The News Roundup For September 12, 2025

27:48All right, let's move on to a lot of new revelations this week on the connections between alleged sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, and powerful political figures in his orbit. On Monday, Epstein's estate delivered a handful of a handmade book of personal notes, drawings, images commissioned in 2003 for Epstein's 50th birthday to the House Oversight Committee. The book was compiled by Epstein's former girlfriend and associate, Jelaine Maxwell. Contributors include former President Bill Clinton, Trump lawyer Alan Dershowitz and President Donald Trump himself.

28:25himself. Now, the Wall Street Journal first reported on this book and Trump's apparent drawing and note back in July. Now the note appears to be exactly as the journal described it. The White House said Tuesday it would support having handwriting experts review the president's signature on that note to see if it's consistent with the one that appears in Epstein's birthday book. I have already seen many forensic analysts of signatures coming out. I believe it was the Daily Signal that published a piece with three separate signature analysts who said that this absolutely was not the president's authentic signature.

29:04And we have maintained that position all along. The president did not write this letter. He did not sign this letter. And that's why the president's external legal team is aggressively pursuing litigation against the Wall Street Journal, and they will continue to. That's Arthur Delaney, not able to hold back his incredulity at that statement there from White House Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt. Arthur, you have a reaction, I think. Well, there was a Daily Wire piece where they had some AI bots look at it, and they said, well, this isn't Trump's, but the Washington Post did go to the trouble of getting a handwriting analyst to say, oh, yeah, that's it, which anyone can see if you look at it with your eyes, it looks exactly like his signature.

29:46But, you know, they deny it's his letter. So we have to say it's apparently Trump's saucy birthday note to the most notorious sex offender in American history. The Wall Street Journal seemed to be prepared for this denial and also published side by side signatures, just Donald, the way he would sign a personal note back in the day with other notes. And there are many of them because he wrote a lot of notes that he was writing in that era to compare them side by side. Quick reminder that the lawsuit said the note did not exist at all, that it was a concoction. So they quickly pivoted to this isn't the signature, which you can Google Trump signature in one second, see that it is his signature or exactly like it.

30:31Eva, what were you hearing from lawmakers, others as they digested the Wall Street Journal confirmation of reporting that we've now had for two months about this notes and the side-by-side signatures? What are people saying? What are Republicans on the Hill saying? Well, mostly the response to this has been partisan, but this is something that the White House really can't run away from. I mean, this book has just a trove of records. It's a 238-page collection of photos, yearbook pages, song sheets, other mementos. It even has that 2007 non-prosecution agreement that Epstein had with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida.

31:16And so this is, I think, going to continue to be a persistent problem for this White House. We have already seen the issue sort of fracture the MAGA base. But for the most part, Republicans on the Hill have been really supportive of the president and eager to change the conversation. I saw Speaker of the House Mike Johnson asked if he thought the signature and the note was fake, and he said yes, he thought it was fake. That was his response. David, Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, who's done some reporting around this, asked a key question in the White House briefing this week of Carolyn Levitt, the White House press secretary.

31:51This was the gist of it. If Trump's signature is fake and a Democratic hoax, how is it included in a 23-year-old book that was handed over by Jeffrey Epstein's estate? I was at that White House press briefing and I started my report on it by highlighting Maggie Haberman for cutting to the chase. Because in the White House's version, the only logic could be somebody built a time machine. Some Democrat went back 22 years and planted this letter. I mean, it just doesn't make any sense. And Caroline Levitt is pulling an Orwellian thing here of trying to say, you know, don't believe your eyes. Two plus two equals five.

32:27I think the other point about this whole scandal is, you know, Donald Trump famously shrugs off all these political crises. But on this occasion, he's actually behaving like a typical politician with something to hide. You know, normally he's very transparent. He puts it all out there. He blatantly says, yes, I'll accept a$400 million jet from Qatar or whatever. This time, he's refusing to reveal the files. He's behaving like a politician who doesn't want you to know some deep, dark secret. Arthur, he's behaving like all of the political trouble and blowback and churn is not as bad as what's in the files.

33:04That's what one is led to conclude by the behavior here. Right. I mean, he's busted basically on this one, and they want to talk about other things. You can see him get upset when he's asked about it, which I think is a tell. He's not laughing it off. I wanted to say real quick that the House Oversight Committee Republicans got this. They did the subpoena to the Epstein estate, which, you know, to their credit and posted it. And they did say that they would not investigate the forged signature theory. Would not investigate. No. OK. Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer fired his ambassador to the United States over his association with Jeffrey Epstein this week.

33:47Peter Mandelson, Lord Mandelson, is a longtime Labor Party politician, and a series of notes and images from him were discovered in Epstein's 50th birthday book. And in this case, David, it led directly to Lord Mandelson's firing, different than the types of things that have happened. What do the Brits know that the Americans don't about the damage here? Well, there's certainly a different standard here, isn't there, in that Donald Trump sails on, but Peter Mandelson has been forced to resign over his Epstein links. a very unfortunate photograph of Mandelson sitting in a fluffy white dressing gown with Epstein, some very cringeworthy notes.

34:25And this is raising questions back in Britain about Keir Starmer's judgment, why appoint Mandelson in the first place. He does have a bit of a checkered history. He's been forced to resign in the past. And I, you know, having been at the British embassy several times with Mandelson, where he holds these gatherings with reporters, We were just there last week. It was all very pleasant, not a cloud in the sky. I know Mandelson himself will be devastated by this. He absolutely loved this job, and he was pretty good at being sycophantic towards Trump and his cabinet, and we'll have to see if the next ambassador can keep that up.

35:03Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, we've been following the bipartisan request for the Justice Department to release all of its investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein, lawmakers pushing for it. They include Republican Congressman Thomas Massey of Kentucky, Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California. And last week, Massey introduced what's called a discharge petition that would allow lawmakers to go around party leaders and bring a bill to the floor if 218 members of Congress support it. In other words, to go around and over the head of the speaker and put it on the floor. Or as of this week, that petition has 217 signatures, just four from Republican lawmakers.

35:45Eva McKenna, what's the latest on the discharge petition and the effort for a vote for the Epstein files on Capitol Hill? Well, James Walkinshaw, he's the newly elected congressman from Virginia in a special election that just happened this week. He just signed on to the petition. and a second special election is scheduled for later this month to replace the late, another congressman who passed. Jerry Connolly, I think. Yeah, Jerry Connolly. I think it's Raul Gahal. Oh, yeah. Oh, sorry. Other one. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. James Walkinshaw, he is replacing Connolly. And so that Democrat who is expected to win, because this is a heavily Democratic seat in a deep blue district, that would give the petition its 218th signature.

36:36So they are trucking along here, and it seems like they are eventually going to be able to do this. But this is at the deep frustration of the White House that Thomas Massey, a Republican, has been so willing to participate in this effort. Arthur, discharge petitions are a big deal because they go right over the head of the Speaker and basically rest his control of the agenda. But they also almost never succeed for that very reason. This one is on the cusp. I spoke to Thomas Massey on Thursday. He's very confident that this one will succeed because, like Eva said, just need that Democrat. He's stopped saying he needs more Republicans to sign it.

37:17And it's just a question of what happens next. Will Speaker Johnson try to change the rules of the House to thwart Massey? He said, hey, either way, that's a that's a referendum on this. And if it does pass, it would then have to pass the Senate. It would then have to be signed into the law by the president or his veto would have to be overridden. So that it's not it's it's very symbolic. Not sure it's going to become law, but Massey's getting somewhere. Meanwhile, in the Senate this week, Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York popped a surprise and forced a vote on an amendment requiring the Justice Department to release those documents.

37:54on Epstein. That move lost 51 to 49, David. Who voted for it and who voted against it? Well, unsurprisingly, Democrats were overwhelmingly in support of it. And I think there's, you know, something symbolic about that. And Chuck Schumer has to show his base that he's willing to fight because we do have a contrast here where Washington Democrats are often accused of being a bit spineless and weak-willed. And whereas the likes of Gavin Newsom and J.B. Pritzker are grabbing all the headlines. I do think the House's discharge petition does not have much hope either of making it through the Senate and will probably die there.

38:33I'm also interested by the subplot of all this of Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who's a supporter of that discharge position. And obviously she's been a staunch Trump ally for years, but she is showing some rebellious instincts on various issues. It's an economic news now that would have been gigantic news, but for other news this week across America. Revised job numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the U.S. economy added close to a million fewer jobs in 2024 and early 25 than the data had originally reported. In real terms, the economy added only about 850 ,000 jobs from March of 24 to March of 25, and that's about half as many as the BLS previously reported.

39:15Those updates come just weeks after Trump fired the bureau's commissioner over a separate set of revisions that erased most of the job gains that were reported through the spring. Eva, Republicans have been touting the strength of the labor market as a sign of a strong economy. We also got inflation numbers this week higher than expected. What story do these revisions and these economic numbers tell right now? Well, it indicates that the job growth is slowing and that the economy may even be entering a period of decline. And this is such a liability for Republicans, for this White House, because this is what they ran on.

39:56And this is the issue arguably most voters, as I was traveling across the country last year during the election, cared about. In fact, some voters were able to put aside some of the more controversial impulses of this president because they were so concerned about their bottom line, so concerned about cost of living, being able to buy a house. And so what you hear from Trump's critics is this is why he is doing everything to steer the conversation away from the economy, because at the end of the day, this is the issue that most voters truly care about. Meanwhile, this week, or shortly, I should say, the Federal Reserve is scheduled to meet next week to decide on those interest rates, the rate cut that Donald Trump has been hammering and hammering and hammering Jerome Powell and other Fed governors for.

40:46It appears now a lot of market analysts who I read, Arthur, think the data now show rate cut is coming. Yes, that revision to the jobs numbers is helpful for the rate cut case. And the big question is whether the magnitude of the cut, a quarter point or a half point. And it's terrible news for the economy. I think it's a clue that voters were on to something that the data wasn't showing, the revision to the jobs. Speaking of the Fed, a federal judge ruled to block Donald Trump's firing of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook this week. Now, that ruling allows Cook to keep her job on the board until her mortgage fraud case, which was uncovered by Trump allies in the Trump administration, until that case is decided on Wednesday.

41:34The Justice Department appealed that judge's ruling. David, what's next in this case? Yeah, we just wait for the next legal development and how strongly the Trump administration wants to push this. I think, you know, again, so many strands to it in terms of she's the first black woman to serve in that position. It was seen as another example of Trump's alleged authoritarianism trying to interfere in the Fed. But it's also a sign that while many would say Congress and various other institutions have been buckling under the pressure from Trump, the courts are still holding and quite robust and handing Trump some defeats.

42:14and Donald Trump trying to find some cause to use to fire Lisa Cook because he can't fire her without cause. I want to thank our panel who joined us during a very difficult week, Arthur Delaney, senior reporter for HuffPost, Eva McKend, national politics correspondent for CNN, and David Smith, Washington bureau chief for The Guardian. Before we head to the global edition of the roundup, I wanted to give the last word to former Washington, D.C. police officer Michael Fanone, who was injured while helping defend the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. Fanone wrote this yesterday. He says, in part, I don't grieve for Charlie Kirk's ideas and I won't sanitize what he represented, but I know what it's like to be on the business end of political violence.

42:59I felt fists, flagpoles and tasers on January 6th. I heard men scream that they were going to kill me in the name of Donald Trump. That day taught me something too many of us are still trying to ignore. Once political violence becomes acceptable, once you decide that your enemy isn't just wrong but expendable, you don't control where that leads. Charlie Kirk's death doesn't make him a martyr. It doesn't redeem his politics, but it does mark another line that we've crossed in this country, a line that should never have been crossed in the first place. If you shrug it off because it happened to the other side, you're part of the same sickness that's rotting this country.

43:37Violence is not politics. And if we don't reclaim that principle right now, we're going to lose the very thing that makes this place worth fighting for. That's from former D.C. police officer Michael Fanone. We'll be back with more of the Roundup in just a moment. Stay with us.

44:00Let's turn now to the global edition of the News Roundup, Here to help us understand and digest some of the biggest stories from around the world this week, Amy McKinnon, U.S.-Europe foreign affairs correspondent at the Financial Times. Hi, Amy. Hi, Todd. Good to be here. Good to have you. Alex Ward is here, national security reporter covering the White House and the State Department at the Wall Street Journal. He's also author of The Internationalists. As always, Alex, great to see you. Yeah, good to see you. And joining us on the line from Dubai, Greg Karlstrom, Middle East correspondent for The Economist.

44:31Great to talk to you again, Greg. Good to be with you again. All right, let's start this week in Doha, Qatar, where on Tuesday Israel launched an attack on Hamas's political leaders gathered there to consider a U.S. proposal for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. Tuesday's strike killed at least six people in a neighborhood that's home to foreign embassies and schools. Here's a little bit of what that attack sounded like on the ground in Doha.

45:08Oh, my goodness. Now, that strike has drawn widespread condemnation and created a dramatic escalation in the region. Alex Ward, who was the target of the attack and why now? So the target was Hamas political leadership, including the chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayat. But it turns out, as you noted, that six lower level Hamas political representatives in Qatar seem to have been killed. and the top leadership, according to Hamas, has not been killed. And so Israel's targets for the attack were not eliminated, which some would say then is a failed operation. But the reason for doing this now remains a little bit unclear.

45:42I mean, we've been able to report, you know, Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, told Trump on a call that he sort of saw a window of opportunity to go after Hamas' political leadership and decided to take it, despite not notifying the U.S. ahead of time, really, without providing any sense of coordination. And I guess if you listen to Netanyahu, his justification is, These are Hamas representatives. Hamas are terrorists. They perpetrated the October 7th attack two years ago. And so you should be – they are viable targets, but this has led to condemnation for two main reasons. One, Qatar is a U.S.

46:11ally. It's – again, for Israel to do this without notifying the U.S. or Qatar, et cetera, is a major violation of sovereignty. And the other reason is, yes, they are Hamas, but these are the negotiators. And you don't usually go after the negotiators in a peace conversation. Well, as you mentioned, Qatar, not only a U.S. ally but a mediator in the Middle East. They have relations with countries and groups that oppose one another, hence the mediator role like between the United States and Iran or in this case Hamas and Israel. Why is Doha the base for these Hamas leaders? What were they doing there?

46:45Well, that's where they've been set up since at least 2012. So Hamas was in Syria then, but there was a big civil war. And then they were sort of asked, pressured to move. And they moved to Qatar. And the U.S. at the time said, all right, this is all well and good. But one thing we should note is that there has been growing pressure from both Democrats and Republicans for Hamas to no longer be in Qatar. Part of that was because of, of course, the October 7th attack. But also the plan was basically once there is a deal from the Biden administration to now the Trump administration, the plan has been push Hamas out.

47:17So they were not going to have a home there much longer. Well, Alex mentioned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who clearly gave the order for this strike in Doha. He spoke at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, saying it was, as Alex mentioned, part of Israel's stated mission to avenge the Hamas-led October 2023 attack. Israel acted wholly independently, wholly independently, and we take full responsibility for this action. And this action can open the door to an end of the war, end of the war in Gaza. Israel has accepted the principles, the proposal put forward by President Trump to end the war.

47:55beginning with the immediate release of all our hostages, which have been held in the dungeons of Gaza for 700 days. A global reaction, though, was swift. Qatar condemned the attack, calling it, quote, cowardly and a flagrant violation of international law. Amy McKinnon, what do you hear in that statement and the context that it implies there from Netanyahu? Well, you mentioned Qatar's response there. I mean, the Qataris have been furious at this, absolutely furious. Qatar's prime minister was on CNN earlier this week using very sharp language, unusually sharp language for mediator state. He described the attack as barbaric.

48:34He said it had killed any hope for the hostages that remain in Gaza and that the attack actually took place on the same day that he was meeting families of the hostages to discuss those ongoing negotiations. Initially, the Qataris had said that they would persist in their role as mediators, that they would continue. However, that now seems to be being called into question. The Qatari prime minister telling CNN that he was now reassessing everything in light of this strike. And if Qatar were to bow out of mediating these talks, it's very unclear who would then fill that role. Because what Qatar crucially has is it hosts Hamas, but it also has credibility with the group as an intermediary, as an interlocutor.

49:16And it's very unclear what state or what entity could fill that role in kind of running between Hamas and Israel and the United States. in trying to get this deal done. Greg Karlstrom, you hear Amy echoing the Qataris in their statements that this kills, in their view, any hope of hostage releases, but also damages their mediation role. What's your read on sort of the longer-term view here, how this attack might add more volatility to the region and how it affects the Qataris' role? I think for a while now, Qatar has wanted to back away from this role as a mediator between Israel and Hamas. Alex is right that there's been growing pressure from Democrats and Republicans to push Hamas out of Doha.

50:01And there were some officials in Qatar who almost welcomed that pressure because they felt like they were getting lots of criticism from Israel, from the United States, other Western countries for hosting Hamas, and they weren't able to deliver a ceasefire. And this was just damaging their standing around the world. So they had been looking for a way, I think, to step away from a negotiating role. But if they're to do that now, I think what that means is that the locus of these talks is going to shift to Cairo, which is also Egypt has also been a mediator throughout the war. They have a much different relationship with Hamas than the Qataris do.

50:36As Amy says, the Qataris are a trusted interlocutor. The Egyptians have had a very frosty relationship with Hamas because they see it correctly as being an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which the Egyptian government hates. And so it's a very unfriendly relationship. But Egypt could become the venue for talks going forward if the Qataris don't want to keep hosting them. Now, Israeli hostage families have been putting increasing amount of pressure on the Israeli government. We talk about it nearly every week here on The Roundup as one of the key points of domestic political pressure in the background of the war in Gaza.

51:12Amy, what reaction has this attack elicited from those families? I think horror and grave concern. The Hostage and Missing Families Forum, which is an Israeli organization that represents most of the hostage families, said that they kind of viewed this strike with deep concern and grave apprehension. And what is particularly chilling is survivors, former hostages who've been released by Hamas, have said that in past instances when Israel would launch a particularly aggressive attack against the group, against its leadership, that they would retaliate against the hostages. So that's only going to deepen concern about the welfare of the hostages that remain in Gaza, some 20 of which are believed to still be alive.

52:01Well, on Tuesday, White House spokesperson Carolyn Levitt read a statement from the president about this attack. Here's part of that. This morning, the Trump administration was notified by the United States military that as Israel was attacking Hamas, which very unfortunately was located in a section of Doha, the capital of Qatar. Unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a sovereign nation and close ally of the United States that is working very hard in bravely taking risks with us to broker peace does not advance Israel or America's goals. However, eliminating Hamas, who have profited off the misery of those living in Gaza is a worthy goal.

52:42President Trump immediately directed Special Envoy Whitcoff to inform the Qataris of the impending attack, which he did. The president views Qatar as a strong ally and friend of the United States and feels very badly about the location of this attack. I do want to remind listeners that it was Qatar, if that sounds familiar to you, that gifted a$400 million 747 jet to Donald Trump that will apparently go to his presidential library foundation after his term. Back to the statement from the press secretary, though, Alex, what did you hear in that statement? I heard a White House that was surprised, for starters.

53:21There's no question. They were surprised. I mean, the Israelis did not inform the U.S. with any sort of adequate notice. There was no coordination. I mean, even when we heard the Netanyahu statement, notice how he said, I take full responsibility. This was us. I mean, that was very clear. There was some conversation between Trump and Netanyahu in which, you know, Netanyahu was basically told, this is all you guys. We had, we, the United States, had nothing to do with this. And then this surprised White House. I mean, they are really angry at what just happened here because Trump's, one of his main goals is to get a peace deal here with Gaza.

53:54But the other part you heard of that statement was, hey, going after Hamas is a worthy goal. And so that's where Israel is seeing some sort of green light to keep doing these kinds of things. Well, just briefly before we head to a break here, Greg Carlston, the Trump administration was clearly left scrambling here. Now, Hamas has said the U.S. was jointly responsible for what happened. So what does this mean for U.S. influence in the region? U.S. security guarantees mean anything in the region now? Everyone I've spoken to in the Gulf this week has said the same thing, that they see this as a real blow to America's credibility.

54:24You put it in a slightly broader context. Saudi was attacked in 2019 by Iran, which attacked its oil facilities. Abu Dhabi was attacked in 2022 by an Iranian-backed militia. In both cases, they felt the U.S. didn't do enough in the aftermath of those attacks. And then Qatar has been struck twice this year, first by Iran, now by Israel. There are a lot of people around the Gulf questioning the value of those American security guarantees. They're not really sure what to do in the short term, but I think in the longer term, they're going to look for ways to diversify those security relationships.

54:56We got this question from Paul. Alex, this might be a good one for you. If the U.S. did not know about the Israeli strike, why did the largest U.S. base in the Middle East not scramble jets? Because they were aware of the Israeli jets and they were aware of what the target would end up being. It's just that notification came as the operation was happening, giving the U.S. not enough time to do any sort of real response. And, I mean, the U.S. military can tell the difference between Israeli jets and, say, Syrian jets. They know the difference. Precisely, yes. There was some level of coordination, but not enough.

55:26Well, we'll stay in the Middle East. We were just discussing Israel's surprise attack, at least from the perspective of the United States, surprise attack on Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar this week. And while that attack was going on, Israel continued an offensive to occupy Gaza City. Israeli airstrikes have destroyed tower blocks there, both residential and commercial buildings. Umah Ahmed left Gaza City but has nowhere to go in the south. She spoke to Al Jazeera English from outside of Gaza City, where she's staying with her family, including seven children. We have been searching for a place to stay, but we couldn't find any.

56:04We received evacuation orders as Israel continues to destroy high-rise buildings. Even on our way here, more towers were flattened. And now we are here with nowhere to take refuge. The Israeli army now says it has operational control of 40 percent of Gaza City. More than a million people are in Gaza City. Many of them are there after fleeing different parts of the Gaza Strip. That's about half the population of Gaza. The Israeli military says Gaza City is the last stronghold of Hamas, Greg Hallstrom. But what conditions are people facing in the south of the Gaza Strip if they're able to make their journey there at all?

56:44There are dire conditions in the south. I mean, one way to think of it is you said there's about a million people thought to be in Gaza City. The latest figures from the UN suggest that maybe 120 ,000 have fled over the past month. So the vast majority of people not even leaving Gaza City despite this looming Israeli offensive. And some of the people who did flee to points south have actually, according to the UN, turned around and gone back to Gaza City because of what they found once they got to the south. You have the population of Gaza squeezed into less than 20 % of its territory at this point.

57:23It's incredibly overcrowded in the displacement camps in the south. The average person there has about five square feet of personal space. There's still not enough food coming in, according to aid agencies. The health care system has obviously all but collapsed. And there's been some talk in recent months about trying to make provisions for people in the south, trying to set up field hospitals and bring in more food. And the Israeli government has talked to good game about trying to coordinate that. But there is not a lot of evidence so far, I think, of it actually happening. And it's not really clear that it can happen.

57:58It's not clear that you can make accommodations for that many displaced people in what is a war zone that has been largely destroyed over the past two years. And on that very point this week, the UN emergency relief coordinator said the narrow window to prevent the spread of famine from northern Gaza to other parts of the Strip is now closing. Famine was confirmed in Gaza on August 22nd by the UN-backed food security experts. Israel has denied that there is famine in Gaza. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the European Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, announced that the EU will implement new measures against Israel.

58:35In her annual State of the Union address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, she condemned the situation in Gaza as catastrophic, and she announced plans to cut support for Israel and new sanctions. Israel's foreign minister slammed the move, saying she was offering support to Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas. Amy McKinnon, what kind of reaction have European lawmakers had to these latest moves? Well, as you mentioned, Ursula von der Leyen used her State of the Union address this week to signal a much tougher approach from the Commission on Israel. And I think this reflects a deep frustration, but also, you know, she used the word painful over their inability to curb the spiraling humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

59:24Some of the specific measures that she mentioned were sanctions against extremist ministers and the Israeli government on settlers in the West Bank. She particularly called out a plan to introduce new settlements in the West Bank, which was effectively split that territory in half, thereby making any future prospect of a Palestinian state there far more difficult. And she has also floated the idea of pausing the EU's free trade agreement with Israel, which was – which prompted a very, very strong reaction from Israel. Alex, what's your read on where the Europeans are at right now and what, if any, additional pressure it actually puts on Israel?

1:00:02Yeah, well, first, I just, I find it always fascinating that they call it the State of the Union. Makes sense, but I find it always very funny. I mean, the EU has some pretty archaic rules here, one of which is in order for any of this to really pass, they need 15 of the 27 member states to approve of it, which would also have to encompass 65 % of the population. So that's unclear if they're going to even get to that mark because there are certain countries, Ireland, Spain, Holland, Sweden, that want to end the trade. There are others like Hungary that's come to Israel's defense quite a bit. So there's a split within the union on how to go about this.

1:00:34So von der Leyen can go ahead and announce this. She can say, yeah, this is what her intention is. It's her job as the head of the EU commissioned to do that. But it's really up to the member states on the action here. And right now it's a very split continent on how to handle Israel. Well, meanwhile, in Europe this week, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog in what was described as a tough set of exchanges over humanitarian aid in Gaza. Herzog's visit was billed as a private visit to support the Jewish community in the UK. But outside 10 Downing Street, opposition leaders expressed anger at the meeting and protesters called for the arrest of the Israeli president.

1:01:11We should add that in Israel, the position of president is largely ceremonial. He's not a decision maker. That's the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. But, Greg, those words, tough exchanges. What came out of that visit? And those were Herzog's own words, the way he described it at Chatham House, the British think tank, in an appearance there after his meeting with Keir Starmer. Herzog, publicly, the way he's described it, is a sort of full-throated defense of Israeli policy. He said he offered to allow the Brits to send a fact-finding mission to Gaza to investigate claims regarding humanitarian aid there.

1:01:48He denied that there was a famine going on in Gaza. He insisted that essentially Israel wasn't responsible for the scale of civilian casualties that have taken place during the war. Again, a strong defense of Israeli policy, which Herzog has done time and time again and has been somewhat of a disappointment, I think, to Israelis who were critical of the war, who thought Herzog, who a decade ago was the Israeli opposition leader, might be a bit critical of Netanyahu in his role as president. But I think for the Brits, I think for all of the Europeans at this point, they have this looming moment at the UN General Assembly later this month where the UK, France and Canada have all pledged to recognize a Palestinian state, where France and Saudi Arabia are hosting this high-profile conference regarding the two-state solution and the war in Gaza.

1:02:38So there's going to be a lot of rhetoric about Israel and Palestine in New York later this month. But beyond that, what are the Europeans prepared to do? What sorts of measures are the Brits and others going to take to pressure Israel in support of the Palestinian state? It's not clear yet. And Greg, just briefly, what do you make of Herzog's timing and his appearance in London? and they call it a private visit, but this is statecraft, so it wasn't really private. It was very much public. Why now? Why the UK? What was he doing there? I think why now? It's probably linked to what is going to happen later this month to this British promise that they are going to recognize a Palestinian state.

1:03:17The Israeli foreign policy establishment has really reacted very badly to all of this, even though simultaneously they say it's symbolic recognition of Palestine doesn't mean anything. It won't create a Palestinian state on the ground, but they have been incredibly upset and incredibly unhappy that these three Western countries are planning to do it. Well, gang, let's turn to Ukraine and Russia, as we do every week these days. Russia is escalating not only on Ukrainian forces, but on NATO countries nearby. On Tuesday night, Poland shot down multiple drones that Russia fired into its airspace. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told Parliament the incident marked the closest Europe has come to what he called open conflict since World War II.

1:04:04Russia denied it was targeting Poland. It accused Poland of spreading myths and failing to provide proof. Alex Ward, what more do we know about the source of the drones, the nature of the drones, and whether Poland is spreading myths? So we know that there are about 19 drone incursions. They came – they entered into Western Poland or moved west into Poland, I should say, from Belarus, which is a – some of them from Belarus, which is basically a Russian client state. There is some question about whether it was intentional or not. We should note that. I mean the Europeans and particularly the Poles say this is clearly intentional.

1:04:40You don't just launch 19 drones. Over the course of many hours. Over the course of many hours into Poland. And then you have President Donald Trump saying, well, it could have been a mistake or also – but then again, he's also said, you know, what's going on? So he's more asking questions than having answers. but there are some out there who are thinking maybe they got jammed or maybe they got lost. It doesn't matter. Well, it does matter. But as of this moment, it's not clear. What is happening or what did happen is we had NATO forces for the first time shoot at Russian weapons over a NATO allies territory.

1:05:12That, to Tuk's point, is extraordinary. That is where we're at. And intentional or not, the more this war goes on, the more what you get are the risks of things like this happening. and the more chance of a miscalculation. So you are now having NATO and Russia fighting whether or not it's intentional, and that ratchets up the tension in this war. Well, we mentioned Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. He invoked NATO's Article 4, which calls allies to urgent consultation when a member feels that its security is threatened. Here's NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Allies are resolved to defend every inch of allied territory.

1:05:50We will closely monitor the situation along our Eastern flank. Our air defenses continually at the ready. Amy McKinnon, how unusual a step is it for a NATO country to invoke Article 4, as Poland has done in this case? So this is only the eighth time since NATO was founded in 1949 that Article 4 has been invoked. The last time, according to NATO's website, was Central and Eastern European states invoked the measure on the 24th of February 2022, too, which was the day that Russia invaded Ukraine. So this is rare and it is reserved for moments of deep concern and uncertainty where countries feel that their security and their territorial integrity really may be threatened.

1:06:33You know, Mark Ruta's remarks there, the Secretary General of NATO saying that the alliance is resolved to defend every inch of NATO territory. One thing that was striking this week, however, was Donald Trump's response to this instance. And let me play it for you right now. Could have been a mistake. Could have been a mistake. But regardless, I'm not happy about anything having to do with that whole situation. But hopefully it's going to come to an end. Amy McKinnon, that, as we've seen in the past from Donald Trump, is the Kremlin's line that it was a mistake. It is not Europe's line that it was a mistake.

1:07:08What are the implications of that coming from the president now? It is certainly not the forceful response that Russia or the Europeans would typically expect from a U.S. president. and setting aside the question of whether or not this was a deliberate attack on Poland. Certainly there's two things that come from this. One is it exposed the weakness of NATO's air defense on that eastern flank. And the second is that Russia will learn from this. Russia will learn how NATO responds, the manners it responds and where its weaknesses are. That's only going to increase the likelihood that it might try this deliberately in the future.

1:07:41Alex Ward, one of the reads on this event between Russia, Belarus and Poland, mistake, not a mistake, is that Russia is probing, that whether they meant it or not, as Amy just said, they collected valuable information about air defenses, but also politically what the West would do, what NATO would do, where the fissures are, where the weak points are. Talk about that a little bit, what it means for this set of incursions to be a probing attack, if you like, and how Russia might use that. Yeah, let's just assume for sake of argument that this was intentional. You couldn't really design a better quote-unquote gray zone type operation here where it's not large enough that everyone kind of is forced to respond because of their politics and the security concerns.

1:08:29And it's not weak enough that it can be ignored. It's right in that sweet spot where there's deniability on the Russians and you get a sense of how the Europeans and the U.S. want to respond. And if you're Putin, you know that there are fissures between the U.S. and Europe because Europe wants to go tougher on Russia right now. And the U.S. for the moment doesn't because Trump's main goal is to revive relations with Russia, not necessarily make the best deal with Ukraine. And what you're seeing so far is we're noting we have literally on Twitter, right, Poland's foreign minister fighting with Trump over whether or not this was intentional.

1:09:01and now you're having NATO, basically, as we're speaking now, NATO announcing that they're going to send more assets to NATO's eastern flank, but none of them, for the moment, seem like they're going to be American. Amy? Just quickly to unite the first part of our conversation on the show today, and the second is that you have now two instances this week of U.S. allies coming deliberately under attack in the case of Qatar, and may or may not have been deliberate in the case of Poland, and very muted responses from the United States. I think that that is going to be a message that is received by allies around the world about what is the U.S.

1:09:33role now in the event that they are attacked. Statements from silence mean an awful lot on the world stage, don't they? Exactly. Yeah. Well, earlier this week, President Trump, who we've been talking about, spoke to Poland's president who shared on social media, as Alec mentioned, that their talks, quote, confirmed allied unity. This incident comes a month. After what we all know, Trump's high-profile meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska, which has led to, I'm confident saying, no progress toward ending the war. Over the weekend, the U.S. and Europe said they're working together on new sanctions against Russia.

1:10:08Greg Hallstrom, where does that stand now, especially in light of this attack that Poland just experienced intentionally or unintentionally? And the proposal is, or what's being discussed, it's sanctions and tariffs. The idea is a combination of both. Trump is pushing for the latter. The idea would be for European countries, for the EU to impose secondary sanctions on companies that, or countries that import oil from Russia, India, and China would probably be the main targets of that. And then Trump, Trump's envoy, has suggested to the EU that it impose 100 % tariff on India and China as a way of punishing them for continuing to import Russian oil.

1:10:55And the Trump administration has promised that if the Europeans do that, that he's going to join them, that whatever measures they impose on India and China, he will join them. The question is whether the Europeans actually want to do this. And it's a bit ironic. I mean, they've spent months now trying to pitch Trump sort of on this idea that they will get tougher on China if Trump agrees to get tougher on Russia and pushing for an end to the war in Ukraine. Trump has found a way to unite the two now. And the Europeans, I think it's a bit like the dog who caught the car. I'm not sure they want to impose 100 percent tariffs on India and China.

1:11:30Well, we've been talking a lot about Europe. Let's head directly to France now. Its most famous 20th century leader, Charles de Gaulle, once asked, how can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese? Well, well put, Mr. President. The jury's still out on the cheese part of that answer. But on Monday, France's government, yes, it collapsed like so much melted brie, I suppose. Collapsed again, this time over a budget debate meant to address France's debt and deficit problems. On Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron appointed a new prime minister, his fourth. In the last 12 months, the man of the hour is 39-year-old conservative lawmaker Sébastien LeCournou.

1:12:16He was the minister of defense for the past three years. Alex, what has LeCournou said he will do differently from his predecessors, and what do we need to know about him? Well, first of all, America is a cheddar nation, and yet we have our own problems, so I'm not sure the cheese analogy works. But, I mean, what you need to know is that he's now honestly in a very unfortunate position. I mean, there's been a roulette, to use a French word, I think, of prime ministers coming in and out because – and then government's collapsing because France is struggling over discussions to make a new budget.

1:12:49Basically, and very simply put, France is going through a financial crisis that basically will require government spending cuts and higher taxes. Both things usually not very popular to their people, and the prime minister is the head of the government. And so whenever there's no deal, that tends to collapse. So now LeCornu has the unenviable task of having to somehow put all this together. It seems unlikely that he can and in part because what a lot of these politicians are clamoring for outside of not wanting to really pass this deal is some sort of sense of change in the government. Macron has been there for a while.

1:13:22But LeCornu is very close to Macron. So this is a bit more of the same. And right now there's less hope of a deal going forward. Amy McKinnon, the debt and budget crisis is the proximal cause, as Alex described. What's the core problem that keeps ensnaring Macron governments? We said that this was the fourth one in the last 12 months, a collapse after collapse. I know that's more common in European systems than in ours. We're not quite used to it. But what's the core instability here, if there is one? I mean, there's several, but I think one of the core ones is that, you know, when Macron came to power in 2017, he cut taxes and corporate levies and a bid to spur growth, to grow the economy.

1:14:01but he has faced kind of back-to-back crises since, which has only deepened the public debt. France has added a cool trillion euros to its public debt since Macron came to office. It's now 3.3 trillion euros. And in a move to address that, they've proposed, the now ousted prime minister proposed these significant cuts to the public budget, but that's been met with protests, The massive protest described as block everything in the middle of this week. I want to talk about block everything a little bit. That was elsewhere in France on Wednesday. It is called block everything. Protesters demonstrated in more than 700 events, 700 locations around the country.

1:14:46Organizers from the far right, the left, labor unions. It's a rainbow coalition of French interests there. Beyond the obvious branding of everything, which says all it needs to say, I suppose. What specifically were they protesting? What are the dynamics, Amy, of these protests? Well, yeah, I mean, as you say, as we were saying in the UK, it does what it says on the tin. The protests blocked traffic. They blocked public transport. And it was really over the core, I think, motivation was really these government cuts to spending, which being proposed at$50 billion. But also the elimination of two public holidays.

1:15:19And as we know, that will always get the French out into the streets. So what does that say then about what Alex is saying? inevitable austerity, benefit cuts and tax increases. I mean, the French public knows this. They're not dumb. They're already out in the streets like pre-protesting. It says to me, don't try it. Right. I mean, and Macron's new prime minister has a pretty daunting road ahead of him in inheriting both this 3.3 trillion euros in debt and these very unpleasant and well, not unpleasant, but these very unpopular proposals to address that. And just quickly, I mean, you know, you might be thinking, listen to this.

1:15:55You know, didn't Italy kind of go through something like this? Didn't Greece go through something like this? They're very different situations. But what's interesting is that Greece kind of had stuff, you know, all those austerity measures imposed on it. Italy does have sort of a history of going through technocrats in situations like this. France doesn't really have this kind of history. They have a history of popular protests and popular uprising. And so the one question here is, can Le Corneau and whatever he's going to lead here, can he somehow corral this disparate government to rally the people to say, hey, this is a necessary thing, clearly the answer right now is no way.

1:16:27Greg Karlstrom, you were talking earlier in the hour when we were talking about the Middle East, about European countries preparing to recognize a Palestinian state putting pressure on Israel. France is one of them. Macron has said that France will recognize the state of Palestine in order to push this forward as we were talking about. So what does France's domestic political situation and Macron's position as a result mean for France's role in European and Middle Eastern affairs right now? I think there are two ways you can look at it. You can say, you know, presidents around the world, heads of state around the world, when things are going badly at home, they sometimes find refuge in foreign affairs because it's a space where they have a lot more political freedom.

1:17:10They don't have to deal with coalition politics in the same way. So maybe this is a moment when Macron really throws himself into standing up for Ukraine. He gets his turn in the spotlight at the UN hosting this conference about Palestine alongside the Saudis. And this is stuff that is broadly popular at home. But I think the problem for him is when it comes to Ukraine, it's not just a question of rhetoric. It's a question of money, right? Supporting Ukraine requires resources, requires arms, requires money. And France being in this financial crisis where it's running a deficit, you know, almost double the 3 % of GDP target that the European Union gives to its members where public debt is above 110 % of GDP.

1:17:53There's just not that much fiscal headroom in France to increase its support, its military or financial support for Ukraine without making these other kinds of cuts somewhere else, which is, as Alex and Amy both said, are deeply unpopular at home. So domestic pressures in France and international pressures across Europe, both from the Middle East and, of course, from Russia's continued invasion in Ukraine and drones launched from Belarus this week. Let's leave Europe for the moment. We will be back by next week, I'm sure, if not by the end of this show. And make a quick stop in Brazil because this week the country's Supreme Court convicted former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro of attempting a coup to stay in power after losing the 2022 election.

1:18:41It sentenced Bolsonaro to 27 years in prison, and that plot involved a plan to assassinate leftist candidate and now president Lula da Silva, as well as a Supreme Court justice. Now, the plot didn't work, but Bolsonaro encouraged supporters to storm government buildings in the Capitol on January 8th of 2023. And that move certainly resembled January 6th here in the United States. And we can talk about the similarities a little more if you want to. Greg Kahlstrom, what did the court rule in Brazil? What did they conclude here ultimately? They concluded that he was attempting this. I mean, the defense from Bolsonaro's people, they tried a very interesting sort of gambit defending themselves in court where they didn't challenge any of the sort of factual assertions that were being made against them.

1:19:32They didn't challenge the assertion that, you know, Bolsonaro's associates were plotting to assassinate Lula or other things. But what they tried to argue was that none of this rose to the level of being a military coup. And so it was a question of interpretation almost rather than fact. And obviously the court ruled the other way and did so to quite an angry reaction from the Trump administration, which had already over the summer revoked the American visas of Brazil's justice minister and Brazil's chief justice. And I want to talk more about the tariffs on. Yeah, I want to talk more about the American response.

1:20:10Sorry to interrupt you, but I want to set that up because it's important. You mentioned, you know, the similarities between the Brazilian coup attempt and January 6th are undeniable. You can see the similarities on your screen if you watch videos of our January 6th and videos of their January 8th. The parallels visually are unmistakable. But the behind-the-scenes contacts, coordination, and relationships between Bolsonaro, his son, and his political movement, and key figures in the MAGA movement, including the president himself, Don Jr., Steve Bannon, are also there and well-documented. Jarl Bolsonaro's son attended a stolen election conspiracy event put on by Mike Lindell.

1:20:55He was there. He gave Bannon a MAGA hat. It was all happening between them. So the parallels run superficial and the parallels run deep in ideology and between the families. So that might help Alex Ward explain Donald Trump's reaction to Jaro Bolsonaro being convicted of a coup attempt and sentenced to prison for 27 years. The president has slapped 50 percent tariffs on Brazil specifically because the government has prosecuted this case against Bolsonaro. Now Bolsonaro has been convicted. And where does this head for Trump now? They've also targeted the judge in the case with sanctioned everything.

1:21:33I mean, look, Trump is close to Bolsonaro personally. Bolsonaro was one of Trump's biggest supporters on the international stage. And now you've got Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, saying there will be further repercussions for Brazil. So this is going to be a lot of fun going forward. I don't know what it's actually going to. America, the United States using diplomatic and economic sanctions and pressure on a foreign country for their domestic affairs and their own legal system, putting an accused and now convicted coup plotter behind bars by their own laws. An anti-small-D democratic actor here.

1:22:07I mean, there will be an interesting dynamic. The UN General Assembly will be later this month. And usually what will happen is Brazil goes first, so Lula will speak, and then usually the American president goes second. So they'll at least cross each other in the hallway. They'll see each other. There's maybe some questions about whether Lula can even come. Will there be some sort of repercussions there? It's a tense moment for sure and one in which clearly the U.S. is standing by the non-small-D Democratic actor. Now let's get an update on a story that we covered last week here on 1A, the unprecedented U.S.

1:22:42military attack on a suspected drug boat in international waters in the Caribbean. The military repeatedly bombed that boat, sinking it and killing 11 people on board. Now, American officials now tell The New York Times the boat altered its course apparently after seeing military aircraft, and that raises new questions about President Trump saying the attack was in self-defense. And that's important, Alex. A lot of lawyers and military law experts were already sounding the alarm about the legality of this attack. Typically, the Coast Guard would stop a boat suspected of a crime, and I stress crime, ferrying drugs, take people into custody, arrest them.

1:23:21Here, the military simply killed them. How does this attack represent a shift in how the president uses military power? Well, yeah, to your point, usually in a situation like this would be interdiction, not military action. And so what we're seeing from Trump, and he and his allies have been signaling this for a long time, that right now the way to combat drugs and drugs entering the United States is not through interdiction or social programs or anything like that. It's through military action. It's bombing cartels in Mexico. It's bombing Venezuelan, alleged Venezuelan gang boats. And with that boat turning around, it cuts against Trump's own legal argument for being able to do the strike because there are questions about who can authorize strikes.

1:24:03It's got to be notifications to Congress and Congress has to authorize military force, et cetera. But Alex, they're calling these people terrorists and they're doing it for a legal reason. Global war on terror, the president's authorized to protect the country from terror. If you attach that semantic word to drug dealers and call them terrorists for legal purposes, authorization of the use of military force after the war on terror does not apply to drug dealers in Latin America. It's not in the bill. Well, right, and also what Trump – but to what you were noting earlier, what Trump was saying is I was able to authorize this because it was a self-defensive action.

1:24:35And there is precedent for that. But if there wasn't self-defense, then why was the president able to do that? There's also questions about whether the military either tried to contact the boat. Did they try to say, hey, who's on there? Who are they? Did they try to identify who was on there? I mean, they can say it was Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang. But as of right now, there's no clear evidence that the U.S. had evidence that they were that. One more story that we're keeping an eye on here at 1A, an important story this week. In Nepal, thousands of anti-corruption protesters, most of them between the ages of 13 and 28, took to the streets of Kathmandu and the government last week, banned 26 social media platforms, including WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, for failing to meet a government registration deadline.

1:25:15But the platforms had been a home to a Nepo Kid campaign in prior weeks, targeting politicians and alleging corruption. Sri Garong told CNN what was motivating the so-called Gen Z protests in addition to the social media ban. Social media was just part of it. But the first thing was about NAPO babies by Generation Z. They demanded accountability and fair investigation for this corruption, the luxury lifestyle of all these corrupted politicians, kids, while all these Nepali youths are forced to migration and job opportunities. The social media ban was lifted during an emergency government meeting on Monday.

1:26:02Earlier in the day, 19 people had been killed in protests on Tuesday. The prime minister resigned, and today more than 12 ,500 prisoners remain on the run, having escaped from jails across Nepal. Officials said the death toll is now 51 there. Students have pushed for a new prime minister on the online social media platform Discord. cord. We don't have time for a full reporter's notebook. Amy, I'm going to single you out because we only have time for you. But I do want to know what's in your notebook and give us one story that you think is important that you're going to be watching next week and you think should be on our radar.

1:26:41Not a small one. I'm waiting for the next shoe to drop in the Russia-Ukraine, the U.S. effort to kind of broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. Trump has said for almost two weeks now that he's about to have a call with Putin, which could be the next It's kind of turn of the screw where we may learn more, but that call either hasn't happened or hasn't yet been scheduled. After what we described as the gray zone attacks probing NATO unity, probing military response, and probing the West on what it might do if Russia knocks on the door of NATO allies. I want to thank all of our guests around the table.

1:27:16Sorry that only Amy got to do reporter's notebook today, but it was a good one. We're all watching the stories out of Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and Poland now. I want to thank Amy McKinnon, foreign affairs correspondent at the Financial Times, Alex Ward, national security reporter covering the White House and the State Department for the Wall Street Journal, and Greg Kahlstrom, Middle East correspondent at The Economist. Mike Kidd is our sound designer and engineer with help this week from Kellen Quigley. Chris Castano is our digital editor. Maya Garg is our senior managing producer. Alexandra Botee is our senior supervising producer.

1:27:47Eileen Humphries is the editor and producer of 1A On Demand. Barb Anguiano produces our podcast. Special thanks to Matthew Simonson for additional podcast and on-demand support. This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington. It's distributed by NPR. I'm Todd Zwilich. Thank you for being with us. Let's talk more soon. This is 1A.

1:28:18Thank you.