The News Roundup for May 29, 2026

23:28So there are many chains of transmission, which means that's why you're seeing the rapid increase in cases, because people haven't been able to get their hands around the chains of transmission. And in the meantime, you know, some places Uganda has closed its border to DRC. And the United States continues to say that it will not bring back any Americans who may have been exposed or infected to Ebola back to the United States. Right. So, Lena, we've seen the CDC announce it will temporarily ban green card holders who had traveled to Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda or South Sudan in recent weeks.

24:10But I do want to ask you about that, the idea that the administration is planning to send Americans to a new facility in Kenya. What do we know about how the administration plans to care for Americans who contract Ebola abroad? Many of them we know are missionary doctors. Well, two things. The administration is trying to build a physical barrier to the virus by putting in place these screening procedures at airports, which in the past have been shown to be not effective. All that will do is to, if you have symptoms or you're worried, you're just going to go underground. But more importantly, after the West Africa epidemic of Ebola that began in 2014, the largest so far in history, killed more than 11 ,000 people.

25:05the United States put in place a very detailed plan and set up regional hospitals in the United States, invested a lot of money specifically trained to deal with Americans, people with Ebola and other dangerous pathogens. Do we have that infrastructure now, Lena? Does that infrastructure currently exist? Yeah, it exists and it has been invested and built up and there There are people's staff very well equipped and trained to care for patients with Ebola and have cared for Americans with Ebola and other pathogens in the United States. There's a whole infrastructure. But the U.S. does not want to have anybody set foot in this country with Ebola, including American citizens.

25:54So they have set up, they plan to set up this facility in Kenya. And just today, the Kenyan high court said, no way, you're not allowed to go ahead with this. And they've temporarily suspended it. And they're going to hear arguments next week. Lina, we just have a little time left, but I want to ask, what concerns have you heard about our country's preparedness in the event of a domestic Ebola outbreak? The U.S. has this system of hospitals for pathogens like Ebola, and people have been trained. But the pandemic response at the U.S. interagency level has been dismantled or diminished, and there is not the kind of coordination that needs to be there according to people who know about pandemic preparedness.

26:44So what does this mean for the next pandemic, even if it's not Ebola? I don't think it means that we're going to be very well prepared. What do you think people listening, how concerned should they be? I want to be realistic about the situation. How should people be thinking about this? I think people should realize that, you know, you are not going to get Ebola, okay? The chances of you getting Ebola is very low. Much more likely you will get hit by a car. But over time, when you don't have investment and your public officials do not think it's important to invest in things that will have a benefit long term, that's not good.

27:23It's just like short-sightedness. You don't want to fight a fire without having fire trucks, but you need to invest in buying fire trucks. Thanks for that analysis. That's Lena Sun, national health reporter at The Washington Post. We appreciate your time. More to come with Josh Wingrove, Washington correspondent and senior White House reporter for Bloomberg, Alana Shore, senior Washington editor for Sum of Four, and Taylor Popolars, national political reporter for Spectrum News. We'll be right back.

27:53Let's get back to the news roundup. We heard from several of you about the turnout in Texas, like Bobby in Delaware, who said, you commented that Paxson won by a blowout, but you neglected to talk about the small turnout. out. It's always suboptimal turnout when it's a runoff in a party primary. But, you know, that is true. The point is the Republicans who decided to go and cast their vote were not on the fence about which of the two they wanted. But I take his point. I take the college point. Yeah. Sarah also writes in response to the conversation about Iran and the economy, how long can the administration cling to the fact that the stock market is doing so well and think that means everything is just great?

28:31Most people that are suffering with costs are not in the markets. They are so out of touch, it is infuriating, Sarah says. I actually don't think they are clinging to that. I think privately at the White House, they're pretty spooked about the Fed having to raise rates and what's going on with inflation. They're putting a brave face on it. They know it's not going well when you get them privately. I would add Treasury Secretary Scott Besson filled in hosting a White House press briefing on Thursday and talked a lot about the economy. We know from President Trump's own public comments that he utilizes the stock market It is a very important metric to gauge how the economy is doing.

29:06So Besson echoed that in many ways. But time and time again, when he talked about it and when other administration officials are asked about the war, they just insist that the moment the conflict ends, which will be at President Trump's discretion, that prices will immediately fall back to levels that they were at in February. And Besson argued that time and time again. He said, don't worry, your gas will be cheaper the moment the war ends. But he couldn't say when the war would end. He said, don't worry, fertilizer will be cheaper when the war ends. but he couldn't say when that would be. So that's the message overall.

29:35And a lot of people argue that that is tone deaf, but others say this is how President Trump views the economy. So those are metrics that they're happy with. That's what also said this week that the prices are transitory, which made me laugh a little bit because, of course, that was an infamous word the Biden administration used. Secretary Yellen, President perhaps himself, a memory serves, but Biden's people said things were transitory too. And, of course, inflation became this albatross that ultimately was one of the defining legacies of their administration. Right. And obviously prices are high now for everyone.

30:06Yes. And everything we've talked about from fertilizer prices to gasoline prices, like airline tickets, food is going to get more expensive if this continues. So the people that are like most feeling the pinch of this is like grocery shopping and that kind of thing. That is not currently poised to get better. In fact, it's poised to get worse. And I thought there was a slight admission during Besson's press briefing. He did say at one point, the economy, it is challenging now. But then he reverted to this idea that tax refunds were larger, that wages are up, that unemployment is down. But that was a tell in my view, just hearing him say publicly, it is challenging right now for many people because you don't hear President Trump say that.

30:44Another thing for your caller when she talks about focusing on the stock market doing so well, a lot of it is tech stocks. When we look at that market, it is a bunch of these AI stocks that are propping up everything else, which is another thing that the administration is aware of and doesn't really have a plan for. Let's talk about President Trump on Tuesday having a physical exam at Walter Reed Medical Center. He's just a couple of weeks away from his 80th birthday. The president did not release details of the exam, but his health has been closely watched. Taylor, the president's not legally required to disclose these details.

31:14Did we learn anything? No, the president put on Truth Social as he was driving back from Walter Reed Medical Center to the White House, which it's in Maryland. He said everything went perfectly. I got rave reviews. And as of Friday, we haven't gotten anything else from him. I think what's what's pointed out, he turns 80 on June 14th. President Biden justifiably got a lot of scrutiny, especially in his last year in office for his age, for his deterioration that we all saw very, very publicly. his former first lady, Jill Biden's book is about to drop. And we're kind of having a new conversation about new disclosure.

31:48She made this week about that. Yeah. What did the Bidens know? Was there any form of a cover up? And now that conversation is rightfully happening to President Trump. The thing that's getting a lot of attention is that he went for his, they called it an annual dental and medical evaluation on May 26th of this year. Earlier this year, he's had two scheduled dental appointments at his local dentist in Florida. We haven't gotten any details about that. And then in 2025, he was back at Walter Reed in October for what they call the scheduled follow-up evaluation and last April 2025 for an annual physical.

32:20They keep saying these are annual physicals. The president has called it a six-month physical. And there's just questions about why is he going so frequently, especially when there's a medical facility in the White House complex that he has access to 24-7. Alana, we've seen pictures recently of President Trump seemingly falling asleep in public meetings. Those go very viral. Are there other signs that are causing increased concern? There are some photographs that have captured bruising on Trump's hands of varying degrees that have sparked some questions about the cause behind it, whether it's a rash or some other kind of damage.

32:54You know, there's endless speculation, I think, of appearances in photos. But the real concern is the lack of transparency that Taylor outlined. And we've, In terms of what did we see particularly this week? We've seen the president in the past confusing different countries when he's talking about things. Yeah, I mean Trump riffs a lot. And so, you know, this week, for instance, he appeared to mention Venezuela when he meant Iran. But, you know, I think that those examples are fewer and farther between. It's the physical things that I think are drawing attention, both the bruising on the hands, including questions.

33:25Why does this simply not said? They've indicated maybe it's from shaking hands. He takes a blood thinner. Trump has said that. So he maybe bruises more easily. There are questions as to whether it's something else, including, I don't know, an IV. Like, you know, I'm not a doctor, clearly. And then also like swelling in his ankles, which they've also addressed. There are physical sort of signs that are raising questions. And every time he goes to the doctor, you know, these questions just come up again. Trump does not like talking about this, attacks the press when they question it, say that the press should have been harder on President Biden when he was in office.

33:56So it's, you know, it is this is this is where we're at on it. But there are certainly questions swirling about his health as he prepares to turn 80. He will, of course, become the oldest living president later in this term and be older than Biden was when he ended his term. Which is valid and warrants a lot of scrutiny. One other thing I'll add is that not only does the president repeatedly insist that he's in the greatest health of his life, even though he doesn't work out beyond golfing, but his team does things. Over Memorial Day weekend, his communications director, Stephen Chung, posted multiple times, especially on Saturday, saying it's four o 'clock on a Saturday and President Trump is in the Oval Office working.

34:30Then he posted again saying it's 830 at night and President Trump is in the Oval Office working. This person works harder than anybody else. And you've never seen this before. And they emphasize that he's kind of like this superhero type figure, which then draws more attention to the fact that he is getting older. And why are they feeling the need to highlight that? And why are they not being transparent about his various medical appointments and why he has bruises on both of his hands? In other Washington news from the past week, a shooting took place outside the White House complex on Saturday.

35:00A gunman opened fire before Secret Service officers returned fire and killed him. One bystander was injured in the incident. If we're just stepping back for a moment, we had the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting. It was just over a month ago. There's been several attempts on President Trump's life. Can you – who wants to put in context for us around the – what your sense is of the level of violence right now particularly surrounding this president? Well, my wife doesn't like it. Same. Yeah. This last case, there's some reporting that this person had previously had run-ins with Secret Service at the White House and had some mental health challenges, which is both notable and unsurprising.

35:41I kind of assume that anyone who decides to open fire on someone has – is not mentally healthy, clearly. And it's frightening. And what we've seen, though, it's overlaying an increasing sort of fortification of the White House. You watch movies from the 90s, and it's like people are driving by the White House. Well, I was going to say now that every time I drive by, I guess I drive by there almost every day. Every year, every couple of years, it just seems to get more and more fortified, more and more fortified. There are, of course, reasons for that. I think now my question or fear is that this incident, if there are threats of continued incidents like that, it'll make it harder and harder for Americans to get near the building.

36:15As a congressional reporter by training, I have to point out this is something that Congress has seen for quite a long time now, dating back to the attack on the congressional baseball game almost 10 years ago. The Capitol Police has reported exponentially higher threats to all public officials. So this is something that members of Congress have had to deal with for years now and frequently requested increased security funding to hire their own private guards because of it. I see it as the same trend that is now affecting the White House. In some ways, would you say that, I mean, the level of political violence is something that we're used to at this point?

36:48Probably inured, too, or like numb to maybe. Inured, yeah. Yeah. As someone who's at the White House every day and people, if they've been there on the north lawn, there are the green tents on the right side, which is where all the TV cameras are set up. I think three times this calendar year alone, I've had Secret Service. I've been there when Secret Service has evacuated all of us and rushed us into the briefing room because of various threats that either have played out to be false alarms or have played out to be actual shooting incidents. But President Trump and his team fully are aware of the fact that he has survived multiple assassination attempts and that he has to live in kind of the bubble of all bubbles now.

37:23But to Alana's point, you notice it now on Capitol Hill when members are voting, there are now snipers positioned outside on the congressional steps. That used to not be a thing. So there's just sadly these increased signs of the threats and the protection needed for it. This is bolstered, or the president is seizing upon this to bolster his argument for the ballroom, saying they need a secure facility. Of course, it is true that presidents leave the White House all the time. President Trump will. It's also true that they host big events there outside of ballroom. We're having a UFC fight on the White House South Lawn in a few weeks.

37:54On his 80th birthday. Right. So, you know, he's trying to lean in on this to bolster support for the ballroom. And speaking of that, we haven't really heard from the Secret Service in a while. Not a lot of oversight testimony. No one was really called on the carpet after Butler. So there are some lingering questions. Let's turn now to immigration. Protesters have been demonstrating for days outside Delaney Hall. That's a federal immigration detention center in New Jersey, where they say detainees are on a hunger strike over poor conditions. Dozens of people held signs saying stop family separation and free them all.

38:27Democratic members of Congress have been visiting the center this week. they describe what they call, quote, inhumane conditions at the privately run facility. On Tuesday, New Jersey Representative Rob Menendez spoke to press gathered at the site. Health care and access to health care is almost non-existent, despite what GEO Group says, and the food company continues to be abhorrent. So the conditions aren't such that, in my opinion, they can be fixed. And for all these people who don't have criminal records, they can easily be returned to their families on an alternative to detention. We're an ankle monitor.

38:58They could easily be added here if ICE wanted to do that, but they don't want to do that because, in my opinion, they're trying to break people inside this facility. The Department of Homeland Security has denied any hunger strike, abuse or poor conditions inside the center and called the protests a political stunt. We did just get this email from Dan saying, I haven't heard much in non-independent media about this whatsoever. However, I understand Trump keeps reporters off kilter with wishy-washy, quote, negotiations all the time. But this Delaney Hall crisis is due to people being treated terribly in the facility, government law enforcement throwing protesters into traffic and generally escalating.

39:38And this is happening blatantly on U.S. soil. Taylor, what do we know about the conditions inside the facility? It's been interesting because you heard what those Democratic lawmakers are saying, and some of them have gotten access to the facility because they serve on congressional committees that allow them access to it. The governor, Mikey Sherrill, has not been able to get inside, and she's tried a couple of times. People might have seen images of New Jersey Senator Andy Kim getting pepper sprayed earlier this week. So they're all arguing that this hunger strike is happening because the conditions are so poor, lack of access to medical care, inconsistent meals and meals that are not large enough portions to help out these folks who are in this detention facility.

40:17I actually grew up about 16 miles away from it in New Jersey, so it's interesting to see it in the spotlight now. What's striking, there's a new Homeland Security Secretary, Mark Wayne Mullen, and this is kind of his first big test. And he's been very public in pushing back on all of this, saying the conditions are perfectly okay. DHS has inspectors who go into these facilities and conduct oversight, and he hasn't seen anything that raises alarms. But the demonstrations outside have generated a whole lot of attention. It's kind of the latest flashpoint when you think back to what we saw in Minnesota at the start of the year.

40:46A new EAP investigation found a concerning spike in the number of ICE detainees dying by suicide since January of 2025. Ten deaths, that's nearly a fifth of all deaths in ICE custody, have been ruled suicide. Josh, why do we know why this is happening? And I think this is also something where, as we're talking about this New Jersey facility, we wonder how representative perhaps these conditions might be in other ICE detention facilities. Well, it's just not clear. And that's why all these things are fueling concerns, as are, by the way, the pepper spraying or pepper bombing or whatever it is of a U.S.

41:18senator. Secretary Mullen downplayed that, by the way, saying that Senator Kim shouldn't have been there or maybe shouldn't have been there, which is, I think, was a real eyebrow raiser. also indicated that they weren't accommodating people with religious or special dietary needs. In this, they later walked that back. So it's just very unclear right now. This is all part and parcel, of course, of the president's crackdown on migration and immigration. Can I just ask you quickly, we're almost out of time, but the Trump administration also announced some major changes to the green card application process, saying applicants must now apply from their home countries instead of the U.S.

41:51Alana, if you would quickly want to just share some final thoughts on that? Yeah, this is a potentially earth-shattering shift. if it's applied as harshly as the administration marketed it. What happened here was a lot of black and white tweets that were followed by a very vague memo that doesn't have the force of regulation and appears to contradict itself at times. The real question here is, will this lead to just more family separations and or will it affect the tech industry, which heavily relies on H-1B visa holders? Thanks so much to our panel this week for joining us in studio. Alana Shore, Senior Washington Editor for Semaphore.

42:22Josh Wingrove, Washington correspondent and senior White House reporter at Bloomberg, and Taylor Poplarz, national political reporter based at the White House for Spectrum News. We're just getting started with the week's headlines. When we come back after the break, we'll have a new panel and all the news from around the globe. We'll be right back.

42:43Welcome back to the 1A podcast. We're doing things a little differently on this week's show in conversation with our friends at the BBC, which I would like to dub our special relationship. Here with me in the WAMU studio, Asma Khalid. She's co-host of the BBC podcast, The Global Story. Hi, Asma. Welcome back to 1A. Thank you. Glad to be back. And joining us from Paris, her co-host, Tristan Redmond, who's also, as I said, co-host of The Global Story. Hi, Tristan. Hello. Thanks for having me. And we're going to be going around the world this hour with the co-hosts of The Global Story. Let's kick things off with news from Cuba.

43:17Joining us now is Will Grant, BBC's Mexico, Central America, and Cuba correspondent. Hi, Will. It's great to have you. Thanks very much for having me. Yeah, it's great to be here. Let's start with the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. This is Marco Rubio at a cabinet meeting in Washington on Wednesday. Cuba's in a lot of trouble because, unfortunately for them, it's run by a bunch of incompetent communists. Being communist is bad. Being an incompetent communist is like the worst. So we'll be talking to them. We'll be working on it. You know, we want something good for the Cuban people. And hopefully there'll be a good outcome there for them.

43:49There needs to be. It's 90 miles from our shores. and having a failed state 90 miles from our shores is a threat to the national security of the United States. Well, you were just in Havana on a reporting trip soon after the indictment of Raul Castro on May 20th that follows President Trump's executive order earlier this month that imposed secondary sanctions on Cuba's mining industry. Marco Rubio sent a Cuban Independence Day message to the island's citizens where the secretary himself, a son of Cuban immigrants, told Cubans it's their government standing in the way of a better future. Will, in your conversations with people in Cuba right now, what are they making of the recent moves and upped pressure by the Trump administration?

44:32Well, there's a few things there, isn't there, in the Michael Rubio clip. I mean, first off, he says that, you know, there's nothing worse than incompetent communists. But I think the reply from the Communist Party or certainly from the government on the island would be that they've not had the opportunity to enact anything that they want. They've not been able to operate properly, as it were, for 60 years because of the US economic embargo. And that is always at the tip of their tongues whenever you ask them about anything to do with the economy or relations with the United States and so on. And so that would be the first thing.

45:12And of course, that has been ramped up so much in recent months with the near total fuel blockade, which has made life extremely difficult. But in the context of the indictment against Raul Castro, I was there when that was announced. And people are very uneasy, very uncertain and unsure about what the future looks like. Because for many people, even those who aren't necessarily supportive of the government on the island or definitely want change they do feel like this smacks of a pretext for some form of military action and given that they are so they're struggling so much to get through daily life just to survive really without fuel without electricity with these long long blackouts every day then the idea of additional you know problems military action a forced change of government, all these sorts of things, creates, as I say, uncertainty and fears among ordinary people.

46:15We got this email from Diane in Xenia, Ohio, listening on WVXU, and she said, what our government is doing to Cubans is beyond cruel. It's a crime. Stop the sanctions and the Cuban people will have the strength to make changes to their government. It's clear to me that it's not about communism. Will, I wonder if you can just react to that and just share your observations about what you noticed about daily life on the island as people are navigating these shortages? Well, the fuel shortages, the fuel blockade has become crippling now. I've been, since President Nicholas Maduro was removed from power in the military action on the 3rd of January, I've been often to Cuba this year, four times, I think, and each time I've stayed sort of days or so.

47:05Each time it gets noticeably worse. And on this latest trip, it really is desperation. People, I've seen cooking with firewood, the trash in the streets, people are setting that on fire because the garbage trucks aren't coming around that belong to the state to pick that up. There's associated, you know, public health issues with that. But the key point now is it's getting hot. we're getting into the summer months. And that brings with it, you know, hurricane season, clouds of mosquitoes. Yeah, exactly. And heat at night, people can't sleep without electricity because they have no air conditioning or fans.

47:43So it is a very, very rough picture. People are being ground down. That appears to be obviously the deliberate tactic to lead to some kind of protest. And there have been protests. It's been interesting. There was one while I was there and people were calling for the electricity to be put back on. That is the essence of their call, that, you know, bring the electricity back. When it comes back on, they stayed on the streets for a while, chanting libertad, freedom. So there is anger, but these remain very sporadic, small-scale protests. There's nothing island-wide or nothing coordinated. In the U.S., it's very difficult to have the Cuba conversation without talking about the Cuban diaspora, particularly in South Florida.

48:27Asma, in a recent episode of the global story, you spoke to Cecilia Barria, a journalist based in Miami for BBC Mundo. Let's hear some of that. Some of them said, yes, absolutely. We would like the U.S. military going into the island the same way they did in Venezuela with Nicolás Maduro, the leader of Venezuela. They're going to do it. I know they're going to do it. They're going to bring him back to the United States and serve sentence and serve time, whatever it is. But at least this is the first step that we needed. Other Cuban-Americans, they were kind of skeptics about that. I think that the Cubans should resolve their problems on their own.

49:07I think that anybody that expects for a nation, however generous like the United States is, to liberate us, it's mistaken. Asma, what do you make of the timing of the pressure on Cuba as we're thinking about midterm elections looming and we're thinking about, particularly South Florida, although the Cuban diaspora across the U.S.? Yeah. I mean, I think there's a couple of things at play here. I mean, one of the things that I think is interesting is you're right. You can't really have a conversation in the United States about Cuba without also thinking about the Cuban-American electorate. I'm not just saying this because I'm from Miami.

49:42Because you're from Florida. But I think that the challenge is that the midterm elections are not a national election in the true sense. And so what might be advantageous for a Cuban-American demographic, a Cuban-American electorate in a part of Florida isn't necessarily advantageous in Michigan or in Minnesota. I want to point two things real quick. I do think, as you heard from Cecilia, there is certainly a chunk of Republican voters who support what President Trump's ambitions, however they might be, right, to put additional pressure and strength on additional pressure on Cuba. I think that the other challenge, though, is that you look at an American electorate that sees President Trump's global adventures, we could say, increasing adventures around the globe, whether it's in Venezuela or Iran, and has questions about why a president who said he was going to focus on the United States and on domestic policy is engaged, particularly in the war in Iran.

50:41And I don't know how you separate Cuba from that, particularly if Cuba in some capacity evolves into a military escapade. But I don't know that it is. I don't actually know what President Trump's end goal is here. I do think the comparison to Venezuela and whether or not that's valid is a big question that people have. In January, just a reminder, U.S. forces forcibly removed President Nicolas Maduro and his wife from their home, brought them to the U.S. on narco-terrorism charges. A month later, President Trump told the New York Times the operation was, quote, the perfect scenario. Why was it, quote, perfect in Trump's view?

51:16The Global Story asked the BBC's South American correspondent, Ioni Wells, about this back in March. For him, it's a perfect scenario because he has essentially managed to successfully install, you know, to be blunt about it, a puppet government for the U.S. right now in Venezuela. It's a government that now complies with him. Tristan, what do we know about how much President Trump may be using the blueprint of Maduro and Venezuela with Cuba. Well, it's very difficult to say, isn't it? I mean, Asma and I often talk about this question of how can anyone really know about what's going on in his head?

51:53And I feel sitting here in Paris, very unqualified to pontificate on what he might be doing. But the patterns do appear to be there, don't they? Well, what do you think there are some key differences as we're thinking about this scenario of Venezuela versus Cuba now? My feeling is that he has that Venezuelan moment on a bit of a pedestal in his mind, that it really was clean, it was strategic, it was surgical, and it was quick. Although the result of that now, though, is not all of those things in Venezuela. But I would suggest that that doesn't matter to him in quite the same way. I mean, what he has obtained from that quick, clean, surgical operation is, as I only was saying, a government that basically is craven to his will, which is precisely what he wanted.

52:42And he has the threat further action up his sleeve if he wants to. He can say, you're going to be on charges unless you do what I want. And there is an obvious oil bonanza in that, in the Venezuelan example. In the Cuban example, there isn't that oil. So what is there? There's real estate, there's tourism, so on. It's hard to know quite whether such a sort of similar act could be taken out, can't be carried out, and who would be, as it were, the Cuban Delci Rodriguez? Who would replace Raul Castro or President Miguel Diaz-Canel? Let's move to Iran and bring in Parham Gabbadi, senior reporter for BBC Persian Service.

53:23Parham, thanks for being with us. Thanks for having me. Len, let's just talk, first of all, about where we're at. Asma, we know that we're seeing some reports that maybe we've reached a deal to extend the ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran by 60 days. That agreement has not yet received a sign-off from President Trump. Iran's semi-official Tasneen news agency says the text of the framework has not yet been finalized or confirmed. This would be a memorandum of understanding? That is our understanding. And I preface this by saying that Yesterday, U.S. sources did tell, news outlets here in the U.S., that a tentative agreement had been reached in the Iran negotiations.

54:05Now, as you say, I don't know that that's clear that Iran has signed off. It is also, we were told, pending approval from President Trump. I want to put a lot of caveats around this, though, and also say we heard from the vice president say that there is not a deal yet yesterday, that they are close to a deal. We've heard President Trump many times over the last several weeks suggest that they are perhaps a wee bit closer than they actually are. So I don't know that we have a deal yet at all. Regardless, Parham, what reaction are we hearing from average people inside Iran? What have they told you about how they want the war to end?

54:44So, you know, Iran was in a digital blackout for almost three months, 88 days to be precise. So after the internet was connected, the most grievance that Iranians have, their main issue right now, it's economic grievances. The economy is in really bad shape. So I just posted something on my social media yesterday and asked people to tell me about their life conditions after they're connected. Almost everyone wrote to me about the economic hardship that they're going through. They were saying that, you know, before the war, Iran's economy was at its knees. And now after the war has pushed it even more to the edge.

55:25And I can read, if I have enough time, I can read a few of them. Please do. Yeah. Because like I said, yeah. Give us a sense of daily life. A mom from Tehran told me. Yeah. So a mom from Tehran told me every shopping trip, if you can afford it, brings a great deal of anger because everything is so expensive. And if you can't afford it, the result is malnutrition and a sense of deprivation, especially for children. Another person told me that just a kilo of meat in Iran right now is 1.8 million tomans, which is almost 10 bucks, 10 US dollars, right? Now, what is the minimum wage in the United States?

56:00I was checking it right before the program. It's something about 16, 17 months, depending on the state. Now, that is like less than an hour work in the United States, right? Now, keep in mind that Iran's minimum wage is$95 to$100 per month. So paying$10, it means paying a tenth of your salary just for a kilo of meat. And that is what people are going through. So they were telling me that many elements, many basic necessities are just vanishing from their dinner tables. Meat grows like vegetables. One woman was telling me that I have two kids and I haven't bought vegetables for them for the past three months.

56:38The other one was a business owner, said that I am selling the assets of my companies in order to pay three months of overdue wages to my workers. Another man from Shiraz in southern Iran wrote to me and said that the economic situation has always been bad. But these days it's a disaster. Prices are going up by minute. There's no work, there's no money, and we are experiencing a slow death. Baham, did you get any sense when you heard from these people of who they were blaming for these economic difficulties? Are they blaming the United States or are they blaming their own government? So, well, that differs.

57:16That differs what political affiliation you have. However, the vast majority of Iranians at the end of the day blame the Iranian regime for that because they are saying we are in a fight that we did not choose. We did not choose to become, to destroy and annihilate Israel. That was not our goal. We did not choose to be U.S.'s main enemy. This is, as soon as, from inception, Islamic Republic, as soon as it came to power, we had the hostage crisis for 444 days. You know, so it was this animosity, like Khomeini, the founder of Islamic revolution, said that Israel is a cancerous tumor that needs to be removed.

57:59Interestingly enough, Mushtaq Khomeini, the third Iranian supreme leader in his two days ago, I think, or three days ago, in his one of the latest messages that he published, again, written statement read by news anchors, not live or no video or no audio. He said exactly the same thing. He said that Israel is a tumorous cancer that needs to be removed. And referring to his late father, he said that, like what my father said 10 years ago, Israel would not see the light of day in 25 years. So he's kind of borrowing the same animosity towards Israel from his father and from the founder of the Islamic Republic.

58:42So it shows that nothing has changed so far. If anything, this regime has become more hardliner. And Barham, as you mentioned, Supreme Leader Khomeini has not been seen or heard from since he was appointed. What do we know about the role he's playing in Iran's government right now? So, well, like I said, he has not been seen. Like, first, I can give you an example. His father-in-law was live on TV. And when he was asked by the news anchor that how Moshtaba Khomeini's well-being is, wherever he is, he said that, well, I haven't seen him since the war began. So I want to send my regards to him through this life.

59:19Father-in-law. His father-in-law said that. Father-in-law, yeah. Who lost? And yeah, his daughter, who was Moshtaba's wife, was killed during the attack. So he's hiding somewhere, if he's alive. If he's alive, he's hiding somewhere. We do not have any idea about his well-being, how his health condition is. But according to Iranian media, they are saying that he's running the show. But we cannot be sure if that is true or to what extent there's truth to that statement. Given everything you've talked about, Parham, does this matter to Iranians who's in charge right now? Well, what matters the most is that the outcome of these attacks on this war.

1:00:03So whether it's him or some hardline elements in the Revolutionary Guard, the point is that, you know, there was always this kind of rivalry between, you know, the technocrats in Iran, especially if they were reformist or, you know, moderate, and the hardliners and the Revolutionary Guard. What is obvious right now is that the Revolutionary Guards and the hardliners have the upper hand. So this regime, and they are in charge. Well, the, you know, social conditions, like when it comes to hijab and things like that, there is no sign that they are pushing for a more rigorous, you know, suppression.

1:00:45But when it comes to political issues, freedom of expression, internet, for example, things like that, it appears that the government has become more willing to crack down on any sort of dissent and protest. Parham, this is Asma. I just want to follow up on something about the internet because we've had you on The Global Story a couple of times over the last several months. And it has been really difficult, as you say, to connect with people inside Iran. You can get through Starlink, other mechanisms. This week, with the loosening of internet restrictions to some degree, why did the Iranian government allow that to happen?

1:01:19What was the impetus for allowing some of this internet freeing? That's a very good question. So it appeared, again, that there was a rift in the establishment because hardliners didn't want to lift the sanction. So there were some elements, some figures that they went to the Iranian judiciary and filed complaints to block that from happening. But the government that is dealing with Iranians' livelihood and everyday problems insisted on, you know, connecting the Internet again because they know that many Iranians make their, you know, make their livelihood through Internet. Many of them have online shops.

1:01:59There are many. And because of the Internet's disconnectivity, there were layoffs. People lost their, you know, their jobs. So the government was pushing for, you know, connection and the hardliners were trying to stop that from happening because they're in their ideal world. I think it appears that they're looking for a Chinese model, some kind of an intranet, internet, like a domestic kind of, you know, space that they can do everything inside the country, but they can control the narrative and not allow people to easily get connected and have access to the outside world. Parham, can we infer from this that the government is hyper aware of the economic problems and doesn't want them to get worse?

1:02:47Is that something we can read into this restoration of the Internet? Yes. And not even the only government, but also Iranian Supreme Leader Moshev al-Khamenei is aware of that. In the same message that he was, you know, again promising to annihilate Israel, he was saying, no, I'm sorry, the day after that he published another message. And he said he was, you know, addressing Iranian parliamentarians. And then he said that the first issue that we have to solve should be Iran's livelihoods and economic situation. So it's an admission that he knows how grave the situation is and Iranian economy is in dire straits.

1:03:27But there's one more thing. There was another concern that Iranian government has. And that they know that these kind of restrictions, what it's going to do is that their people are going to go more towards buying Starlink. And then they have no control over Starling. And that's unfettered access to the Internet is what you're saying, right, Parham? Yeah, exactly. They can filter it, yeah. Parham, quickly, I think Americans have seen, and this has been global all over the world, the viral Iranian propaganda, sloppaganda, if we want to call it, the Lego videos. Are people in Iran seeing that? Well, you know, it's very different.

1:04:07That's for international audience. No. You know, they know that they are familiar with this kind of propaganda. I understand how fascinating it is for the world because, you know, it's as if some Gen Zs or, you know, someone who's very, very well versed with, you know, Western culture is making these videos. So that can be quite impressive for a Western audience. But for Iranian audience, it does not have the same resonance because they are the ones dealing with their day-to-day problems in Iran. They are the one who are suffering the most because of this war. And they do not find these videos probably neither funny, especially those who oppose the regime.

1:04:53Those thousands of Iranians were killed in January and just a few months ago. So, you know, and then they went through a war that some people hoped that would topple the regime. Not only that did not happen, if anything happened, is that the hard line has consolidated the power. President Trump posted on Truth Social earlier saying the naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz will be lifted and that he will meet in the White House Situation Room today to make a final decision on a deal with Iran. Parham, can you just remind us who has control over the Strait of Hormuz and the oil that can flow out of it, which has been, of course, dominating the headlines for weeks?

1:05:33And what has the IRGC said about control over the waterway? So that's the main sticking point right now, because, as I mentioned earlier, the war began with Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu aimed for regime change. But right now, the situation we're in is that the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has become the most important thing. And that is the main sticking point in the negotiations. So IRGC has blocked the access, but then U.S. has imposed the sea blockade, technically blocking Iranian vessels from going through. So it's a blockade over a blockade. But the point is that Iranians seem really, really adamant to keep the control over the Strait of Hormuz because the war was the Western deterrence, was the sword of the Damocles over Iranians' head.

1:06:25Now they've survived that war and they feel more confident. So they want to take a prize home and they want to have a guarantee that the United States and Israel would never attack Iran again. So this they have found out that is more important than the nuclear program that they had. I wanted to play a clip from the Global Story earlier this week. Tristan, you spoke to the BBC's international editor, Jeremy Bowen, and asked if this might be the week Donald Trump loses the art of the deal and perhaps the entire war with Iran. This is what he said. You know, the very fact that the Americans are talking and horse trading with the Iranians is just miles away from where Donald Trump started on the 28th of February, where he said, essentially, there was going to be regime change.

1:07:13And it was all going to happen very quickly. And that hasn't happened. And when plan A didn't work, he didn't have a plan B, C or D. And now he's trying to find a way to reverse out of it. Tristan, what else did Jeremy Bowen indicate where the U.S. president got so wrong with this war with Iran? Well, I should start by saying that Jeremy Bowen is an extremely mild-mannered and evenly balanced reporter. So when he says things like this, it's because he's taking the situation pretty seriously. I mean, we asked Jeremy about a thing that a Scottish international relations professor from the University of St.

1:07:52Andrews had said. We asked him if the US performance in this war was the quickest and most decisive defeat in US history, which was the opinion of this Scottish, well-regarded international relations professor. And Jeremy thought that that was a fair assessment, even if it was harsh. He feels like the United States has gone into this without a sufficient plan. And now it has a very, very challenging task ahead of it to try and extricate itself convincingly from the conflict. Yeah, we've actually got a little clip of that. Let's just play some of that. I've thought from the beginning, the beginning of this war, is that when historians of the future write the histories of the, you know, the decline of the United States and its imperial power, They'll be writing, well, initially I thought it might be just a chapter on this.

1:08:54I think it might be an entire volume on the significance of this war for America's position in the world, particularly at a time when they are alienating and losing allies elsewhere, not least here in Europe. Parham, that's sort of a global view. I just want to end with asking you about the view inside Iran, what your final thoughts are on what people are thinking there. disappointment, total disappointment and fear of the future. When I talk to people, especially the younger generations, they are saying that they have no hope for the future because they went in masses nationwide on the street trying to bring a change, trying to topple this regime, and they were killed in tens of thousands.

1:09:37And their last hope, those who opposed this regime, who are many of them, they thought that this war would bring this regime to an end, And it did not do that. So many Iranians, especially the younger generation, are totally feeling disappointed and helpless and hopeless. That's Parham Gabadi, senior reporter for BBC Persian Service. Thank you for joining us today. Asma, can I just have you react a little bit to some of that audio? Because I think for a lot of people in an American audience, they might be surprised to hear a conversation thinking about the historical context of what this war might mean for America's role historically.

1:10:14Yeah, and myself included. It is really striking to hear how in the history books will be written about the United States, how this moment might be viewed. I think the last six months, we've done a series of episodes about the United States, its role in the world, the so-called spheres of influence and how some of that is changing. And you see that not just in geopolitics. We had an episode this week looking at the race to make EV cars. And the biggest selling EV maker now in the world is a Chinese car company that is effectively banned from being sold here in the United States. But you see it everywhere else.

1:10:48And you see it everywhere. They operate London city buses, right? You'll see their dealerships in Morocco and Mexico. And yet it's sort of like there is a world happening, I think, sometimes that we are not always privy to. I think if I can say one other thing on this is, in fact, we have been thinking a lot about how we want to talk about the 250th anniversary of the United States. And we've decided that we want to do this as a series of stories that are going to look at how the U.S. has shaped the world over these last 250 years. Because there's a lot the U.S. has done that I think affects the rest of the world.

1:11:20Tristan, bringing it back to Iran, your thoughts? Well, I think that there have been a lot of pivotal moments over the last couple of years, haven't there? There's October the 7th, the war in Gaza. This is a big one as well. I think that the fact that it's coinciding with the 250th anniversary of the United States, all of this, is something that's bringing mixed emotions all around the world. I mean, I wasn't around in 1976 for the last big anniversary. I'm not quite that old. But I gather there was a great sense of celebration around the world and in the United States at that moment. And I think feelings might be a little bit more mixed in some parts of the world, particularly in Europe where I'm sitting.

1:12:05People are not universally, don't speak with one voice on how they feel about the United States right now, but there are definitely some trickier feelings and a sense of greater tension than there used to be. Before we get to Europe, let's just take a quick stop in Lebanon, the second front in the war with Iran. Military officials from Lebanon and Israel are set to meet today in Washington to discuss a ceasefire that's been continuing in name only. On Thursday, Israel bombed a southern suburb of Beirut, which hadn't been hit since May 6th. On the global story last week, you talked about why it's so hard to end the war in Lebanon.

1:12:38Here's BBC Middle East correspondent Hugo Bachega in southern Lebanon in the village of Arab Salim. He met a man whose grocery store was destroyed when Israel bombed a building next door. This building was targeted back in April when, And, you know, the Israeli military carried out that massive attack across the country for 10 minutes. More than 100 targets were hit. We are all civilians here, but the community supports Hezbollah because they're defending us. And I thought it was very interesting that essentially he said, look, we are supporting Hezbollah here because there's nobody else to protect us.

1:13:16We're the ones putting Hezbollah flags over destroyed shops and buildings here in the village. Not them. They're the only ones keeping us on our land. Asma, of course, this war is between Israel and Hezbollah, a militant and political group in Lebanon. It's not between Israel and the Lebanese government. What are the other main challenges to ending this war? There's a couple of big challenges. One is that Iran doesn't want to see a deal on the front of the Iran war unless there's also this total cessation of hostilities, an end to the war in Lebanon. And that's tricky for the United States because the United States is not actually party to that war.

1:13:54It's a war, as you say, between Israel and Hezbollah. Another big issue is that Israel, the Israeli government, wants to see Hezbollah completely disarmed. That is unclear to me if that sort of order of operations, what will happen first. They want that to happen. Lebanon wants Hezbollah to completely, I'm sorry, Lebanon wants Israel to completely withdraw from territory that it has expanded into and occupied in southern Lebanon. Lebanese people who live in the south want that as well. And so ultimately what will happen first is unclear. One thing I want to mention, though, about the talks today that I thought was interesting is these are talks happening at a military level and they're happening at the Pentagon.

1:14:35That I think is interesting because to date, all the talks that have been happening have occurred at a diplomatic level at the State Department. And one of the ongoing tensions is if you ultimately want to resolve this problem on a permanent basis, the Lebanese government has said, well, we don't have the tools, we don't necessarily have the equipment to do that. They can't necessarily take on Hezbollah themselves. And so to see these talks happening now today at the Pentagon, to me, just caught my attention. Now, what amounts to it? Who knows? We've been talking for a year and a half about the shifting global order underway during President Trump's second term.

1:15:09And Tristan, you were just alluding to this, right? European leaders have not backed the war in Iran. They are backing Ukraine's war against Russia. But we wanted to talk about the shifts within these governments. Tristan, it's been six weeks since Hungarians voted out their prime minister of 16 years and Trump ally, Viktor Orban. Center-right leader Peter Magyar now leads the country. What moves are most significant to you in Magyar's opening weeks as PM? ah well um as asmo will be able to testify hungary is one of the stories i find most interesting in europe and um it's something of a bellwether in my view um not just for uh europe but for parts of the rest of the world as well what happens in hungary historically sometimes happens elsewhere and uh hungary's been through a seismic couple of months victor orban a close friend of Donald Trump, the guy who wrote the European Populist Playbook, has been voted out of office after 16 years as prime minister of the country.

1:16:11And he has ceded control to a guy called Peter Magyar. And Peter Magyar won in a landslide on a kind of anti-corruption platform in Hungary. but you know it's been seen on its face as a sort of resurgence of centrism in a country which has been dominated by a hard right populist government for quite some time now but it may not be as simple as that Peter Magyar himself although he's you know he's he's making nice with Brussels right now. He's actually in Brussels today, I believe, meeting with the president of the European Commission. And they're talking about renewing ties, improving ties, unblocking EU funds that could go to Hungary.

1:17:05And so, you know, Hungary is on a new footing. But Peter Magyar is maybe not what people think he is. Yeah, Tristan, so what are you watching for then, in that vein? Well, is he actually a kind of center-left leader, a kind of poster child, a sort of Emmanuel Macron, if you will? Centrists and people on the left in Europe got relatively excited in 2017 after the election of Donald Trump. And they saw Emmanuel Macron's election then as a kind of fight back from their political side of the coin. Magyar, it's not so clear if that is what he is. He may be a bit more of a political sphinx than people realize, but what he is doing is saying, I'm going to crack down on corruption.

1:17:53And he's been very visibly claiming to do that. He posts videos on social media walking through Viktor Orban's sort of quite lavish office. He says that his predecessor overspent. Obviously, Viktor Orban denies that. But he's made kind of anti-corruption his central policy. And Hungarians seem to be excited at the moment and into that because he won by a very, very large margin. Tristan, can you put this in context with what we're seeing in gains for the far right in Germany, France, Austria? And we're obviously going to get to this in the UK as well. yes well i mean having said the europeans don't speak uh with one voice there is um an inevitable trend that you cannot escape across many european countries um especially in the west france has an election next year 2027 um and the overwhelming favorite to win is a hard right far right depending on how you want to describe those contested terms uh candidate either marine le pen if she's allowed to run, or her right-hand man, a much younger candidate called Jordan Bardella.

1:19:10It would be the first time a far-right, hard-right candidate won the presidency in France. Germany, the party called AFD, are on the up. There are local elections later this year in Germany, and it's expected that AFD, alternative for Deutschland, alternative for Germany, as they're known, could win a state in the east of Germany. And it would be the first time a far right party actually assumed any kind of power in Germany since the Second World War. So that would be a really big moment. I mean, the tide in Europe is moving in that direction in many countries. And then just wanted to ask you as well, then, as we see this, what do you think the implications are for the war in Ukraine?

1:20:02And as we're thinking about EU and NATO and support? That's a very good question, Isla, because it's not a one-size-fits-all answer. Just because you are a conservative or hard-right leader in Europe doesn't necessarily mean that you're inclined to be anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia. In some countries, quite the opposite. So, for example, Georgia Maloney, who is a right-wing leader in Italy, who has in the past been very close to Donald Trump, that relationship is a bit rockier now than it used to be. She is a staunch defender of Ukraine. And the reasons for that are, you know, sometimes historical.

1:20:50So she comes from a party which has been described as a neo-fascist. And if you were a fascist in the old days in Italy, you would be anti-communist and you would lump Russia along with that. So you would be anti-Russian. So her reflex is to be anti-Russian. But it depends which country you're in. All in all, on balance, all of this is probably not great news for Ukraine in terms of getting the funding that they need to carry on the war. A lot of the leaders from the hard right and the far right who might be assuming power in Europe soon are for a negotiated settlement with Russia, even if they're not totally pro-Moscow in the way they pursue politics.

1:21:39That's Tristan Redman. We're also with Asma Khalid from the BBC Global Story. I'm Naila Boudou. This is 1A. Asma, we had a big state visit with King Charles and Queen Camilla visiting the U.S. last month ahead of America's 250th anniversary. It seemed to go well on this side of the pond with the state dinner, with King Charles addressing Congress. A month later, do we have anything material to show from this visit? I mean, look, I would say that the criticism that had been growing almost by the day that you heard from President Trump towards Keir Starmer seems to have quieted since King Charles came and visited.

1:22:21I did notice that. Remember, President Trump famously said that Keir Starmer was no Winston Churchill, which indeed he is not, right? But he is not actually Winston Churchill. But there was many more criticism, much more criticism that he had, I would say, over the last several weeks that has quieted. So yeah, you can say that. For the moment, things are in a bit of a holding pattern. Tristan, of course, the UK has cycled through six prime ministers in the 10 years since Brexit. As Asma noted, Keir Starmer, who no love lost with President Trump on that front, but is being asked to step down by MPs from his own Labour Party.

1:22:57What is the view from the UK for Starmer? Well, Keir Starmer, by most polls, It's suggested that he may be one of the most unpopular prime ministers in British history. But he's clinging on for the time being. There is considerable turmoil. And on the global story in the last few weeks, one of the things we've enjoyed doing is bringing asthma up to speed on British politics. And it's sometimes slightly Byzantine and impenetrable aspects. I mean, he is being challenged. On that note, then, what would you translate to the American audience about what they need to know about the upcoming leadership challenge?

1:23:44What do you need to know? What you need to know is that there is a tussle to replace Keir Starmer on the left in British politics and occupy Downing Street. There are a few candidates, most of whom are not household names outside of Britain. But the elephant in the room, politically speaking, the biggest character in British politics is a man called Nigel Farage, who is known outside of Britain. He's the leader of what's known as the Reform Party, but he has been described in the past as Mr Brexit. He was a strong campaigner for the Brexit referendum 10 years ago in June. And so he is surging up the right flank of British politics.

1:24:33There isn't an election for a few years, but if there were one held right now, polls suggest that Nigel Farage's party could come out of nowhere and might have a very good chance of seizing power, which would be unheard of because it would be breaking a monopoly of two parties on power, which has lasted for most of the time since the Second World War. So British politics, The thing to watch out for is what happens with Nigel Farage. The next election is not for a few years yet, but we have a parliamentary system when elections can happen earlier than you expect. So we'll be watching for that. We're out of time, unfortunately.

1:25:16I just want to ask both of you very quickly for a story that you're watching or one thing you wanted to mention. Okay, I'll mention the same as Tristan because I think we're in collaboration and in sync on this. Our show isn't just about war and geopolitics. We like to talk about culture, sports, film, music, places where the world and America meet. And so we have been on the side trying to convince our editors that we need to do an episode about Emily in Paris. Tristan, you're in Paris. That's right. So I need to let you have the last word. I'm in Paris and let it... Do you love it or hate it?

1:25:50How about that? I am not a fan. I'm afraid to say... All right, well, we'll have to leave it at that. A big thank you to our panelists today, Asma Khalid, co-host of the Global Story podcast, along with Tristan Redman. Have a great weekend, guys. Thanks for being with us. Earlier, you heard from the BBC's Will Grant and Parham Gabadi from the BBC Persian service. 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.

1:26:24and Thomas Liu produces our podcast. Special thanks to Matthew Simonson for additional on-demand support this week. This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR. I'm Naila Boodoo. This is One.

1:26:54Let it pass