The News Roundup For June 5, 2026

25:32On Tuesday, CBS fired 60 Minutes correspondent, former anchor of CBS Evening News, Scott Pelley. He'd been at the network since 1989, and Pelley was just the latest ouster. CBS News boss Barry Weiss has been on a firing spree at 60 Minutes. She already got rid of two other on-air correspondents, the executive producer, other members of the leadership team at that legendary news magazine, which has been, by the way, up in the ratings during Donald Trump's second terms. The New York Times reported that during a staff meeting on Monday, Pelley accused Barry Weiss of, quote, murdering 60 Minutes. NPR media correspondent David Falkenflick, he was on 1A earlier this week to explain some of Barry Weiss's recent missteps with 60 Minutes.

26:18Pelley mentioned, and this is not the most serious accusation, but he said that one of his stories came within minutes of, you know, this program of blowing up essentially, right, because of dickering around. You know, similarly, she held Sharon Alfonsi's story, I think it was Friday night, Saturday morning for that next morning, Sunday show. That's a very late in the process for a program that is so sophisticated, so edited in depth, so lawyered up, so highly produced, so heavily scripted. And it threw the show into convulsions, even that decision alone. She hasn't understood the rhythms of broadcast journalism, daily broadcast journalism.

26:55And the other thing is she really hasn't understand, it seems to be from the results, how to manage talent. David Folkenflick here on 1A earlier this week, speaking to Jen White about Barry Weiss and the upending of 60 Minutes. Wendy Benjaminson, what's happening at CBS in 60 Minutes? What do you see? Well, what we see is the effects of Trump pal David Ellison owning or being the head of Paramount Plus, the parent company of CBS. And that has trickled down in a way that I haven't seen in my much longer than you guys' time in journalism. But it's incredible. I mean, they've canceled the Stephen Colbert show, because he was critical of the president.

27:35And now they are messing around with this storied television show, 60 Minutes. And Scott Pelley had had it and went into a staff meeting and reamed out his boss, probably knowing he was going to get fired for it. And the next day was fired. Barry Weiss, however, I think it was yesterday, tried to put out a different version of events, that they tried to come to an understanding, that they talked about a path through, and that Scott Pelley wasn't willing to take that on. He fired right back. This has become very public. He fired right back and said, they mentioned firing me in the first 15 seconds of that meeting.

28:10And he also put out a mini transcript asking several questions and Barry Rice replying, I'm not Barry Rice, I'm not going to answer that question over and over, Arthur. Paramount wants to acquire Warner Brothers, and that's something the government could block. And so this kind of stuff, you know, beating up on 60 Minutes, a show that Trump hates, is good business for them right now. We should note that all of this started back when Donald Trump sued CBS over his grievances over a report that was edited in a way that he didn't like about Kamala Harris. Got to settle that suit not only for, I think,$16 million, if memory serves, but also held up.

28:52A frivolous suit where you're editing out essentially ums and uhs and stuff that people who looked at that said that was not going to win. But succeeded in holding up Paramount's merger at the time with Skydance, multi-billions of dollars. And now, Wendy, you talk about the trickle effects. Here we are. Yeah, exactly. Before we take a break for a moment, we got this email from Jim back on the question of the tax return agreement that President Trump and his family have extracted from his lawsuit against the IRS. Jim says, can a subsequent administration reverse the Trump tax return agreement? Yes.

29:32No. It's part of a settlement. It's not part of IRS policy. Well, settlement wasn't approved by a court. Not yet. It's just an order from the attorney general. You know what? We don't know. Arthur Delaney, non-lawyer, says yes. Wendy Benjaminson, non-lawyer, says no. Elena Schneider, non-lawyer, says— I plead the fifth. Well, Jim, I'm sorry we didn't give you a better answer, but you can't say we didn't try here on the roundup. Arthur Delaney is here from HuffPost. Wendy Benjaminson from Bloomberg. Elena Schneider from Notice. when we come back, big takeaways from primaries across six states on Tuesday, and a lot, lot more, including actual answers to your questions, not yes, no, and pleading the fifth.

30:17I'm Todd Zwillick, it's 1A.

30:23This week on the NPR Politics Podcast, catch up on the week's big primary election news, how things played out with newly drawn districts in California, and an increasingly competitive Senate race in Iowa. Plus, we unpack the latest redistricting news that may benefit Republicans in the fall. Listen every afternoon to the NPR Politics Podcast. Find us on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Let's get back now to the news roundup. A glimmer of good news in the jobs world. Out today, new jobs numbers. The economy added 172 ,000 jobs last month. Wendy, that's more than economists had predicted.

31:02It's good news, the unemployment rate holding at 4.3 percent. But what's behind the numbers? Well, it seems that employers are not as worried as we thought they would be. But the really interesting dynamic undercurrent here is that stocks and bonds and treasuries all fell on the news of this because they are now baking in a Fed interest rate hike. which if we thought Donald Trump was mad last week, I mean, that will send him into orbit. If his newly picked Fed chair ends up overseeing a rate hike because the Fed, with the job market stable, prices going up, they're worried about out-of-control inflation, so they would raise interest rates to quell that.

31:50And if he raises interest rates when Trump was really hoping this would be the guy to drop them, not just hold them steady. And not just hoping. I mean, the sustained campaign against Jerome Powell. And who knows what will happen if Kevin Warsh oversees this. So that's the political dynamic. All right, Kevin Warsh, well, there's the jobs numbers and you have the assignment. We'll be watching. Let's head to California. There were a lot of votes still being counted. By the way, we're many, many days from Tuesday. Votes still being counted in the so-called jungle primary for governor in California.

32:23We're going to talk about why it takes so long there, but let's talk about some of the results. Former Democratic Cabinet Secretary Javier Becerra, also former congressman. He looks likely to make it into November's general elections based on projections now. Republican Steve Hilton, who's a former Fox News host and a British Conservative Party advisor. Also Democratic billionaire Tom Steyer contesting over the other spot. Two people advance into the general election. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, he's not running again because of term limits. He may run for president. The top two candidates, irrespective of party, as I said, will move on to the runoff in the fall.

33:02Arthur, it's been a crowded race. What can you tell us so far about the results that we're seeing who's risen to the top of the pack? It looks like Becerra, Hilton, and Steyer. That's right. The race was totally blown up by Eric Swalwell's flaming out. And so Becerra was sort of the next most prominent person who had held elective office, is my understanding. And Tom Steyer is perennially running for things with his own money. But it's amusing how long it takes for California to count votes. I understand it's from their ballot, mail ballot counting tendencies, but it's just not like this in any other state.

33:45And it opens California up to nefarious actors, in this case, the president of the United States, who predictably is using the delay to claim fraud in California where no evidence of fraud exists. I think that's a pattern that we're used to. But why does it take so long, Elena Schneider, in California? And what are the ramifications here? Sure. So California, it takes a long time to count ballots there. And often it's something as an elections or campaign reporter, you realize your night is not ending because California is so much later than us in terms of when the polls close. But it's compounded by the fact that about 80 percent of Californians mail in their ballot.

34:22That's a lot of people who are sending in their ballot. And the law says that mail-in ballots are valid as long as they are posted by Election Day and arrive to county election officials by June 9th. So that's Tuesday, right? So technically, there are still ballots that can come in and need to be counted as of next Tuesday. So we can't really expect probably official results until a week from today. Will projections cover it? Will we have to wait till every last vote is counted? Absolutely. Most of the time, we don't necessarily need projections. But in some of these House races, it could be pretty tight, and that often does happen on Election Day.

34:54So if this is an if. if this race becomes Becerra-Hilton, who have roughly, I think they're roughly both around 26 % in California, it's a democratic state. Is that advantage Becerra just based on the fact that California is blue, Wendy? Yeah. I think, you know, Becerra, if it is Becerra and Hilton in the, who advanced to November's election, ultimately, I think Becerra will be able to pull it out. That's obviously just a prediction. There's a lot of things that can happen. At least it's his advantage. It's a blue state. It's a blue state. It is a blue state. The redistricting has had some impacts on the congressional races.

35:32But, you know, Steve Hilton, this is why Trump is crying fraud, right? Because Hilton did advance to the final, probably did, and, you know, may ultimately lose. And that gives him the basis to claim fraud. Speaking of congressional races in California, let's talk about one. the 11th congressional district in San Francisco, currently represented by one Nancy Pelosi, who is retiring from Congress after a long career. There's a primary there. Voters chose two candidates to advance, San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan and State Senator Scott Weiner, both Democrats. We have five more months. We're going to get right back up and go to work.

36:12And we're going to continue to build a massive coalition in every neighborhood of this city, every generation, every background, every community in the greatest city on planet Earth. That's Scott Wiener, California House candidate in Nancy Pelosi's 11th district seat on Tuesday. Wendy, Connie Chan had Pelosi's endorsement. Who are these two candidates? What are you watching in this race? Well, look, this is a battle over shades of blue, right? This is one of the bluest districts in the country, and it's Nancy Pelosi's home. And so what's going to be fascinating here is—or what was more fascinating before the end of this race was where the progressive vote was going to go.

36:55And Connie Chan, who is a progressive city supervisor, was really battling it out with former chief of staff to Alexander Ocasio-Cortez, Saikat Chakrabadi, who is a tech engineer. He's made a lot of money himself. He sunk$10 million into this race and ultimately could not prevail over Nancy Pelosi's endorsement, which I think says to everyone that at the end of the day in specific communities and specific districts, endorsements still matter a heck of a lot. And so Connie Chan was able to advance. Scott Weiner is seen as somebody who is more of a moderate Democrat, at least by San Francisco standards.

37:30And so now it's going to be really interesting if Connie Chan can sort of rally that progressive base and can prevail over a slightly more moderate Democrat. Well, we're watching interesting primaries all across America for signs of what to watch for in both the Republican and the Democratic parties. Let's talk about Iowa, where State Representative Josh Tarek won the state Democratic primary, beating out state legislator Zach Walls. Tarek will face off against Republican Representative Ashley Hinson. That's going to be a closely, closely watched race. Tarek is a Paralympic gold medalist. He was the choice of establishment Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

38:10And Democrats hope that Tarek can help them flip control of the Senate. Every single race that's flippable is now under the microscope because it's going to be a close election. Elena, establishment Democrats haven't been having a ton of victories lately. It appears that they got one here. What are you watching for in Iowa? This is Joni Ernst's seat, right? And she's retiring from the Senate. Exactly. So this is an open Senate seat. There's actually an open governor's race in Iowa. So this is the first time that the top of the ticket is wide open since 1968 in Iowa. And Iowa Democrats basically see this as existential to their existence in this state.

38:48Trump has won it three times over by successive win margins. And that is really a challenge for them as they try to make themselves relevant in this conversation of whether or not Iowa can still be seen as a purple state. They believe that Josh Turek, he's a state representative from western Iowa, and has this incredibly compelling story. I was out in Cedar Rapids with him in Iowa City going out and watching him knock doors, and he literally drags his wheelchair upstairs and then hoists himself into his wheelchair to then knock on the door and talk to people. And it's remarkable to see people.

39:22It's the first time I've ever actually been out canvassing with a candidate or watching them canvass and seeing people walk out of their doors, out of their homes to come greet a candidate. Part of that's because he's much more recognizable than your average congressional candidate. But I think also because he's got this really compelling story, and that's why Iowa Democrats believe that this is the year of all years in which they can finally flip a statewide race. Well, we probe these primaries, as I said, for diagnosing Democrats and Republicans and where their parties are at. And if you stay in Iowa, there's a governor's race.

39:51Republican voters handed Donald Trump a rare primary defeat this week. Zach Lane was – he won, by the way, over Representative Randy Fearnstra, who was President Trump's pick, his endorsement. Lane is backed by members of the Maha movement. Wendy, what do you take away from this loss of a Trump-backed candidate? He's usually successful in Republican primaries, not this time and not in Iowa. Exactly. He just had this string with Bill Cassidy and John Cornyn of getting rid of people he didn't like and elevating the people that he thinks are loyalists. In this case, though, he wasn't actually going after someone.

40:32He was just endorsing Randy Feenster. And I think what's really interesting is that Iowa, which always was kind of a purple swing-ish sort of state until about 10 years ago when Trump showed up, is sort of back in play. I think the farmers, the agricultural community is frustrated. I think there's a lot of Democrats that are frustrated or Republicans who are frustrated by the cost of living. And I think that is beginning to break through. And we may see that in other states that aren't a retribution campaign. Feenstra is not a Trump temperamental type guy. He's really mild and polite. He's a member of the House of Representatives.

41:10And he replaced Steve King, who was incredibly caustic. And that was a factor here. Yeah, and I think this is also important to note that Lon got the endorsement of the Maha movement, which is the first time that Maha has really weighed in and flexed their own political muscle that demonstrates that they have an enormous amount of power in these Republican primaries. And we need to keep an eye on that as sort of a force in these Republican primaries moving forward. That's Elena Schneider of Notice, Arthur Delaney of HuffPost, and Wendy Benjaminson of Bloomberg. Look, during the show, we're getting a lot of emails from listeners who want us to talk about the president's health.

41:49He spent some significant time on it last week here on the Roundup. America is talking about it. Just one example. We got this from Dan, who says Trump went to Walter Reed for his third annual physical. He's been slurring. He's been off topic, blatantly nodding off on live television. At what point do Republicans see a catastrophic national security breach coming and thus remove him from office? Why isn't the mainstream media paying the same attention to this that they did to Biden's disastrous debate before the 2024 election? Look, we're just getting a lot of notes in from listeners comparing this to the understandable outrage over Joe Biden's health and his decline while running for president, Arthur.

42:32I think it's completely fair for people to want that. There is coverage of Trump. I mean, and you know that you can't trust the information we get from his doctors. A doctor in the past has said his report was dictated by the president. The information they put out most recently omitted, for example, that he had been taking finasteride, you know, a hair loss drug that he'd had in all his previous reports. So what's up with that? Why did you stop saying that? And they just refused to say he's got those bruises on his hands. Right. Right. He had the swollen ankles. Which the White House said was due to handshaking.

43:07And no medical expert I've spoken to, which is several, have said that's a credible explanation. You don't shake the back of somebody's hand. Or their left hand. But, I mean, other than that, I mean, he does talk off topic. He's always done that, though. It's perhaps worse, but he's in some ways more vigorous than Joe Biden was at this point. Well, one of the parts of this that's evident to everyone is what appears to be the daytime somnolence, the sleepiness during Oval Office events. I'm sure we'll be hearing from listeners a lot more on this. I wanted to give voice to those listeners because we are getting a lot of requests while we're on the air here.

43:43So we wanted to make sure we covered it. But I do want to, before we go for the hour, I want to make sure we check in on the Supreme Court and on Alabama because the Supreme Court cleared the way for a new map of Alabama's congressional districts, one that effectively eliminates a majority black district. Alabama will swap out its map for a new one that leaves only one majority black district, Elena, when it used to have two. What happened here? Well, look, this is all a part of the fallout from various redistricting battles that we've seen both on Trump's offensive efforts in order to redo mid-decade redistricting and now with the Supreme Court essentially gutting much of what was left of the Voting Rights Act.

44:26And so we're seeing all kinds of southern states try to explore various options in terms of eliminating districts that are majority-minority districts that were once protected by the VRA and are no longer. And we're seeing that now come to fruition in a place like Alabama, where the map was 5-2 with two districts that were majority minority. And now it's going to be 6-1. All right. Before we go, Jim, who asked whether a subsequent administration can reverse the Trump tax return agreement, we had no good answers for you around this table. But we got you. According to PolitiFact, here's the best information.

45:00The most likely option, this is PolitiFact now, for challenging the policy would be for a future administration to reverse it. The IRS could seek to void agreements with a showing of fraud or malfeasance or misrepresentation of a material fact. That's according to the Law Tax Center Policy Director Brandon DeBot, a real expert. So there you go. I don't know. Both of us were right. He was just guessing too. Everybody's right. I want to thank Arthur Delaney for HuffPost, Wendy Benjaminson for Bloomberg, and Elena Schneider for Notice. Thanks, guys. I really appreciate you this hour. We're just getting started with the week's headlines.

45:39When we come back after a break, we'll have a new panel and all the news from around the globe. Stay with us.

45:49The surreal horror film Back Rooms is a smash. The director is a 20-year-old YouTuber, and it's based on his popular web series. Why is this online phenomenon taking off at the box office? We get into it on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. Listen via the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the 1A Podcast. I'm Todd Zwilich. Let's turn to some international news for our weekly news roundup now. We have a busy hour, fantastic panel to take us all through it. Joining us from Tel Aviv on a reporting trip, Greg Myrie, national security correspondent at NPR. Hi, Greg. Hi, Todd. Great to have you.

46:29Nancy Youssef is here, staff writer at The Atlantic covering national security and the Defense Department. Always great to see you, Nancy. Always great to be here. Thank you. And Josh Keating is at the table as well, senior correspondent at Vox covering foreign policy and world news with a focus on the future of international conflict. He's also the author of Invisible Countries, Journeys to the Edge of Nationhood. Josh, great to see you again. Thanks for having me. Well, the panel is here to answer your questions and our questions. What do you want to know about this week in international news?

47:00You can email us, 1A at WAMU.org, as always. All right, let's start with the war in Iran. Stalled talks again and new attacks. This week, Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps launched strikes on Kuwait. Iran fired missiles and drones on U.S. bases in the region and on Kuwait's international airport. The attacks left one person dead. Also this week, the United States military says it disabled a ship headed to an Iranian port. And while the Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araqchi says no progress has been made in further negotiations, Secretary of State Marco Rubio had this to stay when he was on Capitol Hill speaking to Senator Cory Booker in testimony.

47:46Iran has no Navy left. They've lost a substantial percentage of their defense industrial base. that Iran has lost a substantial percentage of their missile launchers, and their economy is far worse today, and I mean far worse today, than it was six to nine months ago. And they are looking at hundreds of billions of dollars of reconstruction costs just to get to where they were six months ago. Mr. Rubio, you keep telling us how we're winning this war. The president keeps saying... Well, the war's over now. ...completely annihilated. The war is not over. And yet the American people see how we're losing at the pump and with their costs.

48:15Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Cory Booker on the Hill on Wednesday. So the negotiations on a framework for ending the war are stalled on some familiar issues, Josh Keating, including financial relief for Iran, commitments to restrict the nuclear program. Meanwhile, attacks on Kuwait and Bahrain this week. They have echoes of Iran's tactics earlier in the war, striking airports and infrastructure around the Gulf to put pressure on the United States and Israel. How do these strikes once again signal Iran's willingness to both escalate and also put pressure on Trump, who has shown clearly he wants a way out of this war and hasn't been able to find it?

48:54Yeah, I was interested to see that the foreign minister, Aragchi, described the strikes on Kuwait as self-defense strikes, kind of echoing the language used by the U.S. The U.S., of course, has carried out its own strikes on southern Iran. So, yes, I mean, we're sort of back in this stalemate. And, you know, Iran has signaled its willingness to attack U.S. targets in the Gulf to continue imposing costs on the U.S. And despite the economic damage it has sustained, which Rubio mentioned in that clip you played, which is all very real, you know, what this hasn't changed is what Iran sees as fundamental existential issues for the survival of its regime.

49:37And that's why they're going to continue to try to impose these costs rather than, you know, agree to a deal they would see as compromising on these core issues. Greg Myrie, meanwhile, attacks like this and on Kuwait and on Bahrain, like we mentioned, have called into question American security guarantees in the region. That's already happened during the prosecution of this war. Is there unity among Gulf countries about what to do next? Are they divided? Are they unified? What's the read there? Yeah, Todd, the war has certainly led to or exposed some differences here. You see Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oban, they're very much in the diplomacy camp.

50:20They want a deal. They want to end the war. They want to get their oil flowing again. Now, the United Arab Emirates, also a major oil exporter, it's much more in on terms of fighting back. It got hit more than any other country, including Israel, by the Iranian attacks during the war. And the Wall Street Journal reported last month that the UAE actually carried out strikes against Iran during the war, which hadn't been known at the time. So clearly there are these lines of division and they need to be taken very seriously. But more broadly, I mean, Iran has alienated all the Gulf countries to varying degrees, and all these countries are very concerned about a future, the model they've had of stability, predictability, steady oil exports, and has really been thrown up in the air.

51:15And they're really worried about a wounded yet emboldened Iran that could lash out at them whenever it likes. All right, Nancy, we are 14 weeks into a conflict the president said would take no longer than six. The president has repeatedly said that he's on the verge of a deal. He's repeatedly made existential threats against Iran connected to being on the verge of a deal. He has said he has red lines about Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon. And then this week he said, and this is a quote, I don't care if negotiations with Iran are over. You wrote this week that, and this is a quote, talks have stalled in part because the president keeps aiming for a grand finale.

51:58What does that mean? What indications do we have about what he wants? So let's unpack the last iteration of close to a deal not happening, which is roughly two weeks ago. Iran put forward that they wanted to reopen the strait in return for economic relief and that the sort of bigger, heavier issues, its nuclear program, the future of the strait, would be dealt with down the road. And the president appeared to be on board with this. But he took a lot of opposition from Republicans and other Democrats and then proceeded to say he wasn't interested in that. And the reason he took those hits is because that deal doesn't give any U.S.

52:37wins. It doesn't mean any of the myriad of objectives the administration has laid out in the war. So the result is we're toggling between the Trump's desire for both these sort of headline grabbing, wide reaching deals that matches his initial ambitions in this war, but also a quick resolution. And that's why I think we're going back and forth. I think right now Trump is willing to tolerate the some degree of prolonged instability, which was reflected in that comment, because he believes it preserves leverage. towards a larger outcome. You can see that in some of his comments and some of these flare-ups that we're seeing that hasn't been responded to in kind militarily.

53:17But the risk is the longer this goes on, the longer these tensions go on, the harder it becomes to contain the economic fallout from the Strait of Hormuz and the risk of unintended escalation. What did you take away from the throwaway remark to CNBC, I don't care if negotiations are over? It's just a little remark. Mark, what did it say to you about the president's attitude in these negotiations and how much pain for the American people economically he's willing to tolerate? Frankly, that he's willing to stay in the space a little bit longer, that he would rather that than give up something that costs the United States long-term leverage, that the political fallout of being open to something more narrow was so much so that he, for now, doesn't want to give up anything without a major win that comes close to what he was trying to achieve at the start of this conflict.

54:05So I want to stay in the region for this news related intimately to the Iran war, and it's the ceasefire in Lebanon. On Thursday, Hezbollah, backed by Iran, rejected a new ceasefire, announced the day before between Lebanon and Israel. Israel said it would not withdraw troops from southern Lebanon, undermining President Trump's efforts to halt fighting there and to take away at least one key obstacle to a deal with Iran. This is part of the broader issue with Iran is the confrontation between Hezbollah and Israel. Now, Greg Myrie, Iran has made ceasefire negotiations in Lebanon, a condition for any peace deal, as I mentioned, said it might intervene directly in support of Hezbollah.

54:49Its proxy, if Israel keeps up or escalates attack there, Hezbollah is not a party to U.S. brokered agreements. They are launching rockets over the border at northern Israel. You're there in Tel Aviv. What's the latest here? What do we need to know about where this ceasefire in name only actually stands? Yeah, Todd, I'm putting ceasefire here in air quotes because nobody seems to be taking it very seriously. I mean, if there's any silver lining, it's we're in a different place than we were at the beginning of the week when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was really pushing this Israeli offensive, I mean literally a military offensive when there was supposed to be a ceasefire in Lebanon and calling for airstrikes against Hezbollah offices in Beirut.

55:36That prompted a very sharp phone call from President Trump where he acknowledged he cursed Netanyahu, called him crazy. But they said they made up. But the point was then it led to this ceasefire. But Hezbollah is saying it's not a ceasefire. It's a call for us to surrender. Hezbollah was not included in the talks. It was between the Israeli and Lebanese governments in Washington. It called on the group to stop firing on Israel and to pull out of southern Lebanon. But it made no mention of Israel pulling out of southern Lebanon. And so Hezbollah said, no way. And the Israelis the last couple of days have kept up strikes.

56:17They are getting fired upon by Hezbollah as well. And this is really the place where Israel and Hezbollah always get stuck. They start shooting across the border as they did in early March. Israel goes into southern Lebanon, it says, because it has to drive Hezbollah back and keep them out of the range of hitting communities in northern Israel. Then Hezbollah says it won't stop attacking because the Israeli troops are in Lebanon. And Israel says it can't leave because Hezbollah is attacking. And so we're really just kind of in this death loop that we've been stuck in so many times before and small little prospect for a real ceasefire.

57:00Let's just hear from the president briefly on what he thinks a ceasefire in this region actually means. Pretty much the way it is, it's a different part of the world. You know, I'd say in that part of the world, ceasefire is when you're shooting in a more moderate manner. Shooting in a more moderate manner, an assessment from the commander in chief. I want to bring it back to Washington just for a moment. Josh Keating, this week, that the House has been voting over and over and over again on war resolutions to rebuke the president on the war in Iran. They've gotten closer and closer and closer.

57:31And then this week, the scales tipped. Enough Republicans in the House voted, essentially, to stop the war. What is that really about? Does it have teeth? And what does it say about the attitude of Republicans toward this war now? Well, you know, I'd say the kind of savvy political answer is no. I mean, even if this passes the Senate, it's still like unclear if Congress even has the authority to sort of cut off support for this or if Trump will simply continue prosecuting this, you know, what he calls this little detour into Iran. But, you know, I mean, I'd say that in itself is significant. I mean, the fact that, you know, the branch of government that's supposed to be the one to declare war, you know, is sort of on the verge of declaring this this conflict illegitimate, and all of our attitudes are to kind of shrug and say it doesn't matter.

58:20I think that is telling about where we are in terms of, you know, civilian or congressional oversight over the president's use of force. Well, Greg Myrie mentioned in passing a few moments ago a confrontation between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu over the phone this week. Here's what the president had to say about reports that he had a curse-laden call with Benjamin Netanyahu? I wouldn't say angry. I was a little bit perturbed at his... constantly fighting with Lebanon. And, you know, at some point, they said, maybe we got to stop this. We got to stop it. But I have a very good relationship.

59:02We've done well, done well together. He always is. I think the president did acknowledge that he called Netanyahu crazy in that call. Netanyahu laughed off any suggestion that tensions with his American ally are an issue on CNBC. So we have common goals. Sometimes we have, as in the best of families, you have these tactical disagreements where you always find a way. to work them out. And we do so as great friends. We can disagree in the morning and by the afternoon we have common action. Greg Maury, I don't know. I mean, Israel's continued action in southern Lebanon seems to be driving a wedge into this negotiation and making a settlement with Iran, the kind of grand bargain that Nancy Youssef discusses, harder and harder.

59:49So yes, they're both smoothing this over, what does the confrontation over the phone say to you about the interests and objectives of Israel and the United States and whether they are diverging here? Yeah, well, Iran has certainly learned that it can drive a wedge between Trump and Netanyahu simply by saying, we're going to stop negotiating with the U.S. on an Iran deal if Israel doesn't stop attacking Lebanon. And so that creates friction right there. And while Trump and Netanyahu who coordinated very closely when the Iran war began three months ago, and they shared the broad goals of toppling the regime, destroying its nuclear program.

1:00:31We've gotten to a point where, as we look at it more at a narrower, more granular level, we see these differences. Trump clearly would like to make a deal with Iran to end the war. Netanyahu clearly wants to keep hitting Iran and put as much military pressure on Iran as he can. Uh, Trump is, seems to be willing to settle for some sort of deal on highly enriched uranium that would still be negotiated. Netanyahu says, no, we need to completely wipe out the nuclear program. Um, Trump at the beginning of the war talked a lot about Iran's missile program, uh, much less now. Netanyahu, the missile program is a huge deal for Israel because, uh, Israel was getting hit daily with Iranian missiles during the war.

1:01:17And Greg, both of these men have elections coming and Netanyahu's maybe a little bit more urgent even. He hasn't delivered on his promise to destroy Hamas in Gaza. His plans for regime change in Iran, as you describe Hezbollah attacks, also continue in the north of Israel. What kind of domestic pressure is Netanyahu under in Israel right now? What's the view from Tel Aviv where you are? Yeah, well, next week, the Israeli parliament is expected to dissolve itself and set a date for elections. So Netanyahu's coalition would then crumble, and then it looks like there'd be an election in September or October.

1:01:56They poll constantly here. Netanyahu, his Likud party, would look to be very competitive, but there's no clear favorite. So literally within a week, we could be looking at Israeli elections at a moment when Israel has troops in Gaza, in southern Lebanon, in Syria, and has just fought over the skies over Iran as well. Meanwhile, another front that's not to be forgotten, this week renewed Israeli strikes in Gaza. The Israeli military says Hamas operatives were killed in strikes on Gaza City. Israel strikes killed at least 11 Palestinians, according to reports, including women and children, dozens more wounded there.

1:02:37Nancy, you said it's been months since President Trump announced his plans for a peace process in Gaza, more than four months since he convened the Board of Peace to implement and pay for that grand plan. What's the status of that plan and the board and renewal, rebuilding something in Gaza? Well, the board's ambitions are far, far, far bigger than its impact so far, very simply. I mean, this is something that really had such wide-ranging goals as reconstruction, outside financing, Arab participation, disarming of Hamas. And we haven't seen much of any of that. And in fact, Secretary of State Rubio, who is a member of the Board of Peace and Secretary of State, couldn't name the point of contact that the Hill should refer to to find out more details about it.

1:03:29He had to get back to them. And so I think that says something about where this board of peace is. I think the troubling part of it is that we heard this from the board's own envoy to the UN a couple weeks ago, is that it risks Gaza becoming permanently divided because the ceasefire implementation is broken down and the steps towards rebuilding aren't really there. So I think that's a long-term fear. But in the short term, you have all this money that was promised, all these ambitions, and they aren't happening. And meanwhile, we're seeing not only strikes continue inside Gaza, but Hamas come back and say, we're not going to disarm as long as those strikes happen.

1:04:09So – And that disorder creates a vacuum, and tyranny loves a vacuum. Hamas loves a vacuum. Well, not only that, I think you could see other groups form, and we so often talk about Hamas, but there's real resentment inside of Gaza, as you can imagine, towards Hamas. What happens if you have a whole generation now growing up in tent cities and this kind of instability? What kinds of groups form out of it? I think it's not just Hamas we have to think about, but sort of outreaches from that because of this entrenched position that the Palestinians in Gaza find themselves in and the lack of a clear pathway towards some kind of resolution.

1:04:47Well, another facet of the confrontation with Iran, Iranian-backed militias, this time in Iraq. Two of Iraq's most powerful Iranian-backed militias said they would begin handing over their weapons to Iraqi authorities this week. The government there has been trying to rein in these militias. They're supposed to be under government command. And in reality, they operate independently. And we saw this back in the Iraq war, the experience with Iranian-backed militias in places like Sadr City and many other places. Nancy, what can you tell us about these militias, how they operate, how they're run, and why they seem to be a little bit more conciliatory, at least now?

1:05:28So you'll remember one of the many goals outlined at the start of this war was reducing the impact of Iranian-backed proxies across the Middle East. We saw Israel launching attacks on Gaza, on Hamas, which is one. We saw the U.S. launching them on the Houthis in Yemen and then, of course, on Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Iraqi-backed proxies have actually taken the least amount of sort of attacks throughout this conflict. However, there is a calculation that's happening and a recalculation that's happening, I think, both by the government inside Baghdad and by the Iranian-backed militias themselves.

1:06:05I think the government is trying to take back sovereignty over these groups that have, yes, technically operated independently, but also operated within government and have presented problems throughout. And I also think that these groups are reassessing how they will relate with Tehran going forward, how advantageous is it versus an impediment to them. While we've seen these groups come forward, I think we should note that Khatib Hezbollah, which is the biggest of them, has not. And so this is a starting point and one of the most assertive moves we've seen by the government, but it does not mark the end of the militias inside of Iraq.

1:06:41Josh Keating, we view this through 20 years of look back to the Iraq war and the operation of Iranian-backed. There were plenty of Sunni-backed militias in Iraq also. So we look back over the prosecution of that war. What Nancy is describing, does it say something good about the health of Iraqi central authority now that they've kept the lid on these militias while the rest of the region is at war with Iran? I mean, I do think it says something about that, but it also just the extent to – I mean, I think it tells us something about just how formidable a deterrent these militias really are. I mean, I think, you know, for years it's been one of the factors we talked about when there was a potential war with Iran was the idea that there would be, you know, throughout the region these reprisals by Iranian-backed militia groups.

1:07:38And it's been probably less than anticipated in many cases. And, you know, many of these groups were somewhat weakened by Israeli reprisals after October 7th. One factor I'm watching is we haven't seen much activity by the Houthis. And, you know, the Iranian government put out a statement last week threatening to, you know, saying that the next phase of their retaliation was closing the Bab al-Mandeb, the Strait, going into the Red Sea, which people may remember from the Israel-Gaza war. We're talking Yemen now. We're talking about Yemen now. Like that could be potential another way that we could see sort of regional international escalation of this conflict.

1:08:18That's Josh Keening of Vox. Nancy Youssef of The Atlantic is here and also Greg Myrie joining us from Tel Aviv with NPR. We're going to talk about the latest in the war in Ukraine, as we do almost every week. But first, let's make a stop in central Kenya, the town of Nanyuki.

1:08:42On Monday and Tuesday, hundreds of people protested the construction of a new quarantine center in that town on the grounds of a Kenyan military base. It was reportedly meant to serve quarantined U.S. citizens exposed to Ebola that spread in the Democratic Republic of Congo and in Uganda. People burned trash in the streets, confronted military patrols. The message from protesters, don't bring them or the virus here. Now, Kenya's doctors union also protested the agreement between the United States and Kenyan government to bring quarantined Americans to Nanyuki. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the deal included$13 million for Kenya's Ebola preparedness efforts.

1:09:25But that's a fraction of the$500 million that USAID had committed per year to Kenya this decade before the Trump administration shuttered that agency in 2025. The Trump administration said the 50-bed center for U.S. citizens was supposed to open today on Friday, but late last week, the Kenyan high court halted that agreement in the face of a legal challenge. So that's where that stands on the front lines of Ebola in Kenya, U.S. citizens and local protests and just a shade of funding to help prevent Ebola spread in Kenya compared to what was available through USAID. Now, let's, as promised, move on to Russia's war in Ukraine.

1:10:09On Wednesday, Ukraine struck a major oil terminal in Russian President Vladimir Putin's hometown, that's St. Petersburg. It was just 10 miles away from where Putin was just about to kick off his annual economic conference that's meant to help attract foreign investments into Russia, A massive black cloud rose above the skyline there. Flights were delayed. They were diverted. Russian authorities cut sail in internet service to try to prevent drone attacks. It was not a great optical start to what some people call Putin's Davos Conference for International Investment. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy defended the strike.

1:10:46Honestly, I don't follow it. I don't have an app that tells me where Putin is going and on what day. We are responding to attacks on Ukraine. I believe these are justified strikes. Greg Myrie, what's the significance of striking this particular city, St. Petersburg, at this particular time? Well, I think it's both symbolic and substantive. Symbolic, as you noted, because it was the kickoff of this big economic conference that Putin has every year in St. Petersburg. It's his hometown. So it just – all the pictures were coming out of delegates walking into the conference center. and in the background, you could still see the big plumes of black smoke.

1:11:26Now, it's also substantive because these are some of Russia's biggest oil exporting centers, and Ukraine has been hitting it repeatedly, and the damage is real. Now, sometimes it's a little hard to tell. You see these big plumes of black smoke. Sometimes the Russians can patch those up pretty quickly, and the visual looks worse than it actually is. But they've been doing this all around the country, And in some places, it is causing sustained damage to Russia's oil industry. Zelensky likes to call them Ukraine's sanctions against Russia, kind of mocking what he says are the kind of weak Western sanctions against Russia.

1:12:05And it has hampered Russia's oil exports at a time when oil prices have been high. And Russia certainly hopes to be gaining more revenue from oil exports. And it has from the oil it can export. But it is suffering problems because of these Ukrainian strikes, which are a very regular thing now. Nancy Youssef, 680 miles inside Russian territory or at least 680 miles from the border with Ukraine. That's where this strike took place. What does it say about Ukraine's capacity to hit targets deep inside Russia and the message it sends to Putin while he worries about the war and his economy? Well, I think these strikes reflect a broader shift in the war that is possible because Ukraine has developed a much more sophisticated long-range strike capability than Russia anticipated at the start of this war.

1:12:53Ukraine can't always match Russia artillery for artillery on the front lines. And so it's increasingly pursuing this strategy of deep strikes aimed at Russia's economy, its military industry, its energy infrastructures, as Greg was outlining, and ultimately public morale. So why is that important? Two reasons, I would argue. One, it really makes it harder for the Kremlin to argue that this is not affecting everyday Russians. It makes it harder for them to insulate the war from everyday Russians. And secondly, it forces Russia to stretch out its air defense along its vast geography to not only protect its energy facilities, its logistics hubs, its military infrastructure, all very, very far from Ukraine.

1:13:36So I think for those two reasons, it is proven to be an effective military strategy. strategy. Josh Keating, I know there's no very brief answer to this question, but we can try for one. What is the state of Putin's economy now? I mean, the economy is, well, there was a hope in Russia, I think, that they would benefit from the increase in oil prices caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. But I think that, you know, Ukrainian strikes have wiped out about 40 percent of that export capacity. So that hasn't benefited them as much as they'd hoped. Meanwhile, you know, Inflation is continuing to rise, and the sort of long-term impact of sanctions is starting to bite.

1:14:13So they're in pretty dire straits. Russia also stepped up attacks on Ukraine, launching more than 600 drones and 73 missiles on Monday night into Tuesday. Ukrainian authorities say more than 20 people were killed by Russian attacks. Meanwhile, Ukraine says it's running low on air defense missiles. President Zelensky is asking for American help. He sent a letter to the White House last week warning that American military supplies are not keeping up with these Russian attacks. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was talking to reporters this week, and he answered a question about that very letter. We're changing the way we make all those types of important munitions to ensure that our companies are delivering not just a little bit more, but a lot of it more across the spectrum.

1:15:02Where we can help Ukraine, we have. Where we can enable Europe to do more, we have. And I'm encouraged by the European commitment. If you look at the amount of money that's been spent, Europe has stepped up and Ukraine has been just as, if not more effective in the process. So we want them to be able to defend and we'll find a way to make sure we can help them. Now some facts. President Trump has not approved any new direct military aid for Ukraine since taking office. The Kiel Institute for the World Economy says U.S. military aid to Ukraine fell by 99 percent in 2025. Nancy Youssef, on Thursday, the House passed new Ukraine aid over the objections of the White House, the president and Republican leaders.

1:15:48Are there any chances of this bill passing? But maybe more importantly, what does it say about how Republican national security hawks are feeling about this war versus how Republican leaders are feeling? I think the president ultimately veto it. So in terms of passing, it feels unlikely right now. But broadly, I think they are saying that we want to continue to support Ukraine, that we don't embrace the administration's decision to so forcefully walk away from providing Ukraine key military support. And I think it's interesting that the Secretary of Defense made those remarks after Ukraine had been so successful in striking inside Russia.

1:16:27The problem is he didn't offer specifics in terms of what that aid would look like. But I think based on the statistic you were reading earlier and the lack of munitions that are available, frankly, for the United States to provide, I think what we can foresee best case scenario is a more limited and conditional kind of support going to Ukraine from the United States, both because I don't think the United States wants to be seen as abandoning Ukraine outright, particularly amid this political pressure, but also because of its limited capacity in terms of what it could provide, that we're not going to return to sort of Biden-level support, perhaps something short of that.

1:17:02We got this question from Dave in Silver Spring, Maryland. Dave says, Russian forces are killing civilians individually using drones. They've murdered thousands. Why not question all security officials and Rubio about the consistent support the administration has shown for Putin and Russia despite these actions. Josh Keating, any thoughts about Dave's email there? Well, I think there has been a significant questioning of Trump's stance on the Ukraine war in general. I mean, you know, at this point, I mean, I think what we're seeing is Russia kind of failing to advance in this war. You know, there was one estimate that they, in May.

1:17:44They took less territory than they have since October of 2023. And I think that's a big reason why just the Ukrainian use of drones on the battlefield is making it so much harder for them to take territory. And I think that's one reason they're resorting to heavier use of these aerial attacks on Ukrainian cities, which means the death of a lot more Ukrainian citizens. Greg Maury, what did you see when you saw reports of the Republican-controlled House voting for billions of dollars of new aid in Ukraine against the wishes of the president. Yeah, it was interesting to see. I believe it was 18 House Republicans voted for the aid, knowing that that's Trump, that something Trump is not in favor of.

1:18:27That support has actually been there throughout the war among Democrats and a fair number of Republicans. In the Senate, they always talk about having 80 or more votes. They just can't get a vote on it. So that support is there. And it's really Trump and his administration that have prevented it. And the U.S. is providing just very limited support at this stage, some intelligence support, stuff like that. A little of the aid that was passed two years ago is still trickling in. But there's this real shortage of air defense missiles that Ukraine desperately needs. Europe is helping a little bit, but it's really only the U.S.

1:19:08that could give Ukraine what it needs. And then the U.S. seems to be a little short after the war in Iran, or now that we're at a ceasefire in the war with Iran. Well, earlier in the hour, I mentioned to you the name Greenland, and that's a name we haven't heard in a long, long time. Greenland is back. The president's fixation five months ago with taking territory for the United States seems to be back. During his congressional testimony on Wednesday. Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, said talks were underway with the government of Greenland and with Denmark after Representative Sarah McBride of Delaware asked if Rubio was aware that Greenland was part of Denmark.

1:19:48The Secretary of State said, for now. And that remark woke up a lot of people in Europe. Newly formed Danish government under returning Prime Minister Metze Frederiksen made resistance against a U.S. takeover of Greenland one of its priorities in that election. And the new government's coalition, their coalition agreement said it would stand firm on the kingdom's sovereignty. So Denmark is a key American ally, Nancy Youssef. Get us up to speed. After NATO Secretary General Mark Ruda negotiated sort of a climb down over the winter with Donald Trump and his demands for Greenland, what have the United States, Greenland, and Denmark been up to behind the scenes?

1:20:28So those initial comments by the The president really rattled the alliance, the NATO alliance, and how NATO partners looked at the United States. The prospect of having to defend a NATO partner from the United States was really on the table earlier this year. The talks up until Rubio's comments had shifted away from that kind of threat to take over territory to something a little bit more practical about how the U.S. could expand its military and surveillance capability in the face of competition in the Arctic. with Russia and China. And also missile defense, right? That's right. So much more pragmatic and less bombastic.

1:21:07So we've moved slightly from a sovereignty to dispute to strategic planning. But I think that kind of comment sort of reignited fears among the Danish government and among residents of Greenland that the United States was ultimately still in pursuit of territorial gains. And so it didn't help. And I think it makes it harder to reach these more pragmatic negotiations over how military basing could provide security for the United States and for its NATO partners. Greg Maury, what's your read on this? I mean, on the one hand, there's a step down. Well, it's about missile defense, surveillance, being able to patrol the Arctic.

1:21:46Denmark and Greenland have said all along, if the United States wants more bases, you can have more bases. We've had this agreement for decades. That's fine. No drama. and then the Secretary of State makes remarks like about Greenland's sovereignty for now. What is this? Yeah, interesting that he brought that up again. I mean, he was asked about it, but that he just sort of raised the issue by just adding those two words, for now. I still think the most likely scenario would be some sort of update of this 1951 agreement that allowed the U.S. to have, I think, roughly around 10 bases during the Cold War and could put more there if it wanted.

1:22:30Denmark and Greenland just have not opposed that in any way and announced they would be open to it unless the U.S. has just alienated them to such a degree with the threats. So with so many other things, foreign issues on the burner, It's just hard to imagine the U.S. really wants to pick a fight here. I'm not going to try to predict it, but it just seems like, yes, if they really think this is critical, the U.S. thinks this is critical to update missile bases or early warning systems, they could do it. Yeah. I mean, again, Denmark has said all along, that's fine. More bases, more patrols, more surveillance, even missile defense.

1:23:13we can talk about it, not this takeover language. Right, Greg? Oh, absolutely. The bases were there. You would literally be going back to something that resembled the Cold War era when you had all these bases along the coast, the western coast of Greenland. And that's really just for the asking. There's no need to fight over something when Denmark and Greenland seem quite amenable to it. No need to fight indeed. Well, before the hour is out, we're going to talk about the World Cup and worldwide implications. Before we get there, I want to check in just quickly on India and Venezuela, because Venezuela's acting president, Delce Rodriguez, she met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday.

1:24:01And the topic, well, you guessed it, oil, more oil for India. India has increased its imports of Venezuelan oil so much recently that the country has become India's third largest supplier. Josh Keating, what's going on here? Why the interest in the world's largest country, India, in Venezuelan oil? Well, India is also the second largest purchaser of Venezuelan oil now after the United States. I mean, and this was the case before. They were a large purchaser of Venezuelan oil before, you know, sanctions went into place. now that, you know, we have the Hormuz situation. India has been threatened with tariffs over its purchase on Russian oil.

1:24:41So it makes sense that they would turn to Venezuela both to meet their domestic needs and as a way of sort of, you know, playing ball with the Trump administration and indicating that they're on board with this priority. And it also should be said they have the sort of refineries in India that make them one of the few countries that can actually process the sort of heavy sulfuric acid that... Yeah, they don't have light, sweet crude there. They have loopy oil. Yeah, but India has the sort of refineries that position them well. They're one of the few countries that can actually use that oil and turn it into the sort of jet fuel that the world is very much going to need this summer.

1:25:23Well, I promised we would talk about the World Cup before the hour is out. Nancy Youssef, I don't know if you have any deep soccer analysis for us. We don't. I might. You might. Well, I know you have political analysis, so let's stick with that for the year. The World Cup always comes with political repercussions. Yes, we focus and we should on what happens on the field. But the World Cup begins next Thursday. It's 39 days of matches across 16 stadiums in the United States, in Canada, in Mexico. Mexico plays South Africa in Mexico City. but politics are at play here. It's been an ongoing questions if teams can play mass matches, the team from Iran, will they play in the United States?

1:26:06Will they get visas to play in the United States? Iran's team has relocated its practice facility in, uh, into Mexico. So Greg Myrie, as you watch the action on the field, what are you watching for in the backdrop here? Yeah, Todd, I always like to get past all these pre-event stories about security and outrageous ticket prices and that side of things. I'm really looking for a good underdog story, a team that really jumps out that has not necessarily expected to do so. The home team almost always gets a big boost in the World Cup. So the U.S. might surprise some people and do better than expected.

1:26:48Japan and Ecuador seem to be countries that could be sleepers and could bring some upset. So I've had more than my fill of talking about the politics of the World Cup. I'm a soccer fan once every four years. And so I do want to see it. And I do want to see an underdog come in and surprise some of the big boys. Yeah. So, I mean, I'd say as a political analyst, I'm, of course, interested in what happens with Iran. It's pretty unprecedented to have a country playing on the territory of a country it's at war with. As a sports fan, I'm interested to see. It's probably Leo Messi's last World Cup. For Argentina.

1:27:28And as a New Yorker who went to a game back in 1994, the last time it was in the U.S., I'm interested to see if European fans are really going to walk from Manhattan to the Meadowlands to get around the$150 train prices. On New Jersey transit. That's a pretty epic journey that I'm curious to see if anyone actually undertakes. And all of the analysis that you can attend a game in Philadelphia from New York, possibly more cheaply than you can attend a game across the Hudson in the Meadowlands. That's for another program. Nancy Youssef, you whetted my appetite. Do you have some soccer analysis or take it where you want to?

1:28:02Well, I mean, I'm optimistic in terms of politics because it is such a great unifier across the globe. I mean, I've been overseas and been here for World Cups, and I just love how it brings communities together. It brings my own house together. It's the one sport that both kids will watch. And so, and the fact that we have more teams this year, as Greg was noting, that there's an opportunity for Cinderella stories. So I'm hoping that this offers an opportunity for a little cooling down of tensions and a really one of these few opportunities for a truly global experience. We have just a quick moment before we have to go.

1:28:37let's just get a read into your reporter's notebooks, what stories you're watching, what big story you're watching for the coming week. We have a time for just a thought from each of you. So, Greg Meyer, you go first. What's in your notebook? Yeah, I mentioned it earlier, the possibility of the Israeli parliament dissolving in elections being set for September and October. This would be the first election in Israel since the Hamas attacks in October 23. It'd be very interesting to see if it has moved the needle at all politically. It may not. Israel has these always very difficult elections where no party ever wins an outright majority.

1:29:12Josh Keating, how about you? Well, you played the clip from Kenya earlier. Kenya has also seen fuel price riots in recent weeks, as have two other countries in Africa. So I'm watching the sort of impact of these commodity, both food and fuel prices, on civil unrest and political instability around the world. Nancy Youssef. Xi Jinping will be in Pyongyang for the first time. According to North Korea. That's right. Since 2019, I'm given the cooperation that we've seen with Russia. I'm really curious what comes of those talks. I want to thank Nancy Youssef, staff writer at The Atlantic, covering national security and the Department of Defense.

1:29:45Josh Keating from Vox and Greg Myrie, national security correspondent at NPR, who joined us all the way from Tel Aviv today. We appreciate your analysis on politics, on world geopolitics, and yes, on World Cup soccer. Everyone, thanks for being here. Mike Kidd is our sound designer and engineer. Chris Castano is our digital editor. Maya Garg is our senior managing producer. Alexandra Boti is our senior supervising producer. Aileen Humphries is our senior producer and editor of 1A On Demand. And Thomas Liu produces our podcast. Special thanks to Matthew Simonson for additional On Demand support this week.

1:30:24This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR. I'm Todd Zwilich. This is 1A.

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