The News Roundup For September 19, 2025

25:47Let's get back to the news roundup. Members of the Federal Reserve met this week and announced the first cut to interest rates in nine months. The Fed cut rates by a quarter of a point in response to growing concerns about the job market. The situation has changed with respect to the labor market, whereas we could still say and did say in July, at the time of the July meeting, that the labor market was in solid condition and we could point to 150 ,000 jobs per month and many other things. I think that the new data that we've had, and it's not just payrolls, it's other things as well, suggest that there really is meaningful downside risk.

26:25That was Fed Chair Jerome Powell. The central bank also signaled it would lower rates more sometime this year. Steve, stocks initially moved higher after the Fed announced this interest rate cut, but then they fell into the red across all three major indices. Broadly, what kind of response are we seeing to this announcement? Well, the markets are saying it's best at times because they hit all new times, all new highs, and it's also possibly the worst of times because the uncertainty about what will happen to rates in the future has now been set in a motion by Chairman Jay Powell's comments that they're really between a rock and a hard place.

27:01That on one hand, they're very worried about the structural deterioration in the labor market, But they're designed a lot of interest rates to sort of deal with this ongoing persistent inflation challenge in America. And we've seen upticks in inflation that have been worrying and that Powell and others have said may be a function of Donald Trump's tariff policy. So when you've got that going on between two forces that are moving in different directions, it creates complexity about the future. So the market's pretty quickly shrugged off the issue. The one interesting thing about this 11 to 1 votes, you had 11 members, including Lisa Cook, who's been in some hot water with the president, voted to lower rates by a quarter point.

27:41The newest member of the Federal Reserve Board, Stephen Moran, who has been President Trump's chair of his Council of Economic Advisors, voted against it because he wanted a half point drop in rates. Right. Let's talk about Stephen Myron. That's part of his. He was confirmed on Monday by the Senate to serve on the Fed's board of governors in place of a member who stepped down in August. Trump's top economic advisor, his term is slated to expire at the end of January, but could be extended. Ahead of the vote to confirm his appointment, Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren had this warning for her Republican colleagues.

28:20Trump wants to make the Fed his economic scapegoat. Go. Dr. Myron's nomination is just the next phase of President Trump's very public, months-long campaign to stack the Fed with loyalists. When Trump seizes control, Fed decisions won't be driven by data, but by Donald Trump's personal feelings. And when the Fed loses credibility, businesses and consumers stop trusting it to control inflation and prices go up. Steve, just to follow up on something you were saying, on Monday an appeals court upheld a lower court ruling that says Trump cannot fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook until her mortgage fraud case has ended.

29:03Trump has now escalated that appeal to the Supreme Court. Amanda, as we talk about all of these changes to the Federal Reserve Board, what do we know about Stephen Myron and his loyalties to the president? Yeah, so Trump's economic policy is Myron's economic policy. He's one of his top economic advisors, as we were talking about just a minute ago. And he has said he's just going to take a kind of a leave of absence from that role while he's serving the end of this Fed term. And so that in and of itself is kind of a direct line back to the White House, which is traditionally not how the Fed has operated.

29:40The Fed has always supposed to be historically kind of an independent institution. But Myron has also suggested things that would make it kind of more accountable to what the president wants. For example, he has suggested that their term should be shortened. They're 14 years right now. He would like to see those be shorter. He wants the president to be able to fire members of the Federal Reserve, which is, you know, something that's being litigated right now, as you just mentioned. So really, he's wanting to create a Federal Reserve that's more directly linked to the White House and has to answer more closely to the president.

30:15Zoe, can I just ask you just a general economic question, tying in both of these things we've been talking about here, as we're looking at the federal rate cut, the market responses to that, as we're talking about the Federal Reserve Board generally, and loyalties to the president. I just wonder if you can give us a little bit of perspective from Ann Arbor, from the business community, about how they're feeling about the economy right now. Oh, sure. I mean, well, I'll give it sort of from Southeast Michigan, right? because that is Detroit and Metro Detroit. And of course, this is sort of the area that we like to say, because it's true, put the world on wheels, right?

30:51So manufacturing is just a huge, I mean, it's our largest sector of the economy. And so tariffs have just dramatically changed the picture of what it looks like right now to be a business, particularly a car maker here in the United States. Our Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, actually just gave a major policy speech on Tuesday at our state capitol in Lansing talking about the concern that she sees on the state economy, the region economy and the country's economy vis-a-vis tariffs. And it's interesting to note, right, because this is the same governor who has sort of gone anti-Newsom, let's say, and is saying she's working with Trump.

31:34Of course, there's that infamous picture of her in the Oval Office holding a folder on her face. So, I mean, yeah, it is playing havoc on the economy. But also what we know is that it's going to take a little while for data to actually come in to see the big picture of what the impact is going to be. But I can certainly tell you, Nyla, that here in Michigan, here in southeast Michigan, it is top of mind for employers and folks who build and make things who are struggling with tariffs right now. Right, which is partially why we saw that interest rate cut and signaling more for the future. So we'll keep an eye on that.

32:14Let's turn now to immigration, starting with a high-profile case we've been following. A U.S. judge ordered that a pro-Palestinian activist, Mahmoud Khalil, be deported to Algeria or Syria over alleged emissions from his green card application. Khalil, a former Columbia University student and permanent U.S. resident, was detained for more than 100 days earlier this year. His lawyers plan to appeal. Zoe, what is the significance of the judge's rulings on this case as we're seeing the president's immigration crackdown continuing? Yeah, I mean, again, I want to just note a reminder that he is a permanent resident of the United States, married to a U.S.

32:54citizen, a U.S.-born child. Who is now being ordered to be deported. Exactly, to Algeria or Syria. But as you note, lawyers have said that they are going to appeal the order for deportation. No, I mean, I think this, again, is just all part of this large crackdown, whether, again, it's about free speech, whether it's about economic policy, whether it is about immigration. And, you know, pulling back the big picture context is we know that this was the plan. And in fact, in all likelihood, the president would have liked to have done this in his first term. But there were folks, some folks will call them grown-ups, some will call them sort of the barriers to allowing Trump to do this.

33:40And then the big change in this term is the yes-men, right, that Donald Trump decided after that first term that he was going to have people around him do the things that he wants to do. And that is now what we're seeing, plain and simple. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is continuing its use of military force in U.S. cities. On Monday, the president announced an expansion into Tennessee. He spoke from the Oval Office. I'm signing a presidential memorandum to establish the Memphis Safe Task Force. And it's very important because of the crime that's going on. This task force will be a replica of our extraordinarily successful efforts.

34:23here. And you'll see it's a lot of the same thing, although the numbers here are really something. They're really bad. We're sending in the big force now. Amanda, the mayor of Memphis voiced opposition to this step. The governor of Tennessee is in support. What is the goal of this Memphis Safe Task Force? A show of force in a city led by a Democrat in an otherwise red state. As the president said, It's a replica of what he did here in D.C. And that was also the subject of yet more hearings this week on Capitol Hill. I know we've already talked about several hearings, but D.C.'s mayor was testifying this week.

35:03And, you know, Trump says the crackdown here has been successful and that sending in the National Guard has been successful. The mayor was pointing out that, you know, there was a spike in crime in Washington, D.C. in 2023, but it was dropping, already dropping precipitously. So it's hard to tell whether, you know, this current situation led to that or whether that was a trend that was already happening. We actually have some audio of Mayor Bowser. So let's play that and then you can continue your thoughts. It is true that we experienced, like many places, a spike in 2023. I can say unequivocally, this is not 2023.

35:37In each of the past two years, we have driven down crime. What were your takeaways from Bowser? because we heard the president say, what we're going to do in Memphis, this is what we've done in D.C., which has been a success. Yes. So Mayor Bowser's having to walk a very fine line here politically. D.C. does not have the same right to self-governance as most other cities and most other states. Like Memphis does. Yes. Correct. And the state of Tennessee, you know, D.C. does not have statehood. So it really limits her ability and what she can push back on. Now, she has said D.C. welcomes the addition of federal law enforcement, but she said in that hearing National Guard is not the way to do it.

36:20She views that as kind of bringing troops into a U.S. city that were not asked for. And she said it would be far more helpful to have additional FBI agents, drug enforcement agents. And so she's really kind of trying to walk this line. The House just this week passed three more, I think, pieces of legislation that, you know, still have to go to the Senate that would farther kind of limit D.C.'s ability to set the own parameters, particularly when it comes to criminal justice and juveniles. Steve, I wonder if you can weigh in here on how Mayor Bowser is trying to balance the federal government while defending D.C.'s home rule and autonomy.

36:59What kind of reaction she's getting from folks in D.C.? I know a few weeks ago on the roundup we talked about how much leeway people in the district had been giving her. I don't know if that's still the case now. So, you know, a lot of this was set up, I think, unfairly in some of the media where they said, oh, you've got the National Guard being deployed and people are going to resist. and this is Donald Trump taking over Washington. It is true, as we just heard, that she's walking a fine line. But I think she's created this dynamic where she's pals with President Trump on some of this, where she has welcomed and wants more increase incredible law enforcement, the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency.

37:36She wants more cops on the street and these kinds of things. And there are a lot of people, I have friends and I live in Washington and up in Columbia Heights are saying, hey, up there, we really need these people. So there's a mixed bag there. But what I found interesting is that Muriel Bowser succeeded in getting Donald Trump to say great things about her. Now, some people say that's not good. But if you don't really have control over every vector in your city and the federal government can come pretty much, and Rob thinks, I think Muriel Bowser has been using this security issue to kind of fine-tune on facts, to kind of look at what is going on.

38:12but not to be overly defensive and trying to kind of, you know, it's not just walk a fine line. She's saying the National Guard is irrelevant to the security bottom line of the city. It's a waste of resources and doesn't help. And I think she's helping, you know, other people to understand what the dynamics are that work. But she's not pushing back hard against the Trump administration on the notion that more people, more security on the street helps. A big thanks to our expert panel for joining us this week. Steve Clemens, editor at large for The National Interest. Zoe Clark, political director for Michigan Public, and Amanda Becker, Washington correspondent for the 19th News.

38:48Before the break, let's take a moment to remember Robert Redford, known for his roles in Bush Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Sting, and All the President's Men. He became an Oscar-winning director and renowned conservationist. But perhaps his most notable legacy is the way he nurtured upcoming talent through the Sundance Institute and Sundance Film Festival, which he founded. Redford died this week in Utah. He was 89. We'll be back with more of the News Roundup in just a moment. Stay with us.

39:21Let's turn now to the global edition of the News Roundup. Here to help us break down all the week's biggest global stories, Elizabeth Hagedorn is with us. She's State Department correspondent at El Monitor. Hi, Elizabeth. Hi, thanks for having me. Jack Datch, also with us in studio, a defense reporter at Politico. Hey there, Jack. Good to be here, Nyla. And joining us from London, David Rennie, a geopolitics editor and columnist at The Economist, where he writes their column, The Telegram. David, always a pleasure. Hello. This week, a team of independent experts commissioned by the United Nations Human Rights Council concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

39:57Here's Navi Pillay, chair of the UN Independent International Committee of Inquiry, or COI, on Tuesday. Genocide is occurring in Gaza and is continuing to occur. And the responsibility lies with the state of Israel. The Independent Commission is composed of three experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council's 47 member states and does not speak for the UN. David, what were the main findings of this inquiry? What is some of the evidence that they're citing? So they cite a lot of evidence that will be familiar to people who have seen previous inquiries about crimes against humanity and war crimes.

40:38And we should be clear, the things that they describe are well documented and are horrifying. So they talk about attacks on ambulances, medical staff, attacks on civilians that look disproportionate, the starvation of civilians. But the problem with genocide is that it's an incredibly strict, narrow legal definition. It is not the same as crimes against humanity, and it's not the same against war crimes. You can prove crimes against humanity if individuals are treated appallingly. But genocide is about the intended, intentional, deliberate destruction in whole or in part of a group. And it's essentially a very controversial piece of international law that was invented after World War II in response to the Holocaust against six million Jews who died at the hands of the Nazis.

41:25And the problem, you can see this in the report, is that, and this has been the problem with every attempt to prove genocide in international legal courts until now, is proving intent. And they cite statements by people like the defense minister saying that the Palestinians are fighting like human animals, shocking statements by Benjamin Netanyahu about how he sees the conflict. But unless you can prove that the intention of the Israeli government is to make sure that there are no more Palestinians on earth, that it is something like Hitler's attempt to destroy the entire Jewish race, then you can't easily prove genocide.

42:00And I think that is why, for what it's worth, I think there are some very sincere people of goodwill who are very concerned about crimes against humanity and war crimes who think that this genocide path is a dangerous distraction that is also dangerously alienating those moderate Israeli voters who think that terrible things are happening in Gaza but who do not think that their country is on a par with Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler and you lose them by saying this is genocide. At least 65 ,000 Palestinians have been killed since the Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

42:39Then around 1 ,200 people were killed, around 250 taken hostage. Around 20 hostages are still believed to be alive. Israel, David, to your point, categorically rejected the findings of the committee, citing the right to self-defense. Here's Israel's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Daniel Maron. The report diverges from the mandate of the commission, yet again stressing their biased analysis. It has systematically dismissed Hamas' atrocities. Throughout the 72 pages of this paper that the COI presented, the COI promotes a narrative serving Hamas and its supporters in attempting to delegitimize and demonize the state of Israel.

43:24One of the commission members responded to those allegations on Tuesday. Here's Chris Sidoti. Honestly, the Israeli responses are becoming so boring. You know, they say the same thing every time. They're producing the responses by chat GPT these days. I would want them to engage with the evidence, but they never engage with the evidence. We should note Israel refused to cooperate with the commission and has not granted it entry into Israel or access to Palestinian-controlled areas in the West Bank and Gaza. Jack, perhaps predictable, this back and forth, as David has been sort of laying out the politics of this.

44:03The commission urged countries to halt weapon transfers to Israel and block individuals or companies from actions that could contribute to genocide in Gaza. What are the politics here? Does this put additional pressure on Israel to change course? I wonder if you can react to what David was saying earlier. Well, not unless the Americans were to change their position on weapons to Israel. They're, of course, the biggest weapons seller to Israel, the biggest guarantor of military aid. We haven't seen that position change from Biden into Trump. One thing we have seen is this is giving ammunition to the Europeans to continue, one, their push towards Palestinian recognition at the UN General Assembly.

44:43That might be a push next week that, Elizabeth, you'll be watching over there. The other thing that's been very interesting is a tariff and sanction push within the European Union. You see the EU leveraging its role as the biggest trading partner of Israel, now looking at about$160 million worth of sanctions on tariffs rather on the Israelis. So that would be about 40 % of the goods that go between the Israelis and the European Union. So some economic pressure here, but we'll see if it really materializes to any real pressure. We got this from one of our listeners. Hi, my name is Tonda. I'm calling from Charlotte, North Carolina.

45:20You mentioned Gaza. I have been so anguished and angry at our government supporting Israel in its genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza. And I don't understand the silence from our Democratic leaders. Why aren't they just outraged and voicing that every day? Elizabeth, we heard Jack say a lot of this depends on the American response. What have we heard from the U.S. government about this report generally this week? Well, like Israel, the Trump administration rejected the report. Broadly speaking, the administration agrees with the Israeli government that its military actions in Gaza are legitimate self-defense and in compliance with international law.

46:10Yesterday, U.S. diplomat Morgan Ortega called the report slanderous, said it lacks any credibility, and she accused the commission of inquiry of carrying out what she termed an anti-Semitic witch hunt. I should note, this is hardly the first time the Trump administration has criticized the commission or the U.N. Human Rights Council that asked for the report. In fact, in February, President Trump signed an executive order pulling the U.S. out of the Human Rights Council. And his administration has also imposed sanctions on international criminal court judges and U.N. officials who are investigating Israel's conduct in Gaza.

46:47David, to Elizabeth's point, how do you think a report like this affects the politics of how people are responding to everything? Look, I think the depressing reality is it doesn't change a thing at all. People who are already, you know, of a mind that this is genocide will feel vindicated. But if the idea is that this creates some new legal mechanism that can stop this war, the reality is this is not a war that's going to be stopped in a cause. It's a war that's going to be stopped by politics and it's going to be stopped by the Israeli public voting for a different government. And it could be slowed a lot if the American government took a different position.

47:23But there are plenty of things that the American government used, previous American governments used to sort of violently object to, which are going on, which I think are in some ways more urgent than an argument about words. So there are settlers now criminally attacking, violently attacking Palestinians in places in the West Bank, not just in Gaza. The American government going back decades used to condemn those actions. There are members of the extreme right-wing coalition government in Israel who are bent on unveiling maps of the West Bank, which essentially leave almost no room for Palestinians.

47:55These are very serious real-world actions that America has a long history of weighing in on and using its extraordinary leverage as the most important backer financially and militarily of Israel to put pressure on Israeli governments. That isn't happening, and that is a political decision by the Trump administration. But inasmuch as sometimes Donald Trump appears to think that this war in Gaza is bad for Israel's image, that Israel clearly is incredibly isolated internationally, and that that is bad for Benjamin Netanyahu, the reality is until he thinks that he has an incentive to force Netanyahu to have a ceasefire, to change his policies, this isn't going to stop, and it's not going to be stopped by UN reports and by arguments about the law.

48:37It's politics, brutal, rough, nasty, great power politics. Elizabeth, just quickly before we go to the break, what are you going to be watching for next week with regards to this as you head to New York for the UN General Assembly? Well, on Monday, the UN General Assembly will convene a summit on the two-state solution. There are a handful of countries, among them the United Kingdom, Australia, and France, who are expected to recognize Palestinian statehood. I'll be watching for the U.S. and Israeli reactions to the event they've called a publicity stunt and a gift to Hamas. In the past 24 hours, Israeli attacks have killed at least 33 Palestinians and injured 146.

49:17And the Gaza Health Ministry reports that five more people died from malnutrition, bringing the total number of deaths from hunger to 440 since the start of the war. The Israeli military says more than 480 ,000 Palestinians had fled Gaza City. Al Jazeera journalists were among those evacuating. They spoke to several people who were not sure of where to go after leaving the north. This is the second time I have been displaced. The first was from the north to Gaza and the second from Gaza to Dar el-Balah. The situation is extremely difficult and we barely managed to find a place. war weighs heavily on those who are displaced, not only on those under bombardment.

49:58Gaza City was home to a million people before evacuation orders. The Israeli military has ordered people to go to what it calls a humanitarian zone in the south via a new temporary route. The AP spoke to an Israeli military official on the condition of anonymity who said Tuesday they believe there are 2 ,000 to 3 ,000 Hamas militants left in Gaza City, as well as tunnels used by the group. Hundreds of thousands of people are believed to still be in Gaza City. Let's go back to our voicemail and to this listener comment. Hi, this is Brian from Balaquid. First, I want to have a disclaimer that the death and destruction in Gaza is horrific.

50:38But no one is talking about that. Hamas has their capacity to end it tomorrow. They can give back the hostages, give up their weapons, and become a political force. and furthermore, doesn't make it, makes it not a genocide because they have the choice to end it. And any of the prior genocides, the people did not have a choice. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in the Middle East this week to soothe over the fallout from Israel's attack on Doha. He told reporters, Elizabeth, there's, quote, a very short time window of time for a deal with Hamas. Can I just ask, to Brian's point about just the choice, is there any hope left for a negotiated settlement?

51:20I think it's difficult to envision a ceasefire and hostage release happening anytime soon, as both a result of the Israeli strike on Hamas's negotiating team in Doha and this operation now into Gaza City. As you mentioned, Rubio, during his trip, warned that time is running out to reach a deal and that the window may be only days or weeks, he said. But he also cast doubt on whether there could ever even be a mediated resolution to the war while voicing what he described as unwavering U.S. support for Israel's effort to crush Hamas. So my takeaway from Rubio's trip is the Trump administration is backing Israel's strategy of prioritizing military operations over diplomatic negotiations at this time, despite the admin and its envoy, Steve Whitcoff, having spent the better part of a year seeking a ceasefire that would end the war and free the hostages.

52:14David, as someone who followed this report very closely, I wonder if you want to weigh in on Brian's comments about the fact that it's not a genocide because there's a choice involved here. Look, as I was saying in a previous comment, I think the bar for proving a genocide is that the deliberate policy of the Israeli government is that there should be no Palestinians on earth. If you kill them in an incredibly irresponsible way and have disproportionate attacks on civilians, but there are still many Palestinians left alive. It sounds like a kind of brutal accountancy argument. That's not genocide.

52:50It's crimes against humanity. It's war crimes. And we should take those incredibly seriously. Even forcing all of the Palestinians out of the Palestinian territories into exile would be an appalling war crime and a crime against humanity. But it wouldn't be genocide. And so I do worry that we've got tied up in this tangle that there is a belief that genocide is the worst crime of all crimes. and therefore when you're very, very legitimately anguished by what Israel is up to, unless you can prove that they're guilty of that worst of all crimes, you're somehow falling short of your duty. And I think it's taking us down a cul-de-sac because I don't think there's going to be agreement.

53:25I think what's really important in what's happening in Gaza right now, and you mentioned that there are about 2 ,000 or 3 ,000 Hamas men left underground according to the Israeli military. There are very senior Israeli generals telling their own government that they think it is a mistake to be launching this assault on Gaza City because there are 20 ,000 more Hamas fighters who left. What's left is civilians in Gaza City. And there are very, very painful divides between the uniformed military and Benjamin Netanyahu's government. You say, if you go into Gaza City, the likeliest outcome is you're going to lead to the deaths of many of the hostages.

53:58We need a ceasefire to get the hostages back. And that's a political argument that I think is one that correctly concerns many people who would like to see the hostages released and see a ceasefire and civilian deaths halted. But that is not an argument that the coalition government under Benjamin Netanyahu has been listening to. So they're on the wrong side of this, and they're against even their own generals. David, thanks for weighing in. Jack, can I ask militarily what details are we starting to get about what this Israeli operation looks like? It's been tentative so far. They're probing. They've essentially ringed much of Gaza City with tanks and armored vehicles.

54:36A lot of those stationed to the north towards, of course, the passes to Israel. And they'd be fighting through a tremendous amount of rubble and debris. You're looking at a city that's 70 percent destroyed. Seventy percent of the buildings are damaged and destroyed according to observations of satellite imagery. This is a place that's in Gaza City that's about twice the size of Washington, D.C. So it's an enormous area that you're looking at that now Israeli troops would eventually have to go in, try and clear out and essentially fight over patches of this rubble with 350 ,000 Palestinians, of course, Palestinian civilians still in the city.

55:13So it's an incredibly complex operation militarily before you even consider just all of the complications of the humanitarian disaster that's going on in Gaza right now. And I mentioned, Jack, it's hard for us to know what's going on because there are no journalists really that are being allowed to observe. So where are we getting information about what we know is happening? Of course, there's information from the Israeli military. There's satellite information. When somebody launches an airstrike or conducts a bombing, it's very hard to hide that in real time on the Internet these days. But, yeah, we don't have the full-on details of the ground invasion.

55:52We'll have to see how that wages out. We've seen reports, of course, of booby-trapped-laden robots, which could be used to try and clear out some of this. Those haven't been confirmed by an independent monitor, but we see the Euromed monitor, a nonprofit group out of Geneva, saying that. So I think we're going to see a lot of conflicting information, and it's going to be very tough on the ground to get the tactical day-to-day operational picture of what's going on. And, of course, we are reliant on the few Palestinian journalists that are also left there providing some reporting. Let's pick up in Qatar, where the fallout from Israeli strikes on Doha continued this week.

56:28On Monday, there was a summit of Arab and Islamic nations, the Gulf Cooperation Council, in hopes of presenting a united response to Israel's attack on Hamas leaders there last week. Six people were killed. Did any actionable items come out of that emergency summit, Jack? It's really hard to quantify. The Qataris said there would be a collective regional response, but they did not say what the collective regional response would be. So it's not providing any deterrent effect towards the Israelis from launching such a strike again. They have a very wordy communique that condemns everything that went on and condemns Israel for hostile acts.

57:07Those include genocide, ethnic cleansing, starvation. But we haven't really seen anything that's really coalescing this group together. And that's partially because there's not really a security architecture in the region when you look at the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic States that met, that have really coalesced around any significant ideal other than, of course, under the American umbrella, the protection of oil. That, of course, occurred from the Carter administration to the first Trump administration. But now with that gone, no Abraham Accords on the table. You have to wonder, are they sort of biding their time and perhaps looking for a new guarantor in the region.

57:47Elizabeth, on Thursday, Saudi Arabia and nuclear-armed Pakistan signed a mutual defense pact that defines any attack on either nation as an attack on both, a key accord in the wake of Israel's strike on Qatar last week. Jack, is that intended to be like NATO's Article 5? Well, there hasn't ever been an Article 5 in the Gulf. I mean, this could be a way of sending a signal. But they have no means of enforcing this right against a more aggressive power. And I think that's what we saw with the Israelis. Of course, the notification to the United States, to everyone else, was late or patchy. But you don't sort of see the ability among the Gulf states to actually do this.

58:29They have a lot of American kit. They have a lot of American air defenses. But they don't have any ability to launch an Article V style self-defense operation that NATO would launch. And even when you look at the NATO countries, there's still doubt in countries like that that they have the ability to do this. Well, and I would just add, going back to Jack's comments on the summit Monday between the Arab states, take a look at what Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said. I had never heard a condemnation quite like this from him. He spoke of the enemy in the region, and he warned that existing peace agreements were at risk.

59:09Notably, his country signed a peace agreement with Israel in 1979. But so we'll see what happens there. But to Jack's point, the influence of Arab states over Israel here is limited. We mentioned U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio traveling to Israel to meet Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Netanyahu threatened to target Hamas leaders if Qatar did not expel them. But Trump on Monday repeated his assertion that Israel would not strike Qatar again. David, can both of those things be true? Goodness only knows because it's Donald Trump. And goodness only knows whether he knew in advance, which is a question being asked in the Middle East.

59:51You know, he says he's very unhappy, which is one of the things he says when he doesn't intend to do anything at all about something another country has done. He's very unhappy that Israel struck Qatar. And let's not forget, Qatar is home to the largest American airbase in the region. a huge base. So it is, you know, you could imagine an American president that would be pretty upset that America's security guarantee to Qatar was completely flouted by Israel. But one of the oddities of this moment is that Donald Trump keeps explaining how very upset he is by something that Benjamin Netanyahu has just done.

1:00:25Netanyahu then defies him, flatters him, defies him again, and gets away with it. And one of the big mysteries I hear when I talk to diplomats in Europe or in the rest of the world, is why does Donald Trump, the man with more leverage than anyone else on the Israeli prime minister, not use it? And for the moment, he seems to sort of confine himself to scolding Netanyahu and saying that he's unhappy about something he's just done, but then sides with him on everything that matters. Let's head to the UK, where President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump appeared this week as part of a state visit.

1:00:59They met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, as well as King Charles, Queen Camilla, other members of the royal family, Trump's second state visit after one during his first term in 2019. David, what's been the vibes from London? What kind of approach to diplomacy did we see on display from the British government during this trip this week? So the vibes are kind of odd because so the Economist offices where I'm talking to you from, we're just around the corner from Buckingham Palace. That's not deliberate, but it just happens to be. And there's lots of American flags and British flags all the way down the mile.

1:01:29You know, people have seen that. But that isn't where the golden coach trundled to take Donald Trump to meet the king because he was out at Windsor Castle and then he met our prime minister out of the prime minister's country residence, Chequers. Now, is that because Britain thinks Donald Trump is a big countryside fan who doesn't like big cities? I think not. The guy's a New Yorker. It's because they didn't want him anywhere near Londoners who don't like Donald Trump very much. And so the best way of making sure he did not see a single protester and instead saw a lot of British soldiers wearing armor and feathered plumes in their hats and carrying swords was by having it all happening in faraway places well outside the city.

1:02:07So it's been a strange moment. On the political side, the press conference yesterday with Keir Starmer and Donald Trump, from a British point of view, went pretty much as well as it possibly could have done. Journalists tried to make them disagree with each other. They declined to disagree with each other. And weirdly, this Labour Prime Minister we have seems to remain one of the people who can keep Donald Trump in a good mood. As part of the welcome, the King and Trump inspected, as you said, David, Windsor Castle's royal guard. They took a ride through the grounds of Windsor Estate in a gilded carriage.

1:02:43At a state dinner the King hosted for President Trump on Wednesday night, guests included the heads of tech companies like Microsoft, Apple, OpenAI, NVIDIA, as well as media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Elizabeth, what should we take away from the choice of guests in attendance during Trump's visit, both for Starmer's team and for the White House? Right. Well, on the U.S. side, the delegation, as you mentioned, included prominent U.S. business leaders, I think signaling Trump's desire for the visit to focus on technology and economic partnerships. On the U.K. side, the British senior royals were all out in full force.

1:03:22And at the prime minister's country estate, Keir Starmer showed Trump the archive of Winston Churchill, who coined the term special relationship between the two transatlantic allies. I think the UK government and the British royal family really pulled out all the stops for Trump's second state visit. And the charm offensive seemed to have worked. Trump spoke highly of his hosts, and there were very few public disagreements during this trip, as David mentioned, even over some of the more thorny issues like trade and the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. David, how did the British media portray this visit?

1:03:57It was a real mix because Donald Trump himself is very unpopular in the UK. You look at any of the polls, I think he's on 16 % approval. But the reality in The Economist, we wrote a piece about this this week, is that his views when it comes to immigration, when it comes to multiculturalism, when it comes to what he would say is dangerous censorship of speech in the name of kind of wokery, that is actually taking off in British politics as it is in the States, as it is in other places. And so there is a lot of Trumpy politics around in the UK, even if people do not like Donald Trump very much.

1:04:31And so there was an uneasy edge that actually, yes, we can pull off a show and have all this kind of the royals dressed like playing cards as we do, but there is something larger that Donald Trump speaks to that is depressingly actually resonating with a big chunk of British public opinion as it does across the whole of Europe. And so there was a sort of mockery, but also an edge of this is also serious. Somewhere in this, this is also serious. In central London, before President Trump's state visit on Saturday, an estimated 150 ,000 far-right protesters held a demonstration called Unite the Kingdom.

1:05:06The event was one of the largest national events in the UK in decades, drew condemnation from Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who said it sent a, quote, shiver throughout the country. 5 ,000 people attended a nearby counter-protest. Billionaire Elon Musk spoke to the far-right rally-goers by video link, as did Eric Zanmore, a far-right French politician with multiple hate speech convictions. David, just getting to what you were talking about before the break, who was behind organizing this rally? And how surprising was it that there were an estimated 150 ,000 far-right protesters that showed up. There was a lot that was surprising.

1:05:45It was big. It was also weirdly transatlantic. There were a lot of people holding posters of Charlie Kirk who had just been assassinated in America. Now, the vast majority of British people do not know who Charlie Kirk is, but because social media just speeds up these connections, he suddenly became a figure at the rally in the UK. There were a lot of people who looked a lot like football hooligans. They were wearing football team shirts of clubs that are associated with football hooliganism. It was organised by someone who has a criminal conviction for violence at a football match, a guy called Tommy Robinson.

1:06:16That's the name he uses politically. He is a far-right activist who is disowned by people like Nigel Farage, the leader of the main anti-immigration party that actually has members of parliament, who clearly thinks that Tommy Robinson is a step too far. He's said very hateful things about Islam, about Muslims, about immigration, about mosques over the years. he's an inflammatory rabble rouser. I think to see Elon Musk, the world's richest man, addressing by video link and using kind of language around how, you know, there's going to be violence soon feeds into this very dangerous loop that the right, the populist right in America has this whole narrative that Britain is on the brink of a civil war caused by Muslim immigration.

1:06:57I'm here in the middle of London. We are not on the brink of a civil war. I think a lot of people, reasonable people in the UK think that Elon Musk really should butt out of British politics and trying to stoke violence by aligning himself with some of the furthest right, most unpleasant figures in British public life. David, you mentioned Charlie Kirk. To what extent has his killing ignited folks on the right in the UK? A bit. I mean, it's kind of the very online right have picked up on it because they're so very steeped in American sort of online sort of rhetoric and discourse. But the truth is he just was not a major public figure.

1:07:38He had done some debates at universities here in the UK, but he just wasn't a major public figure. There's a lot of debates in the biggest, most mainstream papers about the same stuff that you are thinking about, you know, the cancellation of people like Jimmy Kimmel. Because, you know, American politics is basically global politics, right? Everyone takes an interest. But it would be an exaggeration to say that Britain was part of the American culture wars. It's just we're somewhat obsessive about them. But our noses are pressed against the glass. You're on the other side of the window. Let's go back to President Trump's state visit and to that relationship with Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

1:08:14They appeared together on Thursday and Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin has, quote, let me down regarding negotiations over peace in Ukraine. And here's what Trump said about the British prime minister's plan to recognize Palestinian statehood this month before the U.N. General Assembly in New York. So I have a disagreement with the prime minister on that score. One of our few disagreements, actually. Elizabeth, we've talked about Starmer and Trump's relationship, a warm one, not contentious like with some other world leaders. What were the main points of agreement and disagreement on display this week?

1:08:52Right. Well, as you heard there from the comment, Trump had a very mild reaction to the U.K.'s plan to recognize Palestinian statehood on Monday, called it one of their few disagreements. He and Starmer, for the most part, downplayed these disagreements in public and during the press conference. One interesting exchange during the press conference was Trump was asked about Peter Mandelson, who until last week had been the U.K. ambassador to the U.S. He was fired by Starmer after new details emerged about his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump was asked for a reaction and claimed not to know Mandelson despite meeting him in the Oval Office just four months ago.

1:09:34He then punted the question to Starmer who said Mandelson was fired after, quote, information came to light. President Trump says he's ready to impose tough sanctions on Russia over its war with Ukraine, but not until European allies meet a few of his demands. Top of the list, stop buying Russian oil. While imports have not been cut dramatically, they have not stopped completely. Trump claims they are helping to pay for Putin's war efforts. Jack, how realistic is it for EU and NATO countries to stop importing Russian oil altogether? I imagine this must have come up also during the state visit.

1:10:10Yeah, I mean, this has come up a lot. And of course, the European Union, NATO countries are down about 95 % from where they were before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022. It was nearly a third of Europe's oil imports, but now most of what they have to cut is coming from countries like Hungary and Slovakia, which have sort of been in the timeout corner in the European Union. They're big fans of Donald Trump, so it's unlikely that he would put direct pressure on them. The other bigger, thornier problem, of course, is the Europe takes a lot of liquefied natural gas from the Russians for electricity, for other means.

1:10:51It's hard to imagine how they would find short-term supplies for that. And it's just this pressure that's been coming from the White House onto European countries when it comes to Ukraine. And there's been frustration within the bloc because they feel like Trump is coming, putting all the pressure on the Europeans, not putting the pressure on the Kremlin. He's rolled out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin. He's tried to engage Vladimir Putin. The Europeans have had to come groveling. Does that fit? Do you think are you getting the sense? I wonder if European leaders feel like that is being expressed maybe privately to the president, if not publicly.

1:11:27It seems like the European tack has really changed from not trying to debate and argue with the president. I mean, we saw a real change at the NATO summit in The Hague where it was very much giving Trump the bluster, the rollout, the red carpet that he wanted. We do see Trump's tack changing a little bit towards the Kremlin. It's perhaps not a 180, but he has said that he's interested in imposing these sanctions. Now, these are probably the Lindsey Graham sanctions that would put massive tariffs on Russian oil, gas, uranium, you name it, target Russia's customers with secondary sanctions. So these would be very significant sanctions and tariffs that would go into place.

1:12:05Now, Graham has potentially said he could do this as part of the continuing resolution to fund the government. So that's one way for Graham to get in the window. But we'll see if congressional Republicans move out ahead of the president. They've been reluctant to do so. Meanwhile, Ukraine has launched a series of attacks on oil refineries and energy infrastructure in Russia. David, what effect is that having? I mean, in some regions of Russia, which is a big country, a lot of effects. We are seeing, because these refinery strikes have been extraordinarily effective in some cases, and there's a lot of them.

1:12:37So there are regions of Russia where we've seen very long queues at petrol stations, gas stations. We've seen price rises of gas. This is quite effective. And we've actually seen Donald Trump grumbling that Ukraine is being irresponsible. One explanation for that potentially being that one of the things that Donald Trump knows is incredibly important for any politician in America is for the price of gas at the pump in America to be as low as possible. So he generally opposes anything anywhere in the world that might raise the price of gas. But the problem is that Ukraine has got these successful attacks going on energy infrastructure.

1:13:13But remember, and we've talked about it on the show before, particularly last winter, Russia is also brutally effective at taking out the electricity infrastructure, the transformers, the grids needed to heat Ukrainian homes and public buildings during the winter. And so, yes, Ukraine is doing well with these drones attacking refineries. Yes, it's getting people's attention. But the Ukrainians are still under a tremendous amount of pressure. Russia launching the largest attacks recently by drone and missile on Ukraine since the beginning of the war three years ago. I want to get back to those drone attacks in just a second, David.

1:13:46But Elizabeth, can I just ask just how much hurting Russia's oil industry actually affects Russia's ability to keep funding the war? Well, you know, I think look at Trump's comments this week that Zelensky will have to make a deal with Russia to end the war. He made the comments after Zelensky voiced frustration with the slow pace of additional U.S. sanctions. Trump hasn't imposed any sanctions on Russia since his return to office, conditioning such moves on NATO allies taking similar steps and cutting off their dependence on Russian energy. and I think you know as all of this is happening Ukrainian officials are calling on Trump to take a clearer and stronger position when it comes to supporting Ukraine's sovereignty and security.

1:14:35I think we've seen just over the past three years since Russia has launched this full-scale invasion in Ukraine basically a splitting of the global oil market between people who buy Russian oil and people who are trying not to buy Russian oil like the Europeans and the West and we do see sort of this coalition. Countries like China, Iran, of course, involved there. North Korea still trading with the Russians very significantly. And India, of course, which is, yeah, that's been sort of a big controversy between Trump and Modi trying to put pressure on the Indians to slash these oil buys. So it does seem like there's a convergence in the economic pressure from Trump, but he's still reluctant to sort of pull the trigger on some of these moves.

1:15:17David, can I get back to what you were talking about with the Russian drones On Saturday, we saw Russian drones in the airspace over Romania. This came just days after multiple incursions into Poland that left Eastern European countries on edge. In response, the Polish government has suggested a no-fly zone over Ukraine. Is that likely to happen? The short answer is no. There's a reason for that, which is that you have consistently seen Western governments in Europe, the United States, willing to supply arms and help and training to Ukraine, but letting Ukraine do the fighting. There is a real concern that it would be a major escalation to have Western air forces shooting anything down, even if it was an unmanned Russian drone.

1:15:59That is somehow a major escalation for Western planes and missiles to be firing Russian things down over Ukraine. It's also the wrong way to attack drones. And I think you're right to mention the important shock that was caused to Europe when Poland had 19, roughly, we think, Russian drones came deep into Polish airspace. There was a pretty successful effort involving four different European governments to send up very, very expensive fighter jets and surveillance planes to take these things down with million-dollar missiles. But these were$20 ,000 Russian drones made of styrofoam. And so you cannot keep doing that for very long because you run out of missiles And it's unbelievably wasteful in terms of resources.

1:16:42And so this whole idea of a no-fly zone, there isn't really the weaponry on the European side that can shoot these things down, even if you thought the politics was safe and they don't think the politics is safe. David, I wanted to ask you, on Friday morning, President Trump spoke with Chinese leader Xi Jinping as they try to finalize a deal to keep TikTok operating in the US. What do we know about that conversation? So we have the Chinese readout. I've only found the Chinese readout so far. so far, and they talk about the TikTok conversation. It looks as if they haven't come to a final deal. Remember, the big sticking point is that, you know, Congress passed, I think, almost unanimously or unanimously a law saying that TikTok had to sell its entire US business or be shut down in the US because the idea was that you have American kids looking at TikTok in their bedrooms, but that is an algorithm choosing what they see, monitoring what they're watching, which is controlled at some level by the Chinese Communist Party.

1:17:36Very surprisingly, Donald Trump does not seem to be as shocked as Congress is by that idea and is willing to allow some sort of deal where China would retain the algorithm but maybe license it. We don't know for sure. What we do know is that Xi Jinping said that the deal needs to respect corporate wishes and that China is pleased to see enterprises conducting sound commercial negotiations on the basis of market principles. If you believe that Xi Jinping thinks that companies get to take decisions without the say-so of the communist party, then I have a bridge to sell you. But nonetheless, that is the readout from the Chinese side.

1:18:10I think basically America is going to climb down and let the Chinese to keep the algorithm, but maybe license the algorithm to keep it alive. And Donald Trump says he has a lot of followers on TikTok. And so why would you want to shut it down? Right, I was going to say, when the White House created an official channel last month, probably a bit of a sign, right, of how that would go. A big thank you to our panel, David Rennie, geopolitics editor and columnist at The Economist, where he writes their column, The Telegram. Elizabeth Hagedorn, State Department Correspondent at El Monitor, and Jack Dutch, Defense Reporter at Politico.

1:18:38Mike Kidd is our sound designer and engineer. Chris Castano is our digital editor. Maya Garg is our senior managing producer. Alexandra Bote is our senior supervising producer. Aileen Humphreys is the editor and producer of 1A On Demand. Barb Anguiano produces our podcast. And special thanks to Matthew Simonson for his additional support this week. This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR. I'm Nyla Boodoo. This is 1A.