says he has on paper, right? But Hamas really doesn't seem like they've agreed to anything. They've said that their handover of weapons is still contingent on Israel stopping all forms of aggression and withdrawing from Gaza. Obviously, they haven't done that. Trump coming out there saying Israel's happy about this.

1:01:46We're Israeli's saying, point blank, we're not pulling back from Gaza until we see genuine disarmament of Hamas. So it's kind of this catch-22. From the Israeli standpoint, you've already seen them be able to shrink the Trump administration's expectations of moving forward on this, right? This deal, this was set up at the end of last year. We're now almost a year on, and we haven't seen progress towards the reconstruction of Gaza. We haven't seen Palestinians come out of tents. And really importantly, we haven't seen that international force to go in to stabilize and support an alternative leadership.

1:02:19So it's not just Hamas and the Israelis. Just to add, I mean, this is something that we've seen in several negotiations with the Israelis. At the very least, there are accusations that, you know, these kinds of stalemates are by design, that Israel is not looking to sort of move forward a kind of large reconstruction in Gaza at the moment on these terms. So it's found a different way to kind of slow that down. And this is something I heard repeatedly in my reporting in Israel about the Board of Peace and about other negotiations taking place over reconstruction in Gaza, that these problems and stumbling blocks were intentional.

1:02:51Disarming is also a condition in Israel's ongoing talks with Lebanon over Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon. Israel says withdrawing is contingent on the disarming of the militant group Hezbollah. The U.S. is sponsoring those talks in Rome in hopes to build off a ceasefire agreement in June. but Israeli embalming in Lebanon continues despite the ceasefire. This week, an Israeli airstrike killed one person, injured 11 others. More than a million people have been displaced in Lebanon since March. Andrew, what are the sticking points for Israel here in terms of withdrawing from southern Lebanon?

1:03:24The main sticking points are based around what are called pilot zones, which are areas where Lebanese government troops, so not Hezbollah, but the Lebanese government is supposed to retake kind of towns. and display that it can enforce a kind of monopoly on force in those areas. So it's capable of actually holding on to them and not losing ground to Hezbollah. Lebanon is calling for Israel to keep moving forward. We've already got three of these pilot zones. Why don't you pull out of more land? Because eventually under this agreement, Israel is supposed to pull out of all of southern Lebanon. The Israelis are saying that's not what the agreement says, that Lebanon first needs to show that it's actually able of taking control before it's going to continue.

1:04:04So that's the sticking point. You could call it sequencing. Again, who's supposed to go first? You know, what kind of benchmarks do we need to reach? But it does seem like, once again, those benchmarks fit in with Israeli goals and Lebanese goals to either retake or retreat from southern Lebanon. So, Akbar, we're up to, what, seven overall negotiating sessions here. What looks, is there, do we have any sense of how this could break through? Well, the dynamic is fundamentally rooted in a question we've been trying to address since 2023, right? When all of these wars really began with the Hamas horrific assault on Israel.

1:04:41Israel's right to feel we're not safe. We need to kind of rein in those forces around us. The question of Israeli security hasn't been answered in part because of Israeli choices. So kind of what Andrew was talking about with this capacity of the Lebanese state, when there is consistent Israeli bombing and occupation, experts on the ground will tell you, and it seems quite clear, Hezbollah is drawing on that to retain its support and its strength, right? So actions that Israel is saying it's taking for its security are breeding the next generation of threats. So any of these talks that the U.S.

1:05:13administration is really invested in, they think this could be a bright spot for them in the region, especially for Rubio. It's really hard to see that playing out because the Lebanese just are not able to have that strength to stand up to these Israelis. I'll foot stomp with these two said, but I think the fundamental piece of this, right, is the Israelis wouldn't be at the negotiating table without American pressure. They didn't want to be at the negotiating table for years. They wanted to continue bombing Lebanon into submission and to force Hezbollah out of the country. And that's the underlying disagreement is there's no faith from the Israeli side in Lebanon's ability to do this, but they're not giving Lebanon any chance to prove themselves.

1:05:51We're rounding up international news with Politico's Jack Datch, Andrew Roth from The Guardian and Akbar Shahid Ahmed from notice. Last week, at least 88 people died as more than 70 ,000 migrants from the African continent hoping to get into Europe crossed the border between Morocco and two tiny Spanish territories in North Africa. Hundreds remained missing. Tens of thousands of migrants voluntarily returned to Morocco over the weekend. The Spanish government estimates that 2 ,000 people who had made the crossing are still in Ceuta, including close to 1 ,000 children who have been registered as unaccompanied minors.

1:06:26Now, residents and NGO workers like Hamza are coming to their aid. I've been spending nights in the street with the children. A girl is sleeping inside my car for safety. I build places where they can spend the night with blankets and provide food. They use the air conditioning from the car because they have nowhere to be. Under Spanish law, migrant minors who are unaccompanied by adults, however, are supposed to be granted protection and taken care of by Spanish authorities. Jack, you know, the European Union has taken an increasingly hardline stance on immigration since the 2015 refugee crisis.

1:07:06The events in the galvanized far-right parties in the EU who weaponized the story. I was in the UK when this was happening. It was also widely covered. You also hear British far-right groups, you know, echoing the similar things. First of all, how did this event put Spain and Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez at odds with EU counterparts over immigration policy? Yeah, I think it's almost a battle for the soul of Europe, right, with the intensity of these images that are coming out and the intensity of the debate within the European Union. Because you see Spain as a tremendous outlier now. Now, it's almost a 180 from where we were in 2015, where you saw EU countries being much more liberal, much more accepting of migrants from the Middle East.

1:07:47That sort of shifted under the pressure from, of course, former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. We saw sort of a surge in far-right parties. Now we're almost at the polar opposite in where the status quo is in Europe. Spain, very accepting of a lot of migrant workers. They've granted amnesty to a number of undocumented workers. And this is what a lot of EU leaders, including Georgia Maloney, including Friedrich Mertz of Germany, are protesting against. They're saying that this was almost an invitation for migrants to make this surge and try and come across the border. So, I mean, we'll see where this goes.

1:08:23But I think this is leading to, in most of the EU, almost a hardening of the position. Denmark and Finland have backed calls to consider suspending Spain from the Schengen area. That's the free movement area across the Eurozone. Italy has reinstated border checks. So you almost see a tightening of the guard here based on what's happened. I mean, it's almost like you see the old borders within Europe reasserting themselves as opposed to the free movement that the EU was created upon. Yeah, that's right. It's a 180 value shift. And it seems like now sort of the European Union under pressure to advocate a much more conservative migration policy.

1:09:00How has Spain's government been also just handling this influx of migrants, particularly as we think about these unaccompanied minors? Certainly, unfortunately, the U.S. has a lot of like has sort of a whole infrastructure for how to handle that. Is that similar in Europe and particularly in Spain? They've been turning a lot of these people away and sending some of them back. Of course, there have been a lot of tragedies that you pointed to. So the infrastructure is not as solid as it should be. And, you know, hopefully we can see some movement within Brussels and perhaps within Madrid to address some of that.

1:09:30But, you know, right now it seems like a number of these 70 ,000, if not the bulk of them, have been turned back and heading towards Morocco. And we'll see where this leads. Akbar, it's remarkable the amount and the volume of people who came in such a short period of time. How did social media posts, the social media hoaxes and misinformation play a role in this volume of people coming? There was a huge surge of sort of Facebook posts, WhatsApp groups sort of saying, it's time to go swim across, it's so easy. And this was really sparked by a Spanish court ruling that was then misrepresented in a lot of this messaging.

1:10:09There have been kind of conspiracy theories around this, people saying the Spanish government was maybe being targeted by people who wanted to undermine Sanchez. Sanchez, of course, has clashed with the Trump administration, has clashed with Israel, is very left-wing, has opponents on the right-wing in the European sort of political sphere. But this did seem to a degree kind of rapidly engineered. These were very new groups and accounts. These were not kind of messages that had been there before. And Sanchez had been regularizing migrants much earlier. You know, this was not a sudden policy shift by him.

1:10:45Yes, there was a court ruling, but his kind of approach has been this for a year. I was also interested in kind of what you said about the re-raising of borders around Europe and sort of abandoning that post-World War II coming together. Because what critics of the reaction from Meloni and others would say, and I think it's an interesting point, is as a continent, they're only going to be able to deal with this together, right? So to suddenly sort of build up again Schengen border checks and hope that the Italians are somehow going to not be integrated with what's happening in Spain, that's not going to address your broader migration crisis.

1:11:19And sort of the only things that have been have been, for instance, when the EU had a deal with Turkey or had a deal with Libya. These criticized deals really fraught deals, but kind of the only way forward. And this is coming at a time, right, where the Eurozone, where European Union countries are under a lot of pressure from the Trump administration for a variety of different reasons, right? The U.S. is considering withdrawing a number of troops from the region. You have, of course, Spain in particular, a low-bar NATO spender, under pressure from Trump for more tariffs. So this battle for the soul of Europe is going to have a disunifying effect at a point where Europe would hope to stand united against the pressure they're facing from the U.S.

1:12:00I just add that, I mean, that battle for Europe, I mean, this is the biggest test that we've seen probably for, you know, the Schengen zone, freedom of movement, maybe, you know, in years, maybe even in a decade since, you know, the migrant crisis of 2016. So, I mean, there are massive questions right now about this is a different world, Donald Trump and others. Being anti-migration is no longer a kind of fringe or far right view. I mean, it's much more becoming the mainstream and we see that in left-wing governments in Europe as well. So, the question is, you know, is this time, might we see a real fundamental change because of this?

1:12:31Let's move now to Ukraine. On Wednesday, the third major strike in one week hit Kiev. The Ukrainian Air Force said it failed to shoot down any of Russia's missiles, and at least 21 people were killed. And in post on Axe, President Vladimir Zelensky said the reason is simple. Ukraine has run out of air defense interceptors, and the supply from partners has dropped to a third of what it was last year. Andrew, Ukraine did manage to shoot down 98 of the 115 drones that were fired by Russia on Wednesday. So how vulnerable is Ukraine without the air defense interceptors? What have they run out of? So Ukraine is extremely vulnerable without the air defense interceptors.

1:13:12I think the biggest issue is the lack of PAC-3 Patriot missiles. This is something that, you know, while drones are a major problem for Ukraine right now, I mean, the biggest problem are ballistic missiles. Russia has launched about 650 ballistic missile strikes this year. But as Ukraine has been running out of the interceptors, Russia has been able to build a lot more ballistic missiles. They've upped their production. So it's not just a decrease in Ukrainian capacity, it's an increase in Russian capacity as well. And that means that with these ballistic missile strikes, we're seeing Russia launch multiple ones each week.

1:13:46They are able to really pummel the Ukrainian capital and some of the most important kind of warfighting industry aspects of Ukraine as well. So we've seen Russia hit important Ukrainian drone factories, etc. This is the most crucial point of the war, I think, for Ukraine in terms of a lack of interceptors. And Ukrainian officials are saying the same. So while we've seen a real shift kind of in the war in the last six months, let's say, with Ukrainian drain production, Ukraine launching a lot of mid-range drones, the Russians have now found this vulnerability. It's the supply of interceptors, and Kiev is open at the moment.

1:14:23I mean, Russia is pummeling it. Jack, is this sort of then why fighting has escalated, because Moscow is seeing this as a way to exploit weakness in Ukrainian defense? Yeah, that's exactly right. Russia is trying to seize upon this window of opportunity that Andrew described, where Ukraine really has few weapons it can use to shoot down ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. And Ukraine's strategy is shifting, right, because it's dawning on the Ukrainians that help is not on the way, that the U.S. isn't going to be able to restock Patriot interceptors fast enough to send to Ukraine even if they wanted to.

1:14:57So now they're shifting their strategy to try and take out missiles on the launch pad. But that requires something else from the United States. They need the ability to use Starlink terminals from Elon Musk to use long-range drones to target those missile sites. They're pleading with Elon Musk to get that permission, but it's not a slam dunk. Elon Musk very much on board with the Trump administration strategy to get a quick deal to end this conflict. I mean, I think people will remember the whole conversation around Patriot air systems that are U.S. designed. Vladimir Zelensky saying, I need the Patriot missiles.

1:15:30The U.S. and Europe both have stock of that. Is the U.S. not handing that over? What's going on with that? Yeah, the message from the U.S. ever since the Iran war broke out to the Ukrainians and to European customers, even the Japanese as well, has been we don't have enough to give you. So even if they're upping the production and we've seen the U.S. already make a deal with Lockheed Martin for a threefold increase in Patriot PAC-3, of course, that needs to be funded, but a separate issue. Even if they get that, that's not going to be online for three to five years. And so basically the message has been you guys are on your own for the next few years.

1:16:04you're getting delayed while we husband our supplies. And as we're talking about weapons stockpiles, let's talk about the U.S. According to Reuters reporting this week, the U.S. military has exhausted, quote, virtually all of its global stockpile of long-range missile defense systems. Senior U.S. military commanders are warning that the Pentagon's munition stockpile is, quote, dangerously low. What do we know, Akbar, about just, first of all, this depleted stockpile, this reporting that came out this week, President Trump reportedly confronting Pete Hegseth about this. Some of what's happening.

1:16:39There was an interesting comment about this from a former USAID official earlier this week, just on social media, where they said, the U.S. went to war to take away Iran's ballistic missile program and instead has given up all of its own, you know, missiles and interceptors. Quite interesting. Look, what I'm hearing from folks inside the administration is there's a lot of finger pointing over this issue. There's a lot of blaming other people and saying, was this not taking up the chain sooner? Did the president, was he briefed about it earlier in the year? Did that affect his decision on a ceasefire?

1:17:11And you saw this with Pete Hexler kind of blaming Feinberg, another top official in the Pentagon. There isn't an answer, right? So right now, everyone is basically trying to scramble to please the president, give him an answer that will make him happy. And I think what's important to think about in that context is how the kind of speaking of truth for power in the administration has really just gone away. That's not a thing that's happening because of the sense of we could be out of a job based on the president liking us or not. Jack, can I just ask, I feel like you and I have had conversations on the roundup going back, I feel like at least even last year, about the weapons stockpile.

1:17:49I don't know that this is necessarily a surprise for anyone. What is your sense of what the administration knew going into the war with Iran? Like what levels were like? Certainly this has been a conversation in military circles for some time. Yeah, I mean the numbers have been the numbers, right? We've known from public accounting that the U.S. would run out of precision munitions in a war over Taiwan with China in about a week. We've known from accounting within the Pentagon this has been a significant problem that they're trying to build against. I think to Akbar's point, right, this war was launched with very rosy assumptions that the Iranians would fold, that they'd be able to take them out with a few missile salvos.

1:18:29that it wouldn't extend for months and months and months. And now that it has extended for months and months and months, we're down to under 1 ,000 rounds of Patriot, 80 % of terminal high altitude air defense, one of the key U.S. air defense systems, also down. Over 1 ,000 Tomahawk missiles extended. That would be a key capability if the U.S. were to defend against China or go to war against China to attack Chinese land targets or even Chinese ships. So you just see this problem compounding and getting worse and worse and worse. Best case scenario, three to five years you can get out of this crunch, but that's if Congress funds it.

1:19:03That's if everything goes well and the supply chain to actually build these missiles is broken entirely. I want to get back to the supply chain in just a minute, Jack. But Andrew, can I just ask, as we circle back to the conversation we had at the beginning of the hour, as we think about leverage that the U.S. has, is this another – where does this factor into the U.S.'s position with Iran in the war? I mean, once again, this is a severe kind of sticking point for the U.S. You can't have a war if you don't have the missiles to fight it with, especially the kind of war that the U.S. was having with Iran.

1:19:35So, first of all, you know, you won't have offensive missiles that can be used for these precision strikes that the administration hopes will eventually, you know, change Iran's strategic thinking. Secondly is that the lack of defensive weapons doesn't just affect the U.S. It affects everybody, all of the U.S. allies around the world. So you have to think about the amount of concern that's coming out of allies in the Gulf who have been targeted by Iran but also the Ukrainians who no longer have the kind of weapons they need to defend themselves. South Korea, obviously Taiwan, others who would also rely on U.S.

1:20:09stockpiles. So Iran knows that there is a very large amount of concern and pressure on the U.S. to the degree that allies can pressure the U.S. That these stockpiles are needed for not just the conflict in Iran but elsewhere. So this plays into Iran's goal of kind of stretching out this conflict and making it more and more painful for the United States. Jack, let's go back to just the idea of replenishing the stockpile and how long that will take and where the U.S. is with that, whether it comes to budget as well as just sort of procurement. It's not like – I mean this is – it sounds like you're saying this is a years-long problem of manufacture, of replacement.

1:20:47Can you just give us a sense of how complicated that is? Yeah, it's enormously complicated, right? On paper, theoretically, the administration has arm wrestled Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman into billions of dollars of deals to replenish these stockpiles. So you're looking at a 4X of FAAB, the terminal high altitude air defense. You're looking at a 3X of Patriot by 2030. But actually getting there, we don't have enough high explosives to build a lot of these things. When you're talking about air defense missiles in particular, that's a lot of quality control that needs to be done because you're actually trying to get a bullet to hit a bullet essentially.

1:21:20So the physics of doing that is a massively complex problem. So if we could have snapped our fingers and accelerated these production lines, it would have been done before. So the administration is kind of fighting against the gravity of the supply chain, the gravity of Congress, and the gravity of the fact that they're in a shooting war right now with the Iranians. Akbar, Andrew, I just want to know what reactions you're hearing from your sources about this reported U.S. stockpile issue. I just want to flag, too, the kind of hubris on this predates the Trump administration, right? The U.S. was going through a lot of these stockpiles in defending Israel through that kind of post-2023 Gaza war.

1:22:00As Israel was escalating consistently with Iran, Iran was pushing back. Biden administration officials at that point were saying, look at us doing an amazing job. Because this came up during the beginning of Ukraine. It also came up then, right? So it is a bipartisan and long-term failure, right? And I think that Jack's rightly pointed out that you can't snap your fingers and suddenly wish it away. And certainly people who are trying to put it, yes, it was a choice by the Trump administration to go into this war with Iran. No one had kind of addressed this issue or the kind of U.S. foreign policy tendencies that use up these resources without a strategic plan even before this.

1:22:35I would just say from U.S. allies around the world, because I've been traveling a bit, there's a lot of concern about the fact that, you know, There were questions about how Europe was going to defend itself if it ended up in a very kind of large-scale war with Russia before this. And Europeans were saying, oh, it's going to take us, you know, seven years, ten years to kind of start to develop our own air defenses. If it's a five-year window in order to replenish U.S. stocks, and that's even before we get to maybe arming allies, et cetera, that's going to change the calculus a lot. So I think that what I'm hearing at the very least is a lot of concern about how reliable a partner the United States is and whether or not this is going to lead to a significant change in terms of other countries starting to take matters into their own hands.

1:23:14Let's shift gears entirely to one more story before we head to your notebooks. This week, Cape Verdean goalkeeper known as Vosinia, the breakout star of the FIFA World Cup, signed with Chile's most popular club, Colo Colo. I have always, deep inside, aspired to play in a large club. So when Colo Colo, the largest one in Chile, offered me a contract, I had no doubt. I've always admired Chile's players, like Salas and Valdivia. And I know that the Chilean league is very competitive. The 40-year-old Josimar Evora Diaz, who saves against powerhouses Spain and Argentina, captivated global audiences, catapulted his social followers from 50 ,000 to more than 30 million during the tournament.

1:23:59Colo Colo also secured special permission for him to keep his nickname, Vozinha, which means granny on his jersey, which is a first for Chile's Premier League. Before we get to everyone's reporter's notebook, I'll start with another FIFA-related story. I've been amazed that Gianni Infantino has managed to somehow hold on to his job after widespread criticism of a scheme to try to sell off part of the World Cup. What stories are you guys following? I'll start with two quick ones. There's a Turkey-Iran-Saudi Arabia pact that was just signed. So that's quite interesting to look at because these are countries that have really positioned themselves as being determinants of a future Middle East when there's not a Trump administration strategy for the Middle East.

1:24:42So what does it mean for these countries to kind of pledge mutual defense? I'm sorry, I should have said Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia defense deal. It's sort of like an Article 5 for NATO, correct? Is that accurate? Well, it's always a little more loosey-goosey in that region, right? Because Pakistan certainly has been bound to defend Saudi Arabia for a while, but you haven't seen it assertively do that because of concerns about its own stability. To me, it's more interesting from the kind of standpoint of autocratic-leaning countries in the region really coming together to solidify a new framework and one that to me looks like it's laying seeds for future instability as well.

1:25:23I'll be digging through some stories from reporting in Israel this week, but looking a lot more at Benjamin Netanyahu, his chances in the election, and kind of how he lost the United States public, or at least a large part of it, in terms of bipartisan support for Israel. But I did want to give a shout out to the World Soccer Civil War, and Gianni Infantino's need to apologize the other day. It's always fun. In apparent 50 lives, past nine lives. It's always fun to figure out how things like FIFA work, hadn't thought about it, and the fact that we found out you can try and fail to privatize FIFA is a great summer story.

1:26:03Yeah, I'm soliciting feedback on how to stay into soccer as an American when the MLS is our best league, so I'm taking feedback on that. I guess I have a new team to root for in Chile with Bozinha. But looking at sort of what Akbar mentioned with Pete Hegseth and his beef now with Steve Feinberg, the deputy secretary of defense, Steve Feinberg, a close Donald Trump ally, a big Donald Trump donor. Now Hegseth apparently throwing him under the bus on this munitions shortfall. So I'm curious who's going to come out on top in this battle. Yeah. And have we heard anything? Can I just ask, have you guys heard – have we heard anything from Congress?

1:26:39What are we hearing in Congress about this weapons stockpile situation? They're annoyed they want to go on holiday. It's August. They thought they were getting out today, and instead the Senate has struggled to do anything, really. I mean, certainly lawmakers have expressed tremendous concern. There's two things that they're considering. And again, interesting that we are considering a$1.5 trillion defense budget in addition to a supplemental over Iran when the U.S. has just openly lost a war against a much weaker adversary. But that's what they're hoping. They're hoping to push through a defense kind of spending package.

1:27:16And I know that Jack can speak about this more. Yeah, I mean, the feedback I've gotten from members of Congress, from Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, of the Republican, and even Gene Shaheen, who's retiring on the Democratic side. So on both sides of the aisle is this reconciliation package that's going to fund part of this$1.5 trillion buildup is dead on arrival. So I don't know how they're going to get to this number of$1.5 trillion. not to mention there's so many questions now about the$67 billion add up for munitions. And Hegseth now has to go to the Hill, ask for this money, and with a straight face say, we don't have a munitions problem while asking for more munitions.

1:27:51So up is down, down is up. A big thank you to our panelists, Andrew Roth, Global Affairs Correspondent at The Guardian, Akbar Shahid Ahmed, Diplomatic Correspondent at Notice, author of the upcoming book, Crossing the Red Line, Biden, His Advisors, and Israel's War in Gaza, and Jack Detch, Defense Reporter at Politico. Well, Jack, you can look at women's soccer. How about that? That's, yeah, I almost went to the spirit last week. Okay, there we go. Mike Kidd is our sound designer and engineer. Chris Castano is our digital editor. Maya Garg is our senior managing producer. Alexandra Bote is our senior supervising producer.

1:28:24Aileen Humphries is our senior producer and editor of 1A On Demand. And Thomas Liu and Matthew Simonson produce our podcast. This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR. I'm Naila Boodoo. Thanks for listening. This is One.

1:28:58Since the 1970s, abortion on screen has been portrayed as either a medical necessity or a dangerous decision. On It's Been a Minute, we discuss how the many depictions of abortion have shifted with the politics of the times. Watch the full It's Been a Minute episode on YouTube or listen in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.