The News Roundup for July 24, 2026

25:48it. Yeah, I doubt he would sign it, although he'd have to come up with a really good excuse to to not do so. I mean, Taylor's right. The bill doesn't do that much because members of Congress can still own stock and still trade in it. And the White House and its staff can do whatever it wants. So, you know, Trump only acts in self-interest. And so I think, you know, if it doesn't affect him. I mean, he has said that about so many things, right? He's even said it about the political pressures of the war. He's like, well, it's not going to affect me because he's not on the ballot. So I think, you know, it wouldn't be a heavy lift for him.

26:31Let's head now to Arizona, where several high-profile primary races wrapped up this week. The Trump-endorsed Representative Andy Biggs handily won the GOP nomination for governor, setting him up to challenge Democratic incumbent Katie Hobbs in November. Biggs contested the 2020 presidential election results, as did another winner on Tuesday, Secretary of State candidate Alexander Colliden, the Republican state lawmaker who will now face off against the current Democratic Secretary of State, Adrian Fontes. Alana, so we have both Biggs and Colliden jumping aboard with the president's 2020 election lie.

27:09What are the implications of election deniers winning in Arizona this week, particularly in a seat like the Secretary of State, which is the office responsible for overseeing elections? For the Secretary of State's perspective, you know, they administer elections in a swing state for the presidential coming up. So that's the rare state race that's going to be incredibly impactful and worth watching for that reason. But, you know, going to gubernatorial, Andy Biggs, you know, he's a stalwart in the House Freedom Caucus. I mean, he was on the ultra right flank of the House before Trump came along and has been obviously a huge ally of his.

27:49I'm just honestly surprised to see him running so close to Katie Hobbs. Because keep in mind, Arizona is not really so much a blue state, but it has elected two Democratic senators, Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly. So I think the fact that you're seeing Biggs poll so well early shows this is going to be a tighter race than Hobbs and maybe the rest of the National Democratic Party might have expected on the gubernatorial level. One thing I'll add to this, just the broader conversation, President Trump brings up almost on a daily basis the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him. My Spectrum News colleague, Evan Kosloff, spoke on Thursday with the current chair of the Republican Party, Joe Gruters.

28:26And he said in his interview, Gruter said the 2020 election was stolen and we're kind of leaning into Republican candidates who support that claim. So even though we're six years past that point, that remains a defining feature, especially in Republican primary politics. So it's unsurprising to see these candidates who are election deniers prevail. The big question is what happens in November in a general setting. We'll be right back with more shortly.

28:54You know this feeling, you see a news story during a busy workday and think, I'll catch up later. Make Consider This from NPR part of your daily news diet. This week, we break down the new Pentagon request for war funding, the U.S. nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia, and the case against the Tate brothers. Short episodes, clear takeaways every afternoon. Consider This. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, 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.

29:31And 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. Waylon, it seems like everything is being called a recession indicator these days. Yeah, like the box of Hamburger Helper in my pantry. Or the new Apple Neobook. Or the resurgence of press on nails or lipstick or no lipstick. I've lost track. There is only one way to know if these are actual economic warning signs, though. Listen to the indicator from Planet Money on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the 1A podcast.

30:09We're rounding out the domestic end of our weekly news roundup. Let's continue the conversation around the 2020 elections, voting requirements in particular. President Trump, as we mentioned, has been continuing to talk about this. He visited Georgia this week to rally supporters on stricter voter requirements. When they can't get past voter ID, proof of citizenship, no mail-in ballots because they're crooked as hell. So right now, Congress is working to get as much of our plan as possible into the budget bill to identify and really terminate. Look, what would they should do? Very simple. A lot of you don't know about filibuster.

30:46They should terminate the filibuster to prove everything. Trump referring there to the SAVE Act, which the Senate has refused to pass. Some Republicans are worried that Trump's messaging on election security could backfire, including U.S. Senator Tom Tillis. Anytime you're looking back, you're not looking ahead. And I'm looking ahead to these elections, and the president should as well. Alana, we were just talking about how much people are looking back. How deep is the concern among Republicans about Trump's focus on election security as we're talking about how this affects other races and the election deniers?

31:21I mean, I would say it's pretty deep, but not necessarily in the sense of related to election deniers on ballots deep. I think it's deep in the sense that the president's fixation with this save bill, this insistence repeatedly that despite John Thew not having the votes to get up through the Senate, He kill the filibuster, which, by the way, he also doesn't have the votes to do. He pull out all the stops. It's simply not going to be possible. And that's not something the president has been able to accept. And that single point of tension has contributed to a lot of the gridlock and pileup and confusion that we've talked about on other issues elsewhere in this show.

31:57You know, the congressional stock trading bill is unlikely to even get to Trump's desk because of these voter ID provisions that are attached to it, right? Because it's just going to grind to a halt in the Senate. And I think Tillis, you know, he's remarkably candid because he's retiring more candid than your average Republican. But when you talk to them in private, they sound kind of like Tillis saying, look, it's so late in the year that even if we did have the votes to pass this voter ID measure, we don't even have the time to implement it before the elections. You know, it's time to move on.

32:27Let's head to Maine to see how that Senate race is unfolding. the resignation of former Democratic frontrunner Graham Plattner following accusations of sexual assault, launched a frantic search for his replacement among the party, and it out looks like Troy Jackson, a former state senator, will likely be the nominee. I got involved in politics way back in 1998 as a logger whenever corporations were holding us back, holding my community back, and that's why I organized a border blockade to take on that corporate power. Since then, I've been in the main legislature. I've been Senate president. I've stood up to these people time and time again and brought Republicans and Democrats together to do university school meals, to do child care, to do a whole bunch of things.

33:10Wendy, we're starting to learn more about Troy Jackson in terms of stories, a story we saw in The Washington Post this week about his temperament, also questions about his political transformation over the years. What other challenges is Jackson facing now? Well, Jackson is facing, I mean, much like Kamala Harris faced in 2024, he's facing a rush to get involved. He has about a million dollars right now. She has about 11 million dollars. She being, excuse me, Susan Collins, the incumbent. And he has not as much time to campaign. He will be nominated pretty much by acclamation tomorrow at a state convention, Democratic convention in Bangor, Maine.

33:55All the delegates pledged to him. He is presenting himself as an outsider. He's a logger. He's an everyman. He was a union guy. But in fact, he was the state senate president, so he brings with him baggage from that job, including a quick fuse in which he yelled at other lawmakers when things got tense. Compared to the allegations Graham Plattner was facing, that's not too bad. But he used to be a Republican, and he brought his Catholic face into politics a little bit. He used to be anti-abortion, against gay rights marriage. He has since gone through what he and lots of other politicians call an evolution in his views, and that he is now fully in favor of abortion rights and people being allowed to marry whomever they want to marry.

34:51But that could be a problem for him if he were competing against other Democrats. But Susan Collins, remember, voted to confirm several Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. And she has so she will have to run on that record. He can say, but look, I'm for it now. And abortion rights groups are really not going out to criticize Troy Jackson at all for his past views, instead looking at Susan Collins. So he may get past all of that if he can catch up with her on fundraising, on advertising, and campaigning. He is also not the world's greatest orator, but neither is Susan Collins.

35:36So that may be a wash. Let's move to some immigration news. New data from ICE released this week revealed that the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration has hit another all-time high. ICE arrested 43 ,000 people in June. That's the highest monthly total since President Trump came back into office and adds up to 1 ,400 arrests a day. The daily arrest numbers we have for July so far are even higher at nearly 1 ,600 per day. Taylor, what's behind this recent surge? A lot of it is that the Department of Homeland Security basically has access to funding that Congress was able to pass over the last year, and they're able to beef up their resources internally, which leads to these deportation operations being scaled up.

36:22I think what's really interesting, though, is that, one, Mark Wayne Mullen is the current DHS secretary. He took over for Kristi Noem amid all her controversies, and he's only been in the role for a couple of months, but he's had to walk this tightrope because we've seen more deadly shootings involving ICE. More protests about that. More protests about that. He tried to pause the vehicle stops after the latest shooting that took place in Maine. And then President Trump quickly overruled him within 24 hours and said, we're going to continue those vehicle stops. So Mullen is trying to both show that he wants to achieve these record setting deportation figures that the president cares so much about.

36:58He's also trying to acknowledge the public sentiment about the violence associated with these figures. But I always say, I often say on the show too, the Trump administration, especially the officials who work in the White House, are incredibly online people. And I think when you look at the language they're using related to these policies, it gives you an idea of how emboldened they're feeling. And Tom Holman, the White House boarders are, went on NewsNation earlier this week, and he talked about how because they have access to this new funding, they're going full scale, as many deportations as possible.

37:27He said at one point they're deportation maxing, trying to use the phrase looks maxing that streamers like Clavicular, which some listeners might know, use Clavicular, replied to that on X and said basically saying, like, look at what the White House is saying about this. So the Trump administration, despite the protests and despite the uncomfortability about the violence associated with the stops, they're really proud of these numbers and they're using it as a point of campaigning, as almost a point of bragging about it, which I think is just striking. Alana, meanwhile, there was evidence this week that people detained by ICE are ending up in dangerously overcrowded centers.

38:06What did we learn this week from newly released documents that are part of a lawsuit against DHS? Well, this stems specifically, as far as I'm aware, from 26 Federal Plaza, which is a major detention center in New York. And there are findings that show there was not sufficient shower facilities or medical care, and as many as 86 people crowded at once in these tiny, tiny rooms. And, you know, this 26 Federal Plaza location is pretty significant because we've seen Brad Lander, a future member of Congress, be kind of manhandled by immigration agents there. This is the epicenter in New York City of a lot of anti-I sentiment.

38:45So I think this lawsuit is going to go further. ACLU is closely involved and just uncover more concerning new details. And do we know why this wasn't addressed? Not to my knowledge. I mean, I imagine that will come out as a result of further rounds in court. We just have more details about how egregious the situation was in these holding pens. One last way the administration's immigration enforcement is squeezing people fines, in some cases$1.8 million fines. DHS is notifying immigrants they have to pay$998 for each day they've stayed in the country after a judge said they had no legal right to remain.

39:29This stems from a 1996 immigration law. President Trump attempted to use these fines in his first term in a few cases, but no other president has imposed these kind of fines on people with immigration cases. Some immigrants are receiving pre-filled form letters saying they violated removal orders and owe the government hundreds of thousands of dollars. Also included in those letters flyers about self-deportation and a promise that fines will be forgiven if people self-deport. We're rounding up the news with Semaphore's Alana Shore, Bloomberg News' Wendy Benjaminson, and Taylor Popolars from Spectrum News.

40:06I'm Naila Boodoo. You're listening to 1A. let's turn to health news the cyclospora outbreak hit a record high this week with 4100 confirmed cases across 41 states according to the fda and if you haven't heard of cyclospora it is a parasite that causes some exceedingly unpleasant gastrointestinal symptoms wendy there has been a lot of confusion around this outbreak it's been at least linked in at least some cases to iceberg lettuce from the brand Taylor Farms. What's the latest that we know? Well, first, we know that it is still growing. It is not completely under control. On Tuesday, the CDC announced 2 ,500 more cases, making this the worst year on record for this parasitic outbreak, which, yes, as you say, we don't need to get into it on the air, but it's not a pleasant thing.

40:58And for people who are not healthy, it can be deadly, although no one has died yet. There are more than 4 ,000 cases in 41 states, and the CDC is investigating more than 7 ,400 unconfirmed cases. So this is no small thing. You are right that there has been this confusion, and this is not unexpected under RFK Jr.'s, you know, health department, that first they blame Taylor Farms, then they said it was a there might have been a false positive. Taylor Farms said, okay, then it's not us. CDC says, well, no, it is still you, but yes, that was a false positive and we're going to keep testing. So there's been that sort of confusion that just doesn't help.

41:44But the concentration of the outbreak is mostly in Michigan and Ohio because this iceberg lettuce went to fast food places in that area, also West Virginia, Indiana, and Kentucky have been hard hit. So that's what we know now. If you are worried, there is a CDC cyclosporiasis, I didn't pronounce that right, outbreak page. Cyclosporiasis, yes. Thank you. I'm in print journalism for a reason. And there is a page on the CDC website and on the FDA website where you can get some information and probably check with your doctor also. Wendy, I know how to say cyclosporiasis because we discussed the parasite and outbreak in depth earlier this week, including in a conversation with Michigan's chief health executive.

42:32You can find that at the 1a.org. If you want more information about it, an hour well worth your time. Speaking of outbreaks, measles cases in the U.S. have now hit a 35-year high amid a decline in measles vaccination rates. This year alone, there's been roughly 2 ,300 recorded cases. This comes after more than two decades after the U.S. officially eliminated measles, a status that's now under threat. Taylor, what has the CDC's messaging been on this outbreak as we hit these new highs? Honestly, there hasn't been a whole lot. You know, there's been the initial response that we saw earlier this year where they said, we're taking this seriously and we're trying to, you know, urge the public to stay aware and to get the measles vaccine, that it's effective.

43:17But kind of building off Wendy's point with Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his very well-noted vaccine skepticism, that has had a trickle-down effect. And to your point, this outbreak has been really, really striking. The last time we saw numbers like this was in 1991. And if you go and look up news coverage and the Trump administration's footprint on social media, it's not like they're talking about it necessarily on a daily basis. There are certain administration officials. I've interviewed Dr. Mehmet Oz, who oversees a completely different part of the federal government. But he says people need to get the measles vaccine.

43:50It is so effective. It is foolproof. It's why we were able to basically eradicate the disease. But you're not hearing that from Secretary Kennedy. And that vaccine skepticism has really permeated into some communities that are seeing the brunt of this outbreak. We just have about a minute left. I want to ask you all quickly what's in your reporter's notebook, stories we missed, what you're looking forward to next week. Alana? I'm looking forward to some more information about the U.S.-Saudi nuclear deal. because it's been a bit of a whipsaw week with the deal getting announced and then the president saying, hold on a second, I'm adding a new condition.

44:20So I want to know if it's still alive. Wendy? That's a good one. But also the confirmation hearings and possible confirmations of Jay Clayton to be DNI, director of national intelligence, and for Todd Blanche to become attorney general. Neither are we for certain. Taylor? Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said President Trump will go to Michigan on Monday to talk about the economy. He's slowly starting to ramp up more domestic travel ahead of the midterm elections. But as we saw in Georgia, he often goes off topic, doesn't lean into the economy a lot. And I think foreign policy is going to bleed a lot into next week.

44:57There are reports that President Zelensky of Ukraine and Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel are going to be here in Washington and could meet with him. So we'll have to see how he balances those two topics. Big thanks to our panel today. That's Taylor Poplarz, national political reporter based at the White House for Spectrum News, Alana Shore, Senior Washington Editor for Semaphore, and I also want to thank Wendy Benjaminson, Washington Senior Editor for Bloomberg News. All of you, we appreciate your time. 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.

45:27Stay with us.

45:32This week on Here and Now Anytime, can the$25 ,000 pickup with crank windows change the game for American electric vehicles. We can design, engineer, assemble all American, and it's affordable and it's something that people love. A Detroit startup says there's an appetite for bare bones EVs made in America. That story on Here and Now anytime. Listen on 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. A bridge in Iran for a boat in the straight, A head for an eye. Those are the latest threats from the Trump administration this week, with the president vowing to destroy an Iranian bridge or power plant, including in Tehran, each time Iran attacks a ship in the Strait of Hormuz.

46:18So is this a path to a ceasefire or significant military escalation? That's coming up this hour with Abigail Hausloener, U.S. Middle East foreign affairs correspondent at The Financial Times. Abby, welcome back to 1A. Thanks for having me. Josh Keating is also here with us, senior correspondent at Vox, covering foreign policy and world news with a focus on the future of international conflict. He's the author of Invisible Countries, Journeys to the Edge of Nationhood. Hi, Josh. Great to be here. And on the line from the UK, Jack Detch is a defense reporter at Politico. Jack, great to have you here.

46:51Hi, Nala. Later this hour, we'll also go to India, where what began as an online joke has turned into one of the most significant protest movements of this century. tens of thousands of demonstrators who call themselves cockroaches are taking on the Indian political establishment.

47:11As of Friday morning, the U.S. military says it's concluded the 13th consecutive day of attacks on Iran. U.S. Central Command said that its targets so far have included Iranian aircraft hangars and drone storage sites. And President Trump has suggested that U.S. forces could soon target an underground site at Pickaxe Mountain, near one of Iran's main nuclear enrichment facilities. This comes after a blunt warning from the White House. If we left today, it would take them decades to rebuild. And I don't believe they could ever rebuild. And honestly, they haven't seen anything yet. We've been nice.

47:48We've been nice. At least 18 U.S. service members have been killed in combat since the war in Iran started. Abby, has the U.S. military followed through on the threats the president issued this week? Well, we're nearing, you know, in a few more nights, we're nearing two weeks now of nightly U.S. strikes on Iran. The U.S. is, you know, there is that we have seen, you know, an escalation, obviously, since the ceasefire, the April ceasefire collapsed. And I think everyone watching the Middle East is pretty anxious that it's going to go a lot further. We've seen signs, obviously, in addition to the threats that we just heard, signs from troop movements and movements of aircraft to the region that we could see yet another major escalation.

48:41But one thing to keep in mind also with these threats of destroying infrastructure and obviously the hits that we've seen is that Trump has been using this as a tactic for a while. And so, you know, we're waiting to see, I suppose, if he does follow through, and that would be a major escalation. More than 500 Iranians have been injured just this month and more than 50 people, including children, have been killed. That's according to Iran's health ministry. What kind of toll are these attacks on infrastructures taking on Iranian civilians, Abby? Well, according to the Iranian health ministry, as you mentioned, dozens and dozens of Iranians have been killed just in recent weeks.

49:25But, you know, Iran at this stage, people have been living through war since late February. It has been harrowing. We've seen a lot of civilians killed. called our newspaper, the Financial Times. We have two people in Tehran who are remarkably brave and have to, you know, weather strikes each night. It's a lot on the civilian population, and especially right now, it is straining the economy and people's access to money and commodities. We got this email from Jay who asks, is it not true that bombing civilian infrastructure is a war crime, a violation of the Geneva Convention to which the U.S. is a signatory?

50:03In this case, shouldn't military personnel refuse to obey an illegal order to carry out such a bombing? Jack, you want to take that one? Yeah, I mean, what the administration has tried to argue is that a lot of these facilities are dual use. But of course, you can take that dual use thing and run with it to just an immense degree. So you can use that for energy sites. You can use that for roads. You can use that for bridges. And that's kind of the backup we've heard ever since Donald Trump started saber rattling about striking infrastructure. First warning of kind of an apocalyptic attack back in March.

50:39Now we see these similar threats to try and basically escalate the war to deescalate and potentially get back to the negotiating table. So there is a way to kind of square that circle, but it's very tenuous. And as we've seen this week in Congress, the pressure is just going to keep mounting and mounting on the administration, certainly in the House, if not the Senate, to justify this war to the American public. Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araqqai, responded to Trump's threats on infrastructure, posting on X, Our defense doctrine is clear, an eye for an eye. Any aggression against Iran, including our infrastructure, will compel a powerful and decisive response.

51:16Josh, Iranian state media added that if the U.S. acts on these threats, Iran will stop all Gulf oil flow and target oil, gas, electricity, and economic infrastructure in the region. As we've sort of seen these other regional targets happen, how are you seeing the Iranian regime trying to balance deterrence with restraint? Well, it's clear that to the extent that this war was once primarily about Iran's nuclear program, These days, it's much more about the control of the Strait of Hormuz and more widely about the control of energy resources leaving the region. Iranian leaders see their control of the strait as a major source of leverage, as a deterrent for future attacks.

51:57So when they see shipping leaving the strait by other routes that they didn't approve, they see that as a threat to their ability to help shape this new regional order that they believe is emerging. You know, what I'm curious about going forward is to the extent to which they may be overplaying their hand. We've seen several countries in the region talk about building new pipeline projects for workarounds. There have been, you know, the oil prices never actually increased quite as much as many people were expecting during the first round of fighting. So, you know, if the U.S. was overconfident in first launching this war, I think a question now is whether the Iranians are a bit overconfident now.

52:39Jack, we should point out we are here because both sides have dug in on the Strait of Hormuz. What is the latest there? Well, I think you called it a creeping in your intro. I mean, even just further than that, perhaps a snail's pace, sometimes one or two vessels a day, traffic overall down 90%. And so you just see basically the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most important waterways, at basically a near standstill. And Josh rightly said, now, I mean, this is kind of leading Gulf countries to figure out if they need to do something else, need to find another waterway, the UAE working on its pipeline systems.

53:20But the other problem is, of course, on the other side is the Red Sea, which is also being shut down by the Iranians and Houthi attacks as well. So you just have shipping at a near standstill and people are going to have to figure out how to get around this blockade. Right. So that's the other strait that we started hearing about this week. Bob L. Mandab Strait, a key export route for Saudi oil after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. This week's Yemen, Yemen's Arayn Aland Houthis said they would impose a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia through there. A full closure of the Mandib Strait would further reduce global oil supply by 7 percent as it would leave most of Saudi oil exports unable to leave the region.

54:06Abby, this is a whole new front now, it seems like, in the war with this announced blockade. Yeah, well, you might remember the Houthis from, you know, just a couple of years ago. when this is the group, it's sort of an offshoot of the Shia sect in Yemen. It controls a huge swath of the country. It's a militant group. It's backed by Iran. Now, they first came into kind of international prominence after the Gaza War started in 2023, and the Houthis, you know, again, backed by Iran, began retaliating on behalf of the Palestinians and shut down Babila Mandib Strait then. That put a lot of strain on the economy.

54:48Ultimately, the Trump administration struck a deal with the Houthis, and they took a timeout for a while. They have been noticeably quiet during this war. There's various speculation as to why. You know, maybe they're low on munitions and so on. But it looks like this latest escalation now is because, you know, they say in retaliation for the Saudis targeting an incoming Iranian plane. Now, as we've mentioned, Strait of Hormuz is critical. It's hard to understate that a fifth of the world's oil was moving through this strait before the war. Bab el-Mendeb on the other side, very, very narrow also.

55:30And that has become critical as the Saudis try to get some oil out overland and then to that straight. So shutting that down is going to mean even higher gas prices and even bigger global energy crisis than we see now. And what do you see this? Is this an opening move in a renewed Yemeni war or is this Iran putting pressure on Saudi Arabia? It could be both. It could be both. Now, the Houthis, it's important to remember, they're not complete. They don't answer to Tehran. They are their own group. They've gotten support from Iran, but they also make their own decisions. They are mad at Saudi Arabia.

56:09They've been at war with Saudi before. And so, you know, I think it's hard to know where this is going to go, but it's a worrying sign. And across the northern border of the U.S. I spoke with President Trump earlier this morning. We agreed to intensify negotiations in the coming weeks. Donald Trump has threatened 50 percent tariffs on Canadian goods, but not all Canadian politicians are on board with talks that the Canadian prime minister, Carney, wants and are talking retaliation. That comes as Trump imposes double-digit tariffs on dozens of other countries. Once again, Kuwait and Bahrain are bearing the brunt of renewed U.S.

56:46strikes on Iran. The IRGC has targeted Kuwait close to 1 ,400 times with missile and drone attacks. That's according to the U.S. Institute for National Security Studies. Kuwait, typically home to around 13 ,500 U.S. military personnel. Jack, what kind of effect are these attacks having on regional security? Well, these are major logistic hubs for the United States. So it's very difficult to really underplay how significant they are. I mean, Kuwait especially is where the U.S. masses and flows land forces into. with Bahrain. That's the home of the fifth fleet, the largest fleet in the region that the U.S.

57:28has. So unless the U.S. wants to soak up more air defenses that they're already short on, this threat is pretty concerning for the United States. And it's also concerning because it's, again, kind of a tit for tat. And we've mentioned that dynamic, right? This comes as President Trump has threatened again to seize Karg Island, as he did in the last couple of weeks. Iran now through its parliament threatening to launch retaliatory attacks against Kuwait and Bahrain. So you see kind of that tit-for-tat approach and you see the potential effect, the doubling down effect it could have on the U.S. military's presence in the region.

58:03This week, the president reiterated threats against Pickaxe Mountain. It's known as Kuwait-Kulang-Gazla in Iran. Kulang means pickaxe in Farsi. It's a nuclear site that's under construction and buried deep below the ground. Josh, what do we understand about Pickaxe Mountain and why the president is mentioning it? Well, Israeli intelligence believes that Iran has moved thousands of centrifuges to Pickaxe Mountain. It's a facility that's very close to the Natanz nuclear enrichment site. They started constructing it around 2020. The thing about Pickaxe Mountain is it's extremely deep underground.

58:40The facility may be as much as 100 meters underground. around the GBU-57 bunker buster penetrator bombs that the U.S. has used in some of the previous strikes on Iranian facilities, notably in Operation Midnight Hammer last June, those have a range, those can go about 60 meters deep. So that gives you an idea of just, you know, how technically difficult it would be to destroy this facility. You know, there's been some speculation they may just destroy the entrances to it to make it more difficult to access. But, you know, it's possible Iran could just excavate those later. So this is a really tough, hardened facility that's going to be very logistically difficult for the U.S.

59:27to neutralize. You can join the conversation by emailing 1a at wamu.org. John in Ohio asks, Pete Hegseth testified that our military is destroying Iran's missile factories. But is anyone paying attention to how much Russia is helping Iran? Jack, we have some exclusive reporting from Reuters this week about this. Can you share more? Yeah. So, I mean, we first knew that Russia was supplying intelligence and targeting data to help the Iranian strike radar systems in the Gulf, and they successfully took out a couple of those that belong to the United States. So these are very sophisticated systems to help with air defense.

1:00:07Now we're hearing of potential jamming of navigation systems, strikes against regional CIA facilities. So it seems like this is just another layer of Russia helping the Iranians and just going deeper, applying the pressure much more deeply on the United States. First, it was the military. Now it's going after US government facilities. So it shows that the Iranians have the gloves off and the recruiting really a key ally to help them not only with this targeting data, but this could go further, potentially trying to seek out more military support. So that's something we're going to have to watch very closely.

1:00:43Two more emails from our inbox. Watts writes, Trump has no endgame for this war that leads to a U.S., quote, victory, which itself has never had a coherent, achievable definition. The Iranians will play cat and mouse, alternating recalcitrance with diplomacy to string Trump along through the midterms. How this heats up and how much damage is done to the global economy and Trump's political support is, to a large degree, under Iran's control. And Alex emails, one of the most damaging aspects of this illegal war is the total destruction of America's credibility as negotiators. Can I ask, Abby, you know, when Donald Trump returned to the White House, he promised to avoid another Middle Eastern forever war.

1:01:25I just want to ask, if you're sort of just weaving in the emails that we got, Are we looking at a situation where diplomacy manages the war rather than ending it? Is there any possibility of an off-ramp left, especially given how much back and forth we've seen on these negotiations? Well, Trump's big problem right now is that the Strait of Hormuz has become the centerpiece of this war. That is what, as Josh mentioned, that's what they're fighting over. And for the Iranians, that is their big piece of leverage here. And so they're not about to give that up easily. Trump's tactics throughout this war have been, the strategy has really hinged around the idea that you can threaten or bomb the Iranian regime into making concessions.

1:02:13And now that's focused on, you know, bombing the Iranian regime into reopening the strait. There's no guarantee that's going to work. It hasn't worked so far. This is a regime that is focused on survival. And so this could easily drag into the midterm elections. This could drag on for a long time. And I think the administration has shown that it's increasingly concerned about trying to get an exit ramp with no clear way to find one. Josh? Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting that I think there is that perception on the Iranian side. Like one thing I wonder is how much pressure Trump really feels he's under.

1:02:50I mean, he doesn't always seem to be all that motivated by success in the midterms. We've seen that with some of his moves on domestic policy too. I mean, he does seem to think he can, you know, think his way out of this bluster and, you know, bomb his way out of this. And I wonder the extent to which it's really sunk in, the sort of strategic kragmire that he's found himself enmeshed in. Jack? Yeah, I mean, it's very difficult to see the administration coming back to the MOU that they've essentially torn up and negotiated with the Iranians. And the Iranians seem to be very clearly playing for time, right, trying to leverage their position and hope that Donald Trump's political base goes away, especially after the midterms.

1:03:38But day after day after day, we get closer and closer. The gas prices don't seem to go down. We have the issues in the strait that we've talked about. So they're trying to put Donald Trump in a trap here. Before we leave news from the region, Donald Trump met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun at the White House on Tuesday. The U.S. is brokering talks between Lebanon and Israel and an Israeli withdrawal from the south of the country. Thank you. I've been looking forward to this visit for a long time. Thank you. Meeting such a great president like yourself. That's a very nice thing. See, he knows how to get to me.

1:04:11He can have anything. Now he can have anything. Would you like to say something? Now, really, I would like to thank President Trump and his team for the historic visit and for the historic achievement that we did together by signing the framework with the ultimate objective of ending the state of austerity between Lebanon and Israel forever. So, Abby, we heard a lot of warmth there, which doesn't often always happen when there's an Oval Office presser with a foreign leader. What came out of the meeting between those two? Well, the short answer is not a whole lot. Look, President Aoun, he's in a really difficult position at home in Lebanon, as we mentioned.

1:04:54Israeli forces occupying a swath of his country. His government is extremely fragile. He signed this very unpopular kind of nascent agreement with Israel to try to negotiate Lebanese forces taking back some of that territory. He came in hoping for more support from Trump and especially more support in terms of putting pressure on Israel to pull back its forces a bit. He didn't get that. What he did get, obviously, was a lot of warmth and, you know, I think his flattery worked somewhat. You know, foreign leaders know how to talk to Trump now. They know how to flatter him. But ultimately, you know, the only real thing that came out of it was, you know, Trump continuing saying that the U.S.

1:05:41would continue to support the Lebanese military. And Trump ordered a lifting of a longtime ban on U.S. airlines flying to Beirut. Abby, I understand there's a possibility Prime Minister Netanyahu is on his way here next week. How is Israel watching these developments? Israel obviously does not want the U.S. taking Lebanon's side. You know, I think Bibi Netanyahu has made clear he wants, you know, Trump to really stick with Israel, support Israel's objectives in Lebanon. Israel, you know, wants to create these buffer zones in its neighboring countries. We've seen in Gaza, obviously, in Lebanon, in Syria somewhat.

1:06:28And, you know, Israel doesn't want any daylight. So that's what Netanyahu, I think, will be focused on. Before we move on, another story we're following in Nicaragua.

1:06:45In an announcement this week, Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega said his country won't be holding elections anytime soon. The statement effectively canceled Nicaragua's next elections, originally scheduled for November of 2027, after the government-controlled Congress voted in January of 2025 to extend the five-year presidential term by one year. Ortega first came to power in 1979, then returned to the presidency in 2007. During his time in office, he's rewritten the Constitution, crushed political opposition, and solidified his control over virtually all branches of the Nicaraguan government.

1:07:25The U.S. does not recognize Ortega's presidency. Let's turn now to Ukraine, where President Zelensky has replaced the old guard with a new generation of leadership, all while Russia and Ukraine are trading some of their heaviest strikes of the four-year war. Less than a week after firing his defense minister, President Zelensky removed his top general. The sudden military reset was fueled by more public protests. Sofia Pitorovak, a 24-year-old Kiev resident, spoke to the AP on Wednesday. I think the protests are intended to ensure that a decision is made and that the wishes of the Ukrainian people are heard.

1:08:07Josh, what's the story here? This is second week of protests about a second firing. Yeah, so last week Zelensky dismissed Mikhailo Fedorov, the defense minister, who's a younger figure sort of associated with the technological developments in Ukraine's military, particularly its use of unmanned drones. He had been at odds with Oleksandr Sersky, the commander of the armed forces, who's a sort of more, you know, more associated with the kind of older guard of Ukrainian commanders, the, you know, people who are trained during the Soviet Union. So there's a degree of generational clash here. Fedorov is an extremely popular figure, and a lot of people, both the protesters in Ukraine and a lot of Ukraine's allies and backers, were asking why he's being dismissed at a time when Ukraine is starting to turn the tide on the battlefield and is having success using drones to strike targets deep within Russia.

1:09:07So this prompted immediate backlash both in Ukraine and abroad. And now this week, Zelensky has dismissed Sersky as well. So, you know, it's a bit of chaos, but I think it also demonstrates the degree to which, you know, Ukrainian civil society can really, you know, put pressure on the Ukrainian government to change course when these very unpopular moves happen. Jack, what is the shakeup signal about the fight inside Ukraine's leadership over strategy in the war? Yeah, I mean, I think Josh hit the nail on the head about both the generational change and the influence of the Ukrainian street. And Siersky had really earned a bad rap for a long time, especially dating back to the Battle of Bakhmut, which is a major salt mining town in the Donbass.

1:09:53He plunged headlong assault after headlong assault in that region, and it was eventually seized by the Russians. That was really seen as a key moment where Ukraine's early momentum in the war kind of ground to a halt. So you saw the momentum around Kharkiv and the liberation of Kherson kind of fall out. So I think you're going to see a shift away from sort of Sierski's high tolerance for casualties, these headlong assaults, this very centralized system of command, down to a more decentralized system of command, kind of what we saw earlier in the war with Valerius Luzhny, who was considered a very strong commander by the West and by Ukrainians.

1:10:30But again, I think you really have to underscore here the power of the Ukrainian street, which, of course, was able to throw out Viktor Yanukovych in 2014 with a revolution of dignity in those protests. And we've seen it again in the Zelensky era first last year by basically overturning Zelensky's ability to try and throw out the anti-corruption bureau from government. And we've seen it very clearly here because Siersky's successor is going to be Mikhailo Drapati. He's handpicked by protesters on the Maidan. on. He's considered a war hero, and he's very much considered an agent of generational change, a millennial who's going to embrace these drone warfare tactics.

1:11:08Josh, can I ask, the Institute for the Study of War reported that this month Russia is pulling from stockpiles to launch more ballistic missiles than it can produce. What does that say about where things stand on Russia's end with their resources as we're entering years of this war? Well, I think it says that there's a stalemate on the battlefield itself, if not some recent Ukrainian gains. They're losing ground. Ukraine is having more success launching strikes deep within Russia. So what does Russia have left? It's the ability to use its vast numbers of ballistic missiles to target Ukrainian cities, Ukrainian energy infrastructure, civilian infrastructure.

1:11:52And I think they're going to keep doubling down on those tactics. It's really the best hand they have to play that they can just kind of, you know, break the will of Ukrainian society. You know, but, you know, as you mentioned, they're burning through their own stockpiles fast. And there are material limits to just how far they can push this approach. Josh, Jack, we're almost to a break. So we just have about a minute. But I'm just wondering, as these costs mount, if we have any sense of what would cause Putin to stop the fighting. I mean, nothing seems to be doing it yet. That, of course, remember, he's continued this invasion for 12 years, not just the four years of this current full-scale invasion that we think about.

1:12:33What seems to be mounting is the economic pressure, the consumer strain, the effect on the oil refining capacity, and the effect on Russian consumers. So I think you have to look for that pressure and see how it affects the Kremlin's decision-making in the coming months. Let's move on to Wednesday's landmark deal between Saudi Arabia and the U.S. to bolster the Saudi nuclear program. Under the agreement, American companies will have access to the growing nuclear energy program in Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia will receive nuclear technology it has long sought after. In a social media post on Thursday, President Trump said the deal was, quote, totally subject to Saudi Arabia joining the Abraham Accords and normalizing relations with Israel.

1:13:16Abby, the statement came after the deal was signed. What does it say about the reaction that the deals received initially? Well, the deal got a lot of criticism initially for a couple of reasons. One, Trump had long kind of tied—actually, let's go back a moment. Before the Gaza war started, Saudi Arabia and the Biden administration in Israel were close to kind of a three-way deal that would have involved U.S. involvement in a civilian nuclear program for Saudi Arabia. And part of the exchange was that Saudi would normalize diplomatic relations with Israel. Now, all of that changed after the Gaza War really hardened Prince Mohammed's stance on that.

1:14:02And Trump, however, has sort of continued to push that and continued to push greater benefits for Saudi Arabia tied to it normalizing with Israel. Now, when the Department of Energy announced this agreement on Wednesday evening, there was no mention of Saudi Arabia normalizing with Israel. And also what, you know, alarmed a lot of people was a lack of sort of what's called gold standard safeguards meant to prevent, you know, the meant to prevent Saudi Arabia from ultimately using some of this technology towards a nuclear weapon. Yeah. And so, I mean, the deal got immediate pushback. This is something that's been controversial.

1:14:52Pushback from the Saudis? From Israel. And when the first deal was announced, this was not an idea that's popular in Israel. It's not an idea that's been popular with Republicans in the past. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, when he was in the Senate, co-sponsored legislation that would require Congress to affirmatively approve the deal rather than the current law, which just says they have to pass a resolution opposing it, which is a much harder standard to reach. It got a lot of criticism on Fox News from the Wall Street Journal. So, you know, what it sort of looks like is this deal was negotiated.

1:15:28It was signed by Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and his Saudi counterpart. And then Trump came in and almost seems to be trying to block it after the fact. As far as I know, the Saudi government has not officially responded to this new condition they've added, the Abraham Accords. Saudi Arabia has maintained in the past, they're not going to sign normalized relations with Israel, absent progress towards a Palestinian state. So, you know, right now this is all kind of in limbo and it's not clear how far this agreement, which, you know, one has to imagine was carefully negotiated over months is really going to go forward.

1:16:03Right. So, Jack, even with Josh's caveats, we know Congress still needs to review this. Abby's pointed out that there have some things that may have changed. This agreement may not go through. Regardless, if it does, what does the deal say about Saudi Arabia's ability to develop nuclear weapons? Are there any safeguards around that? Well, I mean, I think we need to pump the brakes a little bit because Saudi Arabia doesn't have any commercial nuclear plants built just yet. So, I mean, they have to go to actually build these plants. They would have to enrich fuel to a high enough degree to actually build fuel for nuclear weapons as opposed to just civilian uses.

1:16:40And then they could sort of launch into a nuclear regime. Certainly the safeguards are something that concern a lot of people, nonproliferation experts. They concern people in Congress. Of course, there are going to be fights over whether Saudi Arabia is an ally that deserves this. And there's been anger in South Korea as well because they've been an ally that was pressured by the United States to give up their nuclear technology. And now they see this type of deal going through and they've been lobbying for a deal themselves. So I think it raises a lot of questions about the alliances. But I think just technically Saudi Arabia is pretty far away from A, to acquiring a nuclear weapon.

1:17:18I think it's worth pointing out that one of the key things that alarmed people when this news first leaked, first appeared in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, was that there was talk of this including potential U.S. support down the road for enrichment of uranium on Saudi soil. The U.S. has never helped a government do that before. And that is what nuclear experts say could sort of pave the road, you know, because by giving Saudi Arabia that know-how and that facility for enrichment, that, you know, could have an add-on effect in later years. Let's move on to our neighbors in the north.

1:18:05Donald Trump is throwing new tariffs at Canada. On Monday, the U.S. imposed new 50 percent tariffs at the country's biggest trading power, targeting 500 Canadian goods worth$20 billion. President Trump spoke to reporters on Monday about the reasoning behind the tariffs. Canada has been very, very tough on us over the years, for many years, and no other president's done anything about it. I love Canada. I love the people of Canada. Many friends that live in Canada. But their leadership from Trudeau to the current leadership, I mean, in all fairness to them, they need us to survive. Josh, Trump says Canada's been tough on the U.S.

1:18:46Did he provide more information about what specifically he means by that? So they say that Canada has imposed a series of unfair tariffs on products like dairy, cars, alcohol. The thing to realize here is that these Canadian measures were themselves taken in response to the tariffs that the Trump administration had opposed earlier. So this is more sort of an escalating trade war. What's different about these is, you know, because of the Supreme Court decision earlier this year, that took away a lot of the Trump administration's ability to sort of unilaterally leverage these tariffs. So they're trying to find other kind of legal means to impose tariffs, which has been one of Trump's favorite foreign policy tools.

1:19:32And these are known as Section 338 tariffs. They come from the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff. People might remember that from the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off. But these 338 tariffs have never actually been imposed before in almost 100 years. So it's kind of an untested economic weapon. And a lot of people aren't really sure how it's going to play out. Josh, we saw the Prime Minister, Mark Carney, with President Trump on Sunday at the FIFA World Cup final in New York. We heard from Mark Carney on Tuesday saying he's spoken to Trump. He's working to speed up negotiations. What does that look like?

1:20:14Yeah, well, this is all happening in the context of renegotiation of the USMCA, the kind of replacement for NAFTA, which, you know, people may remember from Trump's first term. So part of what's happening is these new Section 338 tariffs may in part be a means for the U.S. of gaining leverage in those negotiations. But, you know, Trump's continued to lob all sorts of threats at Canada, including threatening tariffs earlier this week for the wildfire smoke that crossed over into the U.S. from the fires in the north of Canada. So it doesn't really seem, despite the smiles at the World Cup final, like relations between the U.S.

1:20:51and Canada are improving. Jack, on Thursday, the White House announced new tariffs on 60 U.S. trading partners, that those tariffs range from 10 percent to 12.5 percent. How is the rest of the world watching as this plays out, particularly with other U.S. trading partners? Yeah, I mean, I think there's just a lot of concern about how the U.S. is using this type of leverage, the dollar-for-dollar tariff retaliation, especially with the Canadian auto sector as well. They're basically trying to force companies to relocate production out of Canada or back into the United States. I think there's concern among allies and partners that the same thing could happen here.

1:21:32And this, of course, comes after the NATO summit. And on the foreign policy and defense side, you see the U.S. kind of playing two different messages, right? Wanting allies to do more, to spend more, to buy more, but not wanting them to stimulate their own economies. So you see that very clearly on defense with these Buy American types of provisions. I think we may sort of see frustration or fear from European capitals that the same thing is coming across a whole range of industries. Speaking of Europe, this week France banned children under the age of 15 from using social media, becoming the first country in the European Union to pass a blanket ban on the platforms.

1:22:11The bill bans the use of mobile phones in high schools, won't cover online encyclopedias or educational or scientific directories. factories. France joins Australia with the blanket ban, and other European countries like Spain and Greece are considering similar measures. Let's move on now to New Delhi. We are always up for debate, dialogue, discussion. And from day one, we have said again and again that we believe in dialogue. That the government does not believe in it is a testimony to the fact that democracy is in danger. This government ought to be made answerable for the crimes it did. And I hope that day comes sooner.

1:22:46That's the spokesperson for the Cockroach Janta Party that was born just over two months ago as a satirical online campaign. It's morphed into a formidable force taking on the BJP government.

1:23:04The cockroach party gained momentum in May after authorities voided the results of a highly competitive entrance exam for admission to undergraduate medical programs after an investigation found that questions had been leaked. Millions of young people were forced to retake the exams. They are calling for the resignation of the education minister. But the situation has tapped into young people's broader anger over extremely high unemployment rates and economic pressures. Abby, the name of the movement was born after the chief justice of India compared unemployed youth to cockroaches with hundreds of millions of voters under 35, including millions of first-time voters.

1:23:44India's youth are a crucial voting bloc. What kind of pressure has this cockroach party put on Indian Prime Minister Modi? I think Modi is taking note. I mean, we've heard him say this week that he's promised the protest movement that he's going to fast track courts looking into the exam leaks. He's vowed to take the protesters' other demands seriously. We're obviously not seeing that diminish the protests at all. But, you know, the youth voice, especially in a country like India, where you have a massive young population that is or should be the backbone of the economy, is a powerful thing to harness.

1:24:28You know, mass protest movements tend to be led by youth and so do serious uprisings. So it'll be interesting to see what kinds of concessions Modi is willing to make. This week, we saw police in the Indian capital crack down on tens of thousands of protesters, shutting down more than a dozen train stations to try to stop people from coming. But that only led to more people joining the sit-in a day later. Jack, even more people are expected at the weekend. What types of feelings has this movement tapped into? What are you watching for here? Well, I think you said it, just the frustration with Modi's economic track record.

1:25:04I mean, he's been so focused on being a champion of Hindu nationalism, of, you know, kind of being a very partisan figure within India, which, of course, historically has been a pluralistic society. But overturning Islamic monuments to make them Hindu, really tapping into his base, you know, sort of in Gujarat and further beyond. I think the question that we really have after this is the Cockroach Party is not an officially designated party, right? The one party that would have the ability to tap into this anger and to seize upon it would be the opposition, Rahul Gandhi, and the National Congress Party, which has been in the opposition for some time.

1:25:47So we'll see if they can kind of take what's going on in the Indian street and actually build upon it towards the next election campaign. And remember, Modi suffered significant losses in 2024, turning his government into a minority government. So this may be further momentum towards future change there. We have about a minute left. So before we wrap the hour, I just want to take a look ahead at what's in your reporter's notebook. What stories are you following, keeping an eye out for next week? Jack, can we start with you? Yep. Apparently, Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine's president, will be back in D.C.

1:26:20next week. Is it going to be a honeymoon with Donald Trump or is it going to be more acrimony? Certainly after Laura Loomer's visit to Kiev, a key Trump ally, seemed like she had wonderful things to say about the Ukrainians. This seems like it could be set up for success for Zelensky here. Abby? Well, I am always interested in, you know, if Netanyahu shows up and how that's going to go. So, you know, we've seen cracks emerge in this very close U.S.-Israeli relationship. The war has really tested that. Obviously, Gaza tested it before. And, you know, I'm watching to see if Trump really breaks at any point with Netanyahu.

1:27:04Josh? I'm watching a couple AI developments with geopolitical implications, both a Chinese model that's only a little bit behind its American counterparts. and a one developed by OpenAI that was able to hack out of its own safety sandbox and get into the systems of another competitor. So both pretty alarming developments. Big thank you to our panelists. That's Josh Keating, author of Invisible Country's Journeys to the Edge of Nationhood, a senior correspondent at Vox covering foreign policy and world news. Jack Dadge, defense reporter at Politico, and Abigail Hausloener, U.S. Middle East foreign affairs correspondent at The Financial Times.

1:27:40Have a great weekend, guys. Thank you. So 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. Aileen Humphreys 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 Boudou. This is 1A.

1:28:25The midterms are coming, and that means the news cycle, which is already intense, is about to get more intense this fall. So this summer is a perfect time to make sure your news diet is calibrated. I'm Leila Fawdell. On Up First, we unpack the three biggest stories every morning so you can stay informed and get on with your day in less than 15 minutes. Follow or subscribe to Up First today wherever you get your podcasts. This season on Planet Money Summer School, we go to China, one of the world's biggest economies. And what we learned is... Americans are crazy. Chinese are crazy. These are two countries full of these crazy hustlers.

1:29:01The U.S. and China are more alike than you might think. On Planet Money Summer School, a strange lesson about success, how to handle the downsides of progress. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.