The News Roundup for May 15, 2026

25:42But as you mentioned, also, it's part of this wider issue at the FDA, but also HHS agencies more broadly. They have been roiled by turmoil pretty much since RFK Jr. took the department's mantle. As you mentioned, there have been research publications about the vaccine safety on shingles and COVID that have been stopped. Top public health experts have left the agency. Pattern of like not letting people have access to that information. And it's not just the FDA because now the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control, and the Surgeon General's Office all without a permanent head at this point. Basically, our public health infrastructure headless at a moment when the country is tracking a rare and deadly virus outbreak.

26:28That's Hantavirus, of course. Amanda, what's the latest on Hantavirus? What health officials are saying? In a minute, we're going to talk about Taylor's recent conversations with the acting head of the CDC and what he's gotten out of those conversations. What do we know about the people quarantined, potential spread, and what officials want us to think about Hantavirus? Yeah, so there are 16 people, I think, quarantined in Nebraska right now and two in Atlanta, Georgia. Despite that, officials continue to say that the risk to the rest of the country remains low. They have these individuals in biocontainment units.

27:08One of the symptomatic individuals in Atlanta actually tested negative for the type that spreads human to human. They have another type of hantavirus. So right now, DHHS is saying, you know, remain calm. This is not a huge risk to the rest of the country. We're going to take a break. When we come back, Taylor, we're going to talk a little bit about your conversation with the acting head of the CDC and what they're saying about hantavirus. But one thing that's been remarkable over this last week to two weeks is really how low-profile administration officials have been overall. Normally during an outbreak, federal health officials are on every TV screen.

27:44I mean, we've been hearing a lot from private sector epidemiologists, not a ton from federal health officials at all. No, they've chosen not to amplify it right now amidst the war with Iran, the president's trip to China, so much else going on. But as we'll talk about with the acting CDC director, he really tried to downplay the overall public health threat of Hantavirus. And I think that's reflective in the messaging. Stay with us. I'll talk more about the CDC and Hantavirus and also talk about Christian nationalism on our National Mall coming this weekend. Stick with us.

28:21This week on Consider This, a stunning shift at the Department of Justice. Since President Trump took office, public corruption investigations have plummeted nearly 90 percent. Long term concerns, I'd argue, are it diminishes faith in federal prosecutions in the rule of law. We unpack what it means for the DOJ and how our government operates on Consider This. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back. It's the Friday News Roundup. Taylor, before we took a break, we were talking about hantavirus. We were talking about the relative, not complete, but relative low profile of federal health officials during public concern over Hantavirus from the ship where passengers came back to America.

29:05Now, you spoke with acting CDC director Jay Bhattacharya this week. Here's a little bit of what he had to say to you. I view it as my job to make sure that the CDC is worthy of that trust and to help restore that trust. And I think the way you do that is just be honest about what's happening, what we know, what we don't know. And don't act like public health is on top of society. We're here to walk along society and when there's a problem, to help. Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, say doge cuts, especially eliminating the CDC's vessel sanitation program, weaken the government's ability to respond to this particular outbreak.

29:45How did Bhattacharya respond to that? Yeah, we asked him directly about a letter that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sent to the administration outlining kind of two prongs as it relates to cruise ships, that vessel sanitation program being impacted by Doge. And then there are basically port stations that the CDC helps fund that allows health officials to monitor ships that are coming in and out. And Dr. Bhattacharya told us flat out that he doesn't think it has anything to do with Hantavirus because he said the cruise ship that has been at the center of this outbreak is from the Netherlands.

30:16And he said we would not, as the U.S., because it's not a U.S.-flagged ship, we wouldn't have had the ability to board that ship, to try to check it while it was floating in the ocean dealing with this outbreak. And he said there's been no incidences of cruise ships or other cargo ships coming into U.S. ports and having those outbreaks. So he pushed back on that and claimed that the administration is on top of it. Bhattacharya is acting at the CDC. He's also running the National Institutes of Health. Public health officials, epidemiologists, experts who have experience in the CDC, decades experience, keep going out into the world and saying these cuts are a disaster.

30:51They're a disaster for the agency. They're a disaster for public health. Attacks on the vaccine schedule are a disaster for public health. That's their view. What did he have to say about the new face of the CDC and the Trump administration? So it's interesting. First off, he reminded me that during the coronavirus pandemic, he was a prominent doctor at Stanford University, and he was extremely critical of the federal government's approach to COVID. He was against the lockdowns. He was against masking children. And he said, I came into this job being skeptical of the CDC and kind of its overarching hold on public health, and I'm trying to backtrack that.

31:25But to your point, he acknowledged that this is a temporary job for him. He's only been acting director for about two and a half months. He's also NIH director. And he said flat out to me, it's been a lot trying to juggle. He has to fly down to Atlanta, where the CDC is headquartered once a week, in addition to tracking everything else. But he says over and over again, criticisms of Doge, he claimed, are not impacting the broader public health response from the government for Hantavirus and others. He says things are chugging along well. Well, we talk about the federal government's impact on public health.

31:53This week, the Trump administration announced it's withholding$1.3 billion in Medicaid payments from California. There it's called Medi-Cal. Amanda Becker, what's driving this? Yeah, so this is part of the administration's broader war on fraud and kind of our social safety net programs. And Medicare and Medicaid have been swept up into that, along with kind of the child care centers in Minneapolis. We saw that they were focused on where there had been some reports of fraud, although not to the extent that the administration has suggested. But so far, we've seen these cuts and threats of cuts in states led by Democrats.

32:32Now, these are not the states that exclusively have some of the highest error or fraud rates in the country. So it raises the question of whether these are just political attacks to kind of put blue states in their place, so to speak. When they were talking about it this week, Dr. Oz was saying, you know, he was focused on California's hospice industry. specifically hospice care that allows you to remain in your home. Of course, this is end-of-life care. And so, you know, California is saying, you know, it's costing more money, not because there's more fraud, but because we have higher caseloads.

33:09People get higher hourly wages in terms of the medical workers in California. It's an expensive state. And they're working more hours to deal with more complex cases. So this focus on in-home health care spending and also hospice is really at the heart of what they're going after in California specifically. Shrey, Amanda mentions this new White House push on fraud so far has focused on Minnesota. Notably, it's focused on California. How do we go about separating? Fraud is bad. Everybody wants to crack down on fraud. Politicians all the time. all the time, instead of making hard choices about high-dollar benefit programs, they go after fraud.

33:49It's the oldest trick in the book. How do we balance that with what Amanda is pointing to, which is also, hey, go after California in fraud. You also have the side benefit of dinging Gavin Newsom, who wants to run for president. Yeah. And I think also you mentioned that, I mean, Amanda mentioned Minnesota as well. I think you can't separate even those this administration talks about going after red states and going after blue states. Predominantly, we've seen it go after blue states whose policy decisions run counter to what this administration wants. I think, you know, Minnesota was probably a prime example of that.

34:22It ended up with an immigration crackdown. So, you know, I think it's, yeah. I was at the vice president's announcement and I asked him because when President Trump named him fraud czar, he said in his post that they would primarily focus on blue states that were being run by crooked Democrats. And I said to the vice president who emphasized - He he Vance emphasized in his press conference over and over again. We don't want this to be partisan. He said, for example, his home state of Ohio, that's largely a red state. They're cooperating and that they're working with them. He complimented Maryland for cooperating.

34:52But at one point I said to Vance, does the president's message undercut what you're saying? And he said, no, I don't worry about that because he's talking about crooked governors. And of course, if you have a crooked governor, they're not going to work with us. The answer was much longer, but he alluded to the fact that this, in their view, is not partisan, even though President Trump is clearly saying focus on the Democratic governors. All right. Well, sometimes, sometimes, sometimes you just got to pray or whatever that means to you. Some people it means one thing. To some people it means another.

35:21But the White House has a view, a clear view on what it means to pray in America. hosting an all-day prayer festival on the National Mall this Sunday in Washington, D.C., a nine-hour event featuring overwhelmingly Christian speakers, most of them evangelicals. According to the Washington Post, the administration is using this event to reflect the idea that the founders wanted the country to be explicitly Christian. Taxpayer money is being set aside for the 250th anniversary. It's paying for part of the cost for this explicitly religious event. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, and former acting archivist Marco Rubio are also scheduled to speak.

36:02Taylor, I just want to ask how unusual it is. It's not unusual for White Houses to promote prayer. We have prayer breakfasts all the time. How unusual is it to have an explicitly nationalist setting, the National Mall, mixed with a very specific form of Christian belief? It's unusual in the form of an event this formal and to have many high ranking administration officials attending it. It's not unusual that a presidential administration publicly acknowledges its faith. President Joe Biden famously went home to Delaware every weekend and went to Catholic mass. What's been striking and the Iran war keeps coming up.

36:40But if people have watched the Pentagon briefings that Secretary Hegseth and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Cain, have held every few days. Hegseth starts off every briefing with a very religiously focused message. During a war. During a war. Against a Muslim country. And he has made very clear in his quotes that he said on camera that he views that this is kind of a religious mission that the administration is pursuing. And that has rang a lot of alarm bells for national security officials who say that is not normal within the walls of the Pentagon for an official to be talking about.

37:13So it's not unusual for Hegseth, but it is unusual in the broader. I also read that Hegseth, the pastor, Douglas Wilson, who has made comments saying that slavery is permissible, even demanded in the Bible, so that's just biblical, will also be speaking at this event. And Hegseth has been surrounded by a lot of controversial religious advisors who have talked about women voting, the role of women in daily life. So it is notable because that's not normally associated with a defense secretary. Well, the Trump administration chose One Nation Under God as the theme for the 250th anniversary. On Tuesday, we're going to be broadcasting in front of a live audience at Katzen Auditorium at American University in Washington, D.C., in partnership with Religion News Service.

37:53And we'd love to hear from you. What does this day of prayer mean for Americans of non-Christian faiths or with no religious faith at all? And is the president promoting Christian nationalism rather than religious freedom? We want your view. Email us. Your thoughts, 1A at WAMU.org. Let's make sure we don't leave Capitol Hill on the table. Let's make sure we don't leave Kash Patel on the table in his appearance at a congressional hearing on Tuesday that was at times explosive, at other times filled with blatant disinformation. Kash Patel in front of senators, he came ready with a burn book to burn senators asking tough questions.

38:33Then with Maryland Democratic Senator Chris Van Holland, well, he came at Kash over reporting and allegations of the director's excessive drinking. Director of the FBI apparently does not want to answer the question about whether or not it's a crime to lie to Congress. And I find that extremely troubling. I find it troubling that you lie to the American people every day. You are a disgrace, Mr. Director. Amanda Becker, Kash Patel has sued the Atlantic over its reporting that he's been seen drinking excessively, bouts of unexplained absences, a staff unable to reach him or find him at certain times.

39:09What else did we learn from this hearing? Well, a lot of it did focus on his drinking or not drinking, according to him. You know, all of this is, of course, time to us all finding out that he has his own personalized bourbon stash that he hands out when he's going to meetings and traveling. But he was also asked about, for example, the issuance of subpoenas to reporters covering the war in Iran, which we touched on earlier. And, you know, asked whether that was appropriate and their handling of other, you know, justice matters and investigations. So it wasn't all focused on alcohol and that, but a lot of it was actually in a lot of some of the most tense exchanges.

39:49Shrey, the FBI director also came armed with disinformation. He repeatedly referred to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran national court, according to courts, illegally deported from this country as a gangbanging rapist. He has not been convicted of any of those things. And the director of the FBI in charge of law enforcement said it over and over. Yeah. And to your point about the disinformation, it particularly came against Senator Van Hollen when he said that the senator racked up drinking margaritas with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador, which is the senator's office have said is a widely spread hoax by Bukele.

40:27He also said that Van Hollen racked up a$7 ,000 bill at the lobby bar in D.C. And Van Hollen's spokesperson actually told The Guardian that the FBI director's claim was completely false, a distortion of publicly available information, and it was actually part of the senator's most recent campaign spending report. And it was a full event and catering, but it was just part of that. We got this question from Diane in Syracuse who says, Can Americans stop President Trump from succeeding at suing the IRS? Well, good question, Diane, because we want to talk about that case. The New York Times is reporting that the IRS is considering settling in President Trump's$10 billion lawsuit against the IRS.

41:10Now, the president alleges the government failed to protect his tax information from being leaked to the media. Last month, a federal judge questioned if the president can sue an agency he oversees. Now, Taylor, just to just let's just be clear. The president sued the IRS, which he controls, forcing a defense from the Justice Department, which he also controls while he's demanding to be paid with taxpayer money. Do I have the case about right? Where is this headed? You do have it right. And it's very unprecedented. So it's a bit hard to to plot out what could happen. I do want to point out an ABC News report that was published Thursday night, and it's really striking.

41:47I just want to read the headline of it. President Trump is expected to drop his$10 billion lawsuit against the IRS in exchange for the creation of a$1.7 billion fund to compensate allies who claim they were wrongfully targeted by the Biden administration. So ABC is saying that the president would drop this lawsuit and then have access to a taxpayer fund so that – That he would control, presumably. That he would control, and ABC maps out how he would have specific control over who served basically on the board for this fund, and that aggrieved allies of his could come and say, I feel like I was targeted from the previous administration.

42:22I deserve compensation for that. This is just being proposed apparently. It hasn't happened yet. A$1.7 billion fund that he would control to send taxpayer payments to his political allies. That is what ABC is reporting. What could possibly go wrong? It's just what's striking about it. People rightfully asked questions during the Biden administration about Hunter Biden's role in the family and how Hunter Biden at times was maybe trying to capitalize on his family's name while his father was in office. This is something that just blows that out of the water in terms of size, proportion and taxpayer dollars.

42:54But because of all the news going on, it kind of falls under the radar. All right. Well, we got to go. I want to go around the room for a quick reporter's notebook. Find out what stories you're watching for the next week. We got this from John, who wants to know, why aren't we mentioning that Trump is visibly sleeping during press events after long nights of rage posting, untrue, often racist, obscene, sometimes blasphemous screeds? I resent the normalizing accorded to him. And John, I can tell you in my notebook is to continue to watch the president's behavior. It is a vital part of the presidency.

43:26His own behavior is a vital part of reading how he approaches the presidency and just know that around this table, we haven't forgotten that story. We got just a quick minute. Amanda, you go first. What's on your radar? I am continuing to watch the redistricting fights in the South. And also, if we get anything from the Supreme Court, you know, there are still big cases outstanding, birthright citizenship among them. And I should have mentioned earlier, actually, the medication abortion case has not been argued yet. So that's just still there at an emergency level. So it would be a very long time before that is completely resolved.

43:58But we could hear more from you. I'm focused on the Louisiana Senate primary that's coming up on Saturday. We've got three Republicans in this very, very contested race. Trump backed Julia Letlow, congresswoman endorsed by him, challenging Bill Cassidy, kind of an embattled senator, a notable Trump foe, one of the only three sitting Republican senators who voted to impeach him in 2022. Gas prices and the broader economic impact of the war and how President Trump acknowledges it. farmers especially are in crisis right now, and the president is not really acknowledging that to them publicly. Did he bring anything back for American farmers from China?

44:35Is it just soybeans? He claimed that China's going to buy a lot more soybeans, but he wouldn't provide more details beyond that. We don't know how many. And the$12 billion Trump has already put up for farmers to compensate them for the impact of his tariff campaign. Yes, completely separate from the war. But the war is having such an impact on fertilizer and on the food chain overall, and it's something that in many ways has been underreported. What a wild week and what a great panel. I want to thank you all for being here. Amanda Becker, national reporter at the 19th. Taylor Poplarz, national political reporter at the White House for Spectrum News.

45:07And Trey Popit, politics reporter at The Guardian. First time in the roundup, Trey. Thank you so much. Thank you. We're just getting started with the week's headlines. When we come back after the break, we'll have a new panel talk about all of the news from around the globe. We'll be right back.

45:26Why do some of us feel so tired and other people seem to have endless energy? What we've discovered is that different people have very different kinds of mitochondria. And some people's mitochondria seem to be quite a bit better at flowing energy. That's on the TED Radio Hour podcast. Listen on 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. U.S. intelligence agencies are telling policymakers that Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites and its launchers and its underground facilities.

46:07Now, that's contrary to Washington's rhetoric about decimating Iran. They're also warning that Chinese companies have been maneuvering to secretly supply Iran with weapons. President Trump on his way back from China says President Xi assured him that he won't send Iran weapons and that Xi, quote, said it very strongly. To talk about that and so much more around the world, Joyce Karam is here, editor-in-chief of All Monitor. Happy to have you, Joyce. Great to be with you. Vera Bergengruen is here, national security reporter at The Wall Street Journal. Welcome back, Vera. Great to be here. And also around the table, Asma Khalid, co-host of the Global Story podcast from the BBC.

46:47Great to see you as always, Asma. Great to be here. Thanks for having me. All right, Gang, let's start the hour, of course, in Beijing with the first U.S. presidential visit to China in nearly a decade. Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Trump, they met for about two hours behind closed doors at the Great Hall of the People after an elaborate welcome ceremony. Speeches at a state banquet on Wednesday evening, toasts were warm, but from the Chinese side, a call for cooperation and for stability. We both believe that China-U.S. relationship is the most important bilateral relationship in the world.

47:24We must make it work and never mess it up. Now, apart from the nice words, never mess it up, by the way, there are also strong words from Xi Jinping. China and the United States, he said, could be headed for conflict over Taiwan if the issue is not handled properly. Taiwan, of course, is self-ruled. China claims it as part of its territory. In an interview with NBC News, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sidestepped Xi's warning about a clash and said U.S. policy remains unchanged. From our perspective, any forced change in the status quo and the situation that's there now would be bad for both countries.

47:58One of the things the Chinese emphasize, which we agree, is strategic stability in our relationship. A constructive relationship, but also one that establishes strategic stability so that we don't have misunderstandings that can lead to broader conflict. And so we always reiterate the point. We hear them when they say this. A nuanced point from the Secretary of State there now, but he's not the president. Donald Trump is. Vera Bergen-Gruen, where are Trump and Xi now on the perennial issue of Taiwan post-summit? It was clear that they possibly wanted to be – especially the Chinese wanted to be moving this issue during the summit.

48:35And for the Americans, they really wanted to keep it where it was, right? And you saw that in Rubio's response. You know, Xi wanted to use the summit to put Taiwan back at the center of U.S.-China relations. And, you know, as you mentioned, I mean, Trump really cared about the warmth of it. He likes the, you know, the pomp and the circumstance. And, you know, I think Xi wanted to use that to remind him that, you know, we really want Taiwan to be at the center of this. If you want stability between us, if you want this calmer, warm U.S.-China relationship, then Taiwan has to be handled on Beijing's terms.

49:06And then you saw Rubio kind of come out and say, listen, you know, they did bring it up. They always bring it up. We always, you know, move on to bigger issues. Ultimately, we set our piece. And he insisted that U.S. policy hasn't changed. So, you know, obviously there wasn't any big change during the summit. But China did make it quite clear what they want out of this. And I think one of the things that was, you know, also just worth noting is that they have reason to believe that they could possibly push Trump closer to what they want. Right. We didn't see this during the summit, but this was their best effort at, you know, getting Trump one on one and really emphasizing that point that, you know, if he wants this relationship that he keeps saying he wants with them, then Taiwan has to be handled on Beijing's terms.

49:47And we also then have to talk about potential linkage now between Taiwan, the perennial issue, and Iran, the immediate issue, the one Donald Trump is increasingly, I'll say, desperate to get out of considering his world and domestic concerns. Exclusive reporting from The Washington Post this week reveals how China is is exploding the war in Iran to maximize its advantage over the United States, stepping in to supply weapons to Gulf allies who are struggling to defend themselves. More reporting that the war has drained the U.S. military of massive stocks of munitions that would be critical to a potential confrontation over Taiwan.

50:25The Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, he pushed back on that this week. Still more reporting. This from the New York Times quotes U.S. intelligence officials warning that Chinese firms have been planning to covertly supply weapons to Iran while these discussions are going on. So the Iran war has been major gravitational force pulling at this summit the whole time, specifically the Strait of Hormuz and the standoff there. Remains closed. Iran has a chokehold on the Strait. The U.S. is still blockading Iranian ports in the coast. Donald Trump has no good way out. Does China now hold leverage over what happens in the Strait?

51:06And does Donald Trump understand that? Immense leverage, Todd. The Chinese are the biggest importer of Iranian oil. 80 percent of Iranian oil goes to China. Just the ships that are passing through Hormuz are mostly Chinese. That was the case yesterday. So China holds leverage diplomatically to add the UN Security Council and has the ability to pressure Iran to either open Hormuz or extend the ceasefire. Meanwhile, though, but Iran is letting Chinese ships through. So that changes China's incentives. Hey, we're doing fine. Exactly. They're in no rush. They're very happy to look at the U.S., see their munitions being depleted.

51:52They're selling more arms, more drones to Gulf states. So for China, while it knows it has leverage, it's also in no rush to use it. Osmo, what's the connection here then with Taiwan? Is there a scenario where Trump makes concessions on these perennial big issues like U.S. support for Taiwan, how many weapons, how much, how often, in exchange for some kind of help of a political and economic crisis that he created for himself? So I think a couple of things there. One is I do want to push back a little bit on the notion that China is in some ways winning the Iran war. I think that's been a bit of the conventional wisdom.

52:31And we did an episode of the Global Story podcast the other day where we spent some time talking to our correspondent in China who'd gone out to textile factories, plastic. I mean, the economic pain in China has been severe. So while, yes, in a big geopolitical macro way, perhaps the Iran war is to China's advantage economically, it has been disadvantageous for China. And the reason I mention that is I think it's really hard to just separate the economics and the politics for China because the economy is so central to so much of how China operates. But on the issue of Taiwan, I will say, look, I was struck by the fact that Donald Trump made this visit to China about a decade after the last time a sitting president went.

53:10And he was stepping into a very different dynamic in China. He was not the one totally controlling the cards. I mean, I think that I was struck by how candid Xi Jinping was on Taiwan, made it abundantly clear what his position was. And yet you saw Donald Trump the entire time there being, I would say, relatively muted on social media compared to how he normally is, not answering questions from the pool reporters about Taiwan while he was there in the country. And it was clear to us that he really and we know this, he wants to end the war with Iran. And he believes that in some ways China can help him.

53:42And I think when you look at that power dynamic, it really does raise questions about who ultimately has more leverage, more power in this situation to end the war in terms of whether China will do this. I don't know. They could step in, but I would argue that there are other countries have tried to step in as well, and they haven't been able to solve that crisis. Vera, you described the perennial tension back and forth over Taiwan. What's your view on now the Iran war, the Strait of Hormuz in the mix, and the different incentives at play here for China as it balances Tehran and Washington? Right.

54:18I mean, ultimately, as we just laid out, you know, what they were trying to get at, I think, is both Washington and Beijing. They both want the straight open. It's hurting both of them politically, economically, as we just said. But they disagree over who will control the process and especially what Iran will get in return. You know, I think China is willing to help in some ways, but not necessarily on Trump's terms and not necessarily to pressure Iran, to give all of these concessions that we've been seeing raised in recent weeks. So I think Trump kind of was hoping to go there, asking a rival power to basically help solve this crisis that he created by this war.

54:56And China is willing to do that sometimes where their interests converge, but definitely not along the lines that Trump clearly wanted. Like we've seen this as well with Europe, where he really wanted all these European powers to strongly stand beside this war that he launched unilaterally with Israel, right? So we, you know, there are some ways in which that could work, but it's not definitely not going to be the way that Trump wants it to work. Vera, just briefly, I got to ask about tariffs. I mean, ever since Donald Trump kicked off the global trade war, China has been, everybody was a target.

55:27China was the main target. Tariffs across the board, they responded by hovering their finger over rare earth metals and the button there, we can cut off your iPhones and your computers. Is tariff, are we officially in detente over tariffs now? no, I didn't hear much about it. Right. I mean, that kind of answers the question to an extent, right? I mean, it was definitely, you know, we spilled so much ink on the reporting side, obviously, ahead of this meeting about how much could be. And, you know, there's still a lot more reporting to do about what was actually discussed. And as we know, you know, there was a lot of business people involved.

55:57There was a lot more to the delegation beyond what we have from the readout so far. But, you know, I think we would have, a couple of months ago, we would have expected this to be way, way much more of a main point, and we haven't quite seen that. Can I just say real quick on tariffs that the president said on Air Force One, speaking to reporters on the way home, that we didn't discuss tariffs. That is just a monumental thing to say out loud to reporters when a year ago we were looking at trade essentially frozen because tariffs were at, you know, 100 plus percent. Fascinating. It's like the short attention span news cycle has come to diplomacy.

56:31After all of that, after all of that, it didn't even come up. So the president said. So the president said, well, the war in Iran is hanging over President Trump and President Xi's summit in Beijing. I mean, you heard it all this week from journalists. That's what Xi said. He said, Xi said, my personal favorite, Xi's got to have it. I mean, reporters and outlets everywhere were playing with that. I love a pun. You love a pun. I love three, as you can tell. But, you know, Xi's got to have it actually has a point. And she made a point that he's got to have it on Taiwan and he doesn't feel like he needs to back down.

57:11Well, let's talk about some more of the president's needs in Iran and in the Strait of Hormuz. Because in Washington, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth faced his own realities under tough questioning on Capitol Hill. Senators demanding to know what the endgame is for the war and the cost. Now, according to Pete Hegseth,$29 billion up from 25 last week. Some U.S. officials have put it, the real cost upwards of$50 billion. Here's Pete Hegseth in a back and forth with Democratic Senator Chris Coons. We are now negotiating. Just think it's so foolish. Here we are in a committee in the United States Senate, 74 days in, and you're talking about strategic loss.

57:50We have the ability to defeat a 47-year threat of a pursuit of a nuclear weapon. We have more leverage than we've ever had. We've had incredible battlefield successes. And you're talking about a strategic loss? Mr. Secretary. disingenuous questions. This is how you undercut efforts that could otherwise and are otherwise being very effective. I am not your enemy, sir. I am not your adversary. I share your goal of preventing Iran from ever having a usable nuclear weapon. The defense secretary there on Capitol Hill and Senator Chris Coons of Delaware. Talks between the United States and Iran remain stalled.

58:22The president said on Monday the ceasefire quote is now on life support. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi was in New Delhi this week for a BRICS meeting. That's an intergovernmental organization of 10 major emerging economies. He said his country is prepared for both diplomacy and for war. While ready to fight with everything we have in defense of our freedom and our soil, we are equally ready to pursue and defend diplomacy. As I have repeatedly stated, There is no such thing as a military solution to anything related to Iran. We Iranians never bow to any pressure or threat, but we reciprocate the language of respect.

59:04And so let's talk about the diplomacy end of this confrontation. Earlier this week, Iranian state television reported Tehran has rejected the latest U.S. proposal as equivalent to surrender. Iran instead wants war reparations, full Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, an end to sanctions, release of seized Iranian assets. Asma, is Tehran testing the administration's tolerance for escalation here? What do you see in this dynamic? Gosh, I mean, that's a really tough question. I genuinely am not sure what Iran is testing at this point. I think what we see is that ultimately they see a president, And I think this is very valid if you look back at sort of how the president has also engaged on this China trip, is a president who has challenges being focused on multiple conflicts around the globe at the same time.

59:56And ultimately, that China trip was initially pushed back so that he could deal with the war in Iran. Here he was going to China, what, six weeks after I think it was initially scheduled, and the war in Iran has still not been resolved. Yeah, I mean, we forget this was the reschedule of the China summit in the first place. I think if I could say one other quick thing, though, on Iran, I think the other major sticking point has been that there's this other secondary front, which is Lebanon. We know that talks were happening just this week at the State Department with Lebanon and Israel. Hezbollah, a key part of that conflict, not involved in the talks.

1:00:27And I don't see how the Iran situation gets resolved in their view until the Lebanon situation. And we're going to talk more about the Lebanon-U.S. talks. Hezbollah absent. We'll talk more about that. But your view, Joyce, on Iran and the United States and diplomacy. Todd, we are now 11 weeks into this conflict and the Iranians are only more defiant. Their asks now are, you know, they want trillions in sanctions relief. They want just full control of Hormuz. They want a regional security architecture that they would oversee. And this is very different from how the war started. The war started, we're going to go and change this regime with protests, and we're going to denuclearize Iran.

1:01:11None of that has happened. And the Iranians see it. They know the U.S. is stuck. They know there are differences between the two major parties in the war, the U.S. and Israel, and they're buying time. And making several demands that improve their station from the status quo, anti-minus their military capability. And getting economic lifeline from Pakistan through trade, six corridors that Pakistan has opened, and through selling oil. So neither the U.S. can agree to Iranian demands now, and the Iranians are in no rush to take the deal that's on the table. Well, on his way back from China, the president spoke to reporters aboard Air Force One, double down on claims of victory in Iran.

1:01:52We had a total military victory. We knocked out their entire Navy. We knocked out their entire Air Force. We knocked out all of their anti-aircraft weaponry. We knocked out all of their radar. We knocked out all of their leaders, number one. And then we knocked out all of their leaders in the second division. And we knocked out numerous of their leaders in the third division. And they're very confused. We've had a total victory, except by people like you that don't write the truth. You know, you should write. President speaking there to David Sanger of the New York Times, he also accused Sanger of fake news, accused him of treason aboard Air Force One.

1:02:34Meanwhile, Reuters reports that despite more than two months of war, the U.S. and Israel have not stopped Iran's ability to enrich uranium enough to get a bomb. Meanwhile, IRGC remains in power in Iran. We have reporting this week revealing Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites, its launchers and underground facilities surrounding the area of the Strait of Hormuz. Vera Bergen-Gruen, this is basically the opposite of what the administration is saying about Iran's military capabilities. The president is quite right that many of these capabilities have been decimated and weakened, but all of the other reporting says it's still very much capable.

1:03:15What options does the president have right now? Right. I mean, ultimately, you know, he put himself in a tough spot by declaring victory, as you mentioned, you know, on day two of the war and saying we've practically already won. We've seen Rubio and, you know, kind of narrow the war's aims and, you know, to four concrete goals and they keep insisting. And it's true, as you've mentioned, you know, that they've really severely degraded the Navy, a lot of its, just a lot of its military capabilities, but not fully. Right. And so I think that's kind of where we're at. if Iran were to offer to end its chokehold on the strait and the U.S.

1:03:49lifts this blockade and Trump gets some kind of partial victory he can sell as a full victory, I think there's concerns in some quarters that that could happen. It would require him to back off from a stated objective of completely dismantling the nuclear program and all of that. So that's one of the options. He could basically do a partial deal and in a very Trumpian way, claimful victory, right? Or we can see this kind of continuation of 60, 90, whatever day ceasefires where they keep negotiating back and forth. But that's just politically probably not very feasible for Trump, given that we've got the midterms coming up.

1:04:25He just wants to get out of there. Like, you know, you don't want to keep when you think about, you know, a decade ago, how long it took to put together the original nuclear deal. You know, this is like a years long, very complicated process. And Trump doesn't have the patience or the appetite for that. Right. He wants to declare victory and go home. So all of these off-ramps short of full escalation again, which I don't think he wants either, seems pretty unlikely. Also, the art of the deal. Here's Todd's art of the deal. Don't be desperate in a negotiation. If you need something badly, the other side knows it, and that can weaken you.

1:04:57Asma, what's your view of the president's options here? Well, the president's main option, I will say, and his main need for domestic political reasons is to solve this crisis. You can drive down the streets here of Washington, D.C. and see gas that is over$6 a gallon. I think anybody who's covered politics, I mean, any voter probably knows this. You win and lose elections largely based on the cost of living and on the economy. We are inching ever closer to the midterms. And so I would say for domestic purposes, his major need is to resolve this crisis because we're seeing inflation rates just that came out this month.

1:05:34We see those at what? I think it was a three-year record high. Now it went up again. He promised when he came into office that he was going to solve inflation. He can't suffer politically, I think, domestically. Joyce, what Azma is describing doesn't expand the president's options with Iran. It limits them because it increases his need, his desperation. Totally. I mean, it all comes back to the strait, foremost. He can say, OK, the nuclear program has diminished missiles, whatever. The Iranians have the know-how to restart the nuclear program to make more missiles. The problem now we have for the Gulf states, for the U.S., for the Europeans, for the Chinese, as Asma was saying, is the Strait of Hormuz.

1:06:15And without finding the key to unlock Hormuz, he's going to be stuck in this for some time. This week, new reporting from Reuters shows Saudi Arabia secretly attacked Iran in late March. The Saudis say it was in retaliation for attacks Iran carried out on Saudi Arabia. These strikes were in late March. rare military action from Saudi Arabia. They were previously unreported, but occurred as Iran and Saudi Arabia were still involved in diplomatic talks. And Vera, the United Arab Emirates, also carried out secret attacks on Iran. We learned that from reporting this week. What's the story here? Why weren't these previously reported?

1:06:55So these were, you know, covert strikes, and some of these were technically reported. We just didn't know who was behind them. So now this, you know, now we're kind of getting, shedding more light on this. And it's, you know, about some of these strikes and that really moved the UAE from this kind of defensive coordination that the whole Gulf was, that its posture was, to more direct participation in the conflict. But obviously, like, you know, it's incredibly diplomatically awkward and politically explosive over there to, they don't want to publicly advertise themselves as fighting alongside Israel and attacking Iran.

1:07:27So, you know, they obviously have not confirmed them and they're going to continue in this really cautious stance. But it is really quite large and it shows how far this war has pushed the UAE and Israel, for example, and the U.S. all together against Iran. Joyce, Saudi and Iran were kind of getting somewhere in their overall awful relationship. Chinese broker talks in 2023, a cooling off in the relationship, some pleasant words exchanged on both sides. Now things are different. How has this war degraded the previous diplomatic process between Saudi Arabia and Iran? So what it comes down to, Todd, is these Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, they didn't ask for this war.

1:08:13They didn't want the U.S. to go into this war. They didn't even allow their territory to be used, especially Saudi Arabia and the UAE for U.S. attacks on Iran. So where you see them now is they're trying to broker their own arrangements with Iran. On the Saudi-Iran front, yes, things are very much degraded. Saudi Arabia didn't carry just one attack in Iran. It was several. It also hit bases in Iraq, pro-Iranian militias in Iraq that it sees responsible helping Iran in attacks on on the kingdom. But there was a very important this week Financial Times report that Saudi Arabia is actually seeking a non-aggression pact with Iran, an end of hostilities from both sides.

1:09:03And this is where you see the Gulf states gradually moving away from relying on the U.S. for their security. They're looking at this and it's not ending. And they want to broker their own arrangements with the Iranians. The Emiratis, on the other hand, they're getting closer to Israel. They're trying to find different pipelines, different routes to get away from Hormuz. And as you know, they left OPAC. Let's talk about different routes and different pipelines and what they mean for a way around this war geographically and economically, Asma. Saudi and the UAE, I think, or maybe there's one or two other countries, but they have gas pipelines, alternate routes around the Strait of Hormuz to get their oil out to the rest of the world.

1:09:48Most countries don't enjoy this type of technology or geographic proximity. What kind of economic pressure are Gulf countries, GCC countries under now that they're turning and trying to make their own deals? I think the biggest economic strain has been that the picture of a stable oasis in the Middle East that is essentially what particularly the Emirates presented themselves as Abu Dhabi, Dubai, right? That picture, it's been questioned, right? There's a lot of holes in whether that's actually true. You've seen tourism numbers decline in Dubai. You've seen reports of people who've left expatriates, right, whether it was to Europe or elsewhere.

1:10:30I think that is perhaps one of the most significant economic challenges because once the stability has been questioned, will people continue to move there? And economically, I think that's a huge sell that Dubai had positioned over the course of many years that had really tried to build up that reputation. Well, Joyce just mentioned, speaking of the United Arab Emirates, more secret trips, secret attacks, but also a secret visit from the prime minister of Israel, of all places. Benjamin Netanyahu made an unreported visit, a secret visit to the UAE in March, where he met with the country's president, Mohammed bin Zayed.

1:11:07Netanyahu's office said that meeting led to breakthroughs in the burgeoning Israeli-Emirati relationship. Hours after that statement, the UAE denied a meeting took place. That might tell you a lot about the constituencies of these different countries. Vera, what's this about? That's right. I mean, you know, the fact that they denied it and, you know, called these reports baseless, I mean, they're both speaking, as you said, to their own audiences here. But again, it just shows what a strange place this relationship is in. You know, it's basically politically still deniable, even though on its face, it seems a little absurd.

1:11:40And then operationally really real because they are aligned in their interests here. And, you know, again, like they just don't want to be looking like they're marching in any way in public with Netanyahu. But when these, you know, when the missiles are coming in, they're willing to rely on Israel for air defense help. And the longer this war goes on, I think the closer we'll see them be pushed together. So it really depends. You know, if this had ended much sooner, we probably wouldn't be in this place. And the longer this goes on, it'll be really interesting to see what long-term implications this has for the relationship.

1:12:09Joyce? And it's also a BB problem for the Emiratis. They see the guy as super toxic. They don't want any picture with him. They don't want him on their territory or declaring secret, non-secret visits. They've received former Israeli prime ministers, Bennett, Lapid, the president, Herzog. They've all visited the UAE. It's just not Bibi Netanyahu. He's radioactive in the region. This guy, with what happened in Gaza, the wars in Lebanon, his own trials. It's just we don't want anything to do with this guy. So for him— At least publicly. Publicly. I mean, yeah, we'll have something to do with him.

1:12:46For sure. But, you know, for him to go and announce this is a bit reckless, knowing that the UAE will— What's he doing? Why announce it? He's trying to twist the knife on Iran? He has elections coming up. He wants to shore up his support. He wants to show, look, I'm making historic visits here, and Arabs are coming to me despite everything that's happening in the region. Well, we talk about the proposals, the rejected proposals around the war in Iran. According to Israeli officials who spoke to CNN, Israel is increasingly worried that in his desperation that we've made clear to get out of this war, Israel is now worried that Donald Trump is going to cut a deal with Iran, ending the war on his terms and not their terms.

1:13:30Benjamin Netanyahu wanted to use this war to permanently destroy Iran's nuclear program, potentially topple the regime. Joyce Karen made that clear earlier. Those are objectives that President Trump had offered as well. But U.S. intelligence assessments say the war has not significantly changed how long it would take Iran to build a nuclear weapon, their enrichment and their breakout time. On Wednesday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Iran is, quote, frighteningly close to enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels. U.S. negotiators have focused on Iran giving up its stockpile of enriched uranium, the stuff that's already buried, to the exclusion of other issues that Israel cares about the most.

1:14:12So, Joyce, you've already mentioned this dynamic. Prices are high. Elections are coming. Donald Trump is domestically urgent. I'll call him desperate. What kind of concessions is Israel worried about Trump making that don't serve its interests? Sanctions relief for Iran. The denuclearization is very important for the Israelis. They want some form of operation. You know, all intelligence agencies, not just the Americans, globally to say this is very complicated, unlikely to happen. But the Israelis are pushing for it, that you'd have somebody come in the ground in Iran and take out the highly enriched uranium.

1:14:53We hear about it from some officials here, but it's not looking like Trump would authorize something like this. And they're worried, you know, that he would actually leave the Strait of Hormuz and cut off and run, you know, since it's not advancing the goals. Osmo, we talk about President Trump's domestic needs politically, his domestic urgency. Netanyahu has them as well. He is right now not delivering the promise of this war. The regime still in power with a different face. The prospect of ending Iran's ability to enrich appears to have not been neutralized. And Netanyahu is not delivering, does not appear to be delivering to Israel the promise of going to war in the first place.

1:15:38Yeah, I mean, he spoke about regime change. Regime change was always more of a, I think, a murky desired goal. When you look at the Trump administration, I think for Netanyahu, it was a clear, clear ambition. I will say it's not just on Iran that he hasn't delivered with what his stated goals were with Netanyahu. Lebanon is posing a problem, right? For him, I had a colleague who spent some time with the BBC looking into how folks within northern Israel are feeling about the ceasefire. This was a ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel that Trump tried to put forth. I mean, I'm sure listeners will remember he announced that the American president on social media, he then repeated that it was going to be extended.

1:16:15Right. You have the American president who's technically not involved at all in that war announcing this. There are residents that my colleagues have spoken to in northern Israel who don't feel like Israel has, in their view, accomplished what it needed to do in Lebanon. They want to see Hezbollah completely dismantled. That has not yet happened. they would like it to continue. And that is a challenge for Netanyahu when you have the president of the United States calling ceasefires, sometimes unilaterally, that Netanyahu has to abide by. Now, that all being said, I want to be abundantly clear, a ceasefire was announced in Lebanon, but strikes have continued.

1:16:53It is not like there is a ceasefire. Ceasefire in name only. There are hundreds of people who have died in Lebanon. Hundreds of people have died, both fighters and civilians, clearly. Continuing attacks on northern Israel, continuing attacks on Hezbollah positions separately from attacks that have hit civilians mixed in with fighters as well. The whole point being fighting continues, ceasefire in name only. Yes. No, that's right. I believe the Lebanese health ministry has said I think it was about 400 people have been killed since the ceasefire was announced a few weeks ago by President Trump.

1:17:26I mean, the situation in the south of Lebanon is really dire. You've had, as you mentioned, strikes that have continued from the Israeli military into southern Lebanon. You've also had reports of Hezbollah continuing to strike into northern Israel. And I think the big challenge for Trump is, again, this is another front that he wants to solve. He wants that war to be done in part because the unsolved situation in Lebanon with Hezbollah is proving particularly problematic for him in trying to end the Iran war. Completely interrelated, which might explain why Trump keeps declaring ceasefires over Netanyahu's head for Netanyahu's conflict in southern Lebanon.

1:18:06When he needs to keep going, Trump needs him to not keep going. Their interests have diverged in that sense. New talks now, Joyce, between Lebanon and Israel. New round of talks. What's to be expected here? This is the longest round of talks we've seen between Lebanese and Israelis. Direct talks happening right now at the State Department started on Thursday, full day of talks. The Lebanese delegation is even higher up than it was previously. Simon Karam, former ambassador to the U.S., is representing Lebanon along with military officials and the ambassador here. So two goals are in mind for the Lebanese and the Israelis.

1:18:45The Lebanese, they want sovereignty over their territory that's now got occupied by Israel again in the south. The Israelis, they want the disarmament of Hezbollah. But to Asma's point, it's not as easy as it looks. There are talks, you know, of having U.S. Central Command involved training the Lebanese army to do more of this. But it's not going to happen anytime soon. For the administration, it wants a good story. It wants a nice photo op of Lebanese and Israeli officials at the White House celebrating a peace agreement, a framework agreement even, to say, here we go. You know, something is good happening in the Middle East that we've done.

1:19:29Vera, ceasefire is in name only to Israel's north. Also, ceasefire is in name only to Israel's south. Clearly, Israel is stepping up attacks in Gaza while all of this is going on. Israeli strikes have killed 120 Palestinians in Gaza since April 8th, when the ceasefire in Iran shifted Israel's attention back home. Now, that figure is from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. It includes eight women and 13 children, according to the ministry, but it doesn't distinguish how many are civilians or how many others might be fighters connected to Hamas. We just don't know. But Vera, the Israeli military says Hamas is rearming.

1:20:05What do we know about that? Or did they never disarm in the first place? Right. I mean, that is coming from Israeli officials. There isn't much public evidence. But as you mentioned, I mean, it's mainly that Hamas, you know, hasn't obviously disarmed. And Israel is using that as a rationale to continue military action, as you just mentioned. So this ceasefire, I mean, it just it's incredibly fragile. It's just circular. It just keeps going and going. So, you know, as long as they can use that rationale and say that they're either rearming or not disarming, I think we're going to see this continue.

1:20:38And it's going to continue to be stuck in this point because the disarmament of Hamas was always like, you know, that sticking point that this whole process was hinging on. And now, you know, it's really kind of hard to see how they get out of that. Donald Trump's Board of Peace was supposed to go a long way to solving this problem. It hasn't happened. Here's Peace Board Director Nikolai Mladenov said that the truce hinges in Gaza on Hamas disarming, but that both sides are violating the ceasefire. There is zero trust between Israelis and Palestinians, between Israel and Hamas or vice versa. He pressed both Israel and Hamas to make progress for the sake of the Gazan territory.

1:21:20And if you want to tell me that there will be a donor in Europe, in the Gulf, or anywhere around the world, in their right mind, who would invades the major reconstruction under these conditions, I don't see it. And if you tell me that this is security for Israel, I don't see it as well. Osman Khaled, is the Board of Peace speaking past the real problem here? What has the Board of Peace accomplished so far? What the Board of Peace has accomplished. Look, they were set out to be, because I did an episode on this recently, sort of just checking in on what is going on in Gaza. They were set out to help implement the next phase.

1:22:00I think this is reminding me a lot of what we just discussed, where ceasefires are announced when the fighting hasn't actually stopped. So we had Steve Witkoff, the president's top advisor who helped negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza, announced that we were moving into phase two in Gaza. But phase two had certain requirements, right? I mean, it included the dismantling of Hamas, right? There were supposed to be, there were certain specifications. They have not been met. Phase two was a quantum leap. Yes, exactly. And so I do think sometimes we hear these pronouncements from the White House that don't tend to match the reality of what is going on on the ground.

1:22:40I don't know, and maybe, you know, Joyce has more on this. We have not seen indications. We, in fact, heard from a recent episode where we heard from people inside Gaza. We have not gotten indications that rebuilding is starting or anything of that sort. And between phase one and phase two, just this minor thing happened, which is the Iran war. So the people who are supposed to help implement phase two, Qatar, Egypt, Israel, they're all preoccupied. I mean, the bandwidth, there is no bandwidth neither in the administration nor in the region. to refocus on Gaza. And this is why it's even more fragile now.

1:23:17Something happened on the way to the forum. It was the war in Iran. We're going to make a stop in Europe before the hour rounds out. But before we do, I want to check in on Cuba, because on Thursday, the Cuban government said that the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, had met with counterparts in Cuba during high-level visits to the country. We got this email from 1A listener Mao in New Hampshire. The United States has basically declared war against the civilian population in Cuba. The administration insists that it is not a blockade, but when you prevent oil from being delivered to a country by anyone, what else is it?

1:23:53Vera, tensions remain high between Washington and Havana. Where are they at right now? In this very strange phase, and actually there are some parallels too to some of these other places we've discussed where the U.S. is both trying to speed up and slow down. They are Trump and Rubio and some others keep raising the specter of military action. They're kind of toying with the idea of doing something similar to what we saw in Venezuela, where they could just go in, decapitate the government, things like that. At the same time, they keep indicating that they're open to a deal, to some kind of economic concessions that the government could make and political concessions that would slowly phase out this regime.

1:24:30I mean, the CIA director yesterday, according to officials I spoke with, basically raised Venezuela as a warning, You know, basically said you either cooperate with us or you may end up like Maduro. At the same time, you know, they are willing, kind of strikingly willing to negotiate some kind of deal. So, you know, they've offered humanitarian aid, different economic concessions, which would be very unpopular with, you know, Florida Republicans, with Cuban Americans who just want the U.S. to uproot the entire regime. Vera, speaking of Cuban Americans, what about Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, the son of Cuban refugees?

1:25:08Ron emails us to ask, what gives the U.S. the right to blockade Cuba because our authoritarian regime doesn't like theirs? Is it because Rubio wants to be seen as the savior of Cuba? I mean, he's playing a major role here. Absolutely. I mean, that's his background. It's been the animating, motivating force behind his entire career. So that's true. But we shouldn't discount that Trump, actually, who's surrounded by Floridians and a lot of Cuban-Americans day in and day out, wants himself to be seen. He sees Cuba potentially as another Venezuela, where he can kind of get the political victory and move on.

1:25:42And Cuba is not Venezuela. And it's going to be much, much, much more complicated. So it's going to be really interesting to see, you know, whether Rubio gets what he's been promising for all these years or whether they settle for something that I think much of the community back home is going to be quite upset with. Well, before we go, let's check in on our friends in the UK. The king was just here doing great. The king's government in London, not so much. Look, people across Europe are unhappy with their leaders. France, Germany, Austria, Portugal, no question. an anti-incumbency wave across Europe.

1:26:18It has hit Keir Starmer hard. He's facing calls to resign from within his own party. At least 80 Labour members of Parliament have demanded Keir Starmer step down in the past week. Joyce, what happened to Keir Starmer, who blew into office with this groundswell of support for Labour and now is facing demands from within his own party to get lost? It's not been a good quarter for Keir Starmer. This would be if he resigns the sixth prime minister to go down since Brexit. And it's a combination of economic grievances. He overpromised, underdelivered, but mostly he's losing the faith within his own party.

1:27:02The talk now is would he resign voluntarily or would he set a date that I'm going to step down later or he just does a government reshuffle. But it seems a new candidate, a resignation is likely. There is talk about the charismatic popular mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, that he would step in as the new prime minister for Labour. We'll see if that happens. But it certainly shakes confidence in British politics, given the amount of changes they've seen since Brexit. Asma, you're with the BBC. You're not going to get out of this without talking about Keir Starmer. Just really quickly. I mean, some of the real quick, the rap on Keir Starmer is let it be a lesson to centrists and centrist Democrats everywhere not to try to both sides politics.

1:27:51Choose a side. Yeah, I don't know that I would extrapolate it that large. To me, it speaks of a actually very distinct post-Brexit question, which we're doing an episode on next week, which is, is the UK ungovernable? I mean, that is the question when you cycle through climate issues. He's at Liz Truss levels of popularity and may Liz— The joke that my British colleagues tell me is that there's a cat that domiciles in 10 Downing Street and that the cat, Larry, has now seen a wide number of prime ministers cycle through. Vote for Larry for Prime Minister 10 Downing Street. It may add stability to the U.K.

1:28:23government. Asma Khalid, co-host of the Global Story podcast from the BBC, Joyce Karam, editor-in-chief at Al Monitor and Vera Bergen-Gruin of The Wall Street Journal. I thank you all. Mike Kidd is our sound designer and engineer. Chris Castano is our digital editor. Maya Garg is our senior managing producer. Alexandra Botee is our senior supervising producer. Aileen Humphreys is our senior producer and editor of 1A On Demand. And Thomas Liu produces our podcast. Special thanks to Matthew Simonson for additional On Demand support this week. This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR.

1:29:00I'm Todd Zwillick. This is 1A.

1:29:20Why do some of us feel so tired and other people seem to have endless energy? What we've discovered is that different people have very different kinds of mitochondria. And some people's mitochondria seem to be quite a bit better at flowing energy. That's on the TED Radio Hour podcast. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.