The News Roundup For September 25, 2026

24:35But I guess that's where Missouri is at right now, to be frank, with this kind of unprecedented situation. One more piece of news for you here this week. An error in Texas created a backlog of more than 178 ,000 voter registration applications when the Texas Department of Safety failed to send tens of thousands of applications to county registrars. Now, officials are scrambling to process those now, and Texas Democrats are demanding an investigation into what went wrong. Well, as the war between the United States and Iran closes in on its seventh month now, President Trump, as the midterms approach, made this threat to Iran while he was at the U.N.

25:16General Assembly in New York City this week. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before? Maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world. Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again? Now, that sound of the president is from the official U.N. General Assembly feed, not from the White House press pool, just so you're aware. A day later, Iran's president, Mahmoud Pazeshkin, told the Assembly that his country won't bend to intimidation from the United States.

26:03We will never bow our head or bend at the knee. Iran must be understood by Mr. Trump and those who seek to bully us that we are ready for dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations without accepting the language of force. And while the U.S. and Iranian officials held their first known talks this week since the collapse of the ceasefire back in July, there's still no end in sight, at least as far as we know, to this war. Before this week, the U.N., there was something remarkable. The U.N. had never hosted the leader of a country actively at war with the United States. Taylor, the optics of this were pretty remarkable.

26:41Iranian state plane on the tarmac of JFK. What do you think about the fact that Iran's president felt secure enough to come to New York City and that the United States actually allowed him to address the U.N., his safety in question? Keep in mind all of the leaders of Iran that have been killed by the United States since the start of this war, including the Ayatollah, the head of the IRGC back in 2020. And I'll just mention that the Secret Service was afraid enough about an Iranian plot to kill President Trump that they switched planes in Turkey on the catering truck. And yet the Iranians comfortable enough to come here to the United States.

27:20That was remarkable. It was remarkable. And to get to hear from the Iranian president, you know, in front of this global audience, in many ways, you would think that this is how we want the U.N. to operate. And we want it to be kind of this neutral setting where people can come and trade their views globally. But to have an active war be taking place and to have the president come here, I think really stood out. I also think it's a reminder that the way that Iran's government is structured, obviously, the president has power in Iran, but there is the supreme leader. And the president of Iran actually sat down with Brett Baer on Fox News and was pressed about where is the new supreme leader and why hasn't he made a public appearance?

27:57Is he OK health wise and safety wise? And the Iranian president insisted he is. He said that he claimed he met with him for seven hours, but the public still hasn't seen him. But all of that was really striking. I think the tough thing in covering President Trump's handling of this war and you played the sound from his U.N. address. He said, I'm still considering annihilating Iran. Literally an hour later, we learned that U.S. officials met behind closed doors with Iranian officials through intermediaries, the first talks in months. And President Trump goes back and forth in saying, I'm about to blow up Iran.

28:27Talks are going well and we're making progress on this. Just like how he said in the U.N. speech, I'm not on the ballot this fall and my political reality is not impacting how I handle this war. But then you played that soundbite earlier where President Trump said, consider me on the ballot. So there's a total merging of all of it right there. Anita Kumar, do I not annihilate Iran, the president says. Is there any actual appetite in the administration to escalate this conflict now? I think the administration is trying to figure out how to appease what is going on in this country where people are asking questions.

29:02They want to know what the end is going to be. And it's not just Americans. It is members of his own party, members of Congress who are starting to say, not starting, they've been saying, please tell the American people what you plan to do and how we're going to get out of this. We're going to talk more about that and about one particular aspect of the knock-on effect of this war in Iran, which is the price of diesel in America and how it's affecting everything that we consume. More to come. Stay with us.

29:35This week on Here and Now Anytime, how climate change is literally shifting the earth beneath Alaskans' feet through floods, landslides, and melting ice, and what they're doing about it. Bring on the locusts, because we've hit everything else. I mean, luckily, Jitto is very resilient. Come with us to Alaska on Here and Now Anytime, on the NPR app, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. If the creation of the universe was translated into music, what would it sound like?

30:09Ideas about how to make sense of the incomprehensible. Most of science in general is actually intuitable. That's on the TED Radio Hour podcast. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Power is up for grabs in Wisconsin. Ahead of the November election, Swing State of the Union explores top issues in the state and how they're motivating voters nationwide. Listen to the Swing State of the Union podcast from WUWM, part of the NPR Network, on the NPR app, or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop Wednesdays. This message comes from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, recognizing extraordinarily creative individuals whose ideas, solutions, and discoveries expand people's expectations of what's possible.

31:01Macfound.org. Welcome back to the 1A podcast. Before the break, we were talking about the midterms, about the polls, but also about the real world stuff that's affecting the standing of President Trump and Republicans. We touched on the Iran war, and that leads me to the gas pump in America. On Tuesday, diesel prices hit a record high of$6.53 a gallon on average. That's according to data from AAA. That's up 77 % from a year ago. Now, diesel, of course, fuels the trucking industry. It's also critical for farmers. It powers farm machinery. And when you think about all of the things that move by truck or that grow on farms, as truckers will tell you, diesel is in everything.

31:48And now some Republican lawmakers in states with economies that heavily depend on agriculture are calling for a ban on U.S. diesel exports as a way to lower high prices. Now, Taylor, President Trump said he's considering an export ban. He hasn't announced a final decision. The president said he wanted it. Then there was reporting that the White House was preparing a ban. Then the White House denied that reporting. The energy secretary shot the whole thing down. Where does this really stand? Can the president do this? And more importantly, is he going to do it? He can do it temporarily. It's unclear if he's actually going to do it, because as you outlined, the president was asked about this while he was up at the United Nations.

32:29He said he was open to it. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson was sitting next to him and said, we are exploring it. We're trying to figure out what it would actually look like. But I think it was the day after that, that Energy Secretary Chris Wright came out and said, we wouldn't be able to do that. It would disrupt the market too much. It would probably hurt prices even more if we did it. Lewis in North Carolina says, Oil is only a global market because we allow it to be a global market. Why aren't people more strongly considering this export ban? So it's funny. There is a growing chorus of Republicans, especially from big agriculture states.

32:59Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, who's 93 years old, has represented Iowa for half a century. He's been very outspoken about this, and he's begging because, of course, Iowa has a ton of farmers who are really feeling the pinch of this. I want to read one tweet from him. This was from very early Friday morning. He goes, a suggestion for President Trump. Since you're hearing from big oil about diesel prices and the problems with an embargo, tell big oil to reduce their prices for Americans and not charge the global price. This is an America first issue. Why be energy independent if we aren't going to use it when we need it?

33:31So that's just the taste of what some Republican lawmakers are saying to President Trump because they're saying this is a crisis for our own constituents. The broader question, though, is if you do this short-term ban, it could lead to regular gasoline prices spiking because essentially the market would try to counterbalance itself. And you have – this goes beyond Iran. You have Russia's war on Ukraine and the fact that Ukraine has gotten really good using drones at targeting Russia's diesel industry. So that's also leading to prices. We talk about the continuing effects of the war in Iran on the elections but also in American society.

34:05Remember the USS Abraham Lincoln? That's the aircraft carrier with a crew of more than 5 ,000 sailors that spent more than 300 days at sea in support of the war with Iran. This week, the Navy revealed that eight sailors on that ship and others in the carrier strike group tried to take their own lives during its nearly year-long deployment. Anita, President Trump and Secretary Pete Hegseth have both very much downplayed conditions aboard that ship and concerns about the crew's mental and physical health when all of this was going on. How are lawmakers and members of the military community responding to this latest grim news?

34:45Yeah, I mean, they did sort of downplay that and say there was nothing going on. And I think you've seen members of Congress say that they want some information, which is actually why this was released. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand asked for that information, and she got this information in a letter. So I do think more information is starting to come out, but we're also possibly going to hear from some of the people that were on there. You know, that's what we heard from before. We heard from families who were concerned, and I think things are going to continue to leak out, and it's going to be difficult for the administration to say one thing when we have information otherwise.

35:19All right. Well, we were talking about the midterms almost all this hour. It intersects with so much of what we're talking about here on the Roundup, House races, Senate races. Speaking of Senate races, though, let's go back to Maine for a moment because there was major news out of Maine this week. In fact, I'll call it a bombshell in Republican Senator Susan Collins' close race to hang on to her Senate seat there. ProPublica reported on Tuesday that the FBI was investigating Susan Collins and her campaign aides back during her last Senate race in 2020 for corruption and for bribery. It's a long and detailed report, Alana Shore.

36:00Give us the thumbnail of what's in it. It essentially deals with allegations that were made by the CEO of a company called Navatech, which is a government contractor. and there are quite a lot of those that take a lot of meetings. But it focused specifically on meetings wherein the CEO of Navitech sat down with a fundraiser who was working with Colin's campaign, in fact, a prominent Republican fundraiser for quite a few candidates. And essentially, some money was solicited, which isn't necessarily, although it's a little shaky, not so illegal in and of itself. But then Navitech's CEO responds, well, if I'm going to write this massive check, I have certain expectations regarding government contracts, and those contracts did materialize.

36:44So that is a clear case of what we call pay for play, that the report stated that FBI got information from the Navitex CEO on it and was investigating in serious depth before Trump returned to office. And that investigation, as well as a lot of other corruption investigations into public officials, were shot down. Now, what the report doesn't prove is that the pay for play definitely occurred. But ProPublica goes into pretty exhaustive detail about these meetings, has a copy of the check. It's an extensive report to the point where Collins' senior staff was having to publicly try to dispute it.

37:21And a lot of receipts and a lot of emails, and they quote Senator Collins herself at one point speaking to the CEO of Navitech, telling him, you've seen me deliver when she was soliciting campaign funds. You've seen me deliver, Alana Shor. Now, Senator Collins has attacked the report and the timing of its release. Here's what she told a Wall Street Journal podcast. It's clearly a partisan hit job. And I've got to say, I do not understand how anyone would take the word of a felon who's been convicted twice of five counts of money laundering, accounts of bank fraud, false submissions to the FEC.

38:08He is a convicted liar. And when you contrast that to my decades of honest public service with the utmost integrity, it is so offensive. Taylor, Senator Collins, Deputy Chief of Staff, claimed her last campaign cooperated fully with the FBI during this investigation, but she's in a tough race. She says there very clearly her accuser in this piece is a convicted felon and was trying to get further charges against him reduced. That's why he was talking to the FBI. She says he's not credible, but the story is detailed and it's long and there are receipts. What does Susan Collins need to explain to voters now in her own state, given this report and given the state of the race?

38:58Well, for people who haven't been following House Senator Susan Collins campaigns, this story directly relates to it. She is known for crisscrossing every corner of her very large and very rural state and going into small communities and saying, I've spent decades in the Senate. I am currently the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee. I have been able to bring tax dollars back home to Maine in a way that I deserve to be kept in office to continue delivering. That is literally her elevator pitch to people saying, I have figured out how to use the federal system for Maine. What this ProPublica story does, and I read the whole thing, I encourage everybody to read it.

39:37It is extensive and it is incredible reporting. What's striking about what Senator Collins points out is, yes, the man at the center of this from that government contracting company, he is a convicted felon. He obviously ran a shady operation. He admitted to a lot of that. But what FBI investigators had was an extensive paper trail and digital communications and checks and showing that this extended far beyond just his interactions with Senator Collins. He was also interacting with Democratic senators, Brian Schatz from Hawaii. So George Davis from Cape Cod has that very question. Was the FBI investigating other members of Congress in addition to Susan Collins?

40:11Have any of their names come out? The ProPublica report lists other lawmakers who had staffers who were who had detailed interactions with this company in question. As Alana pointed out, because the Trump administration has largely stopped corruption investigations by by and large, we don't really know if other lawmakers, if they were getting closer to formally investigating them in the way that ProPublica documented Senator. And many of the investigators who were investigating Susan Collins were fired by the FBI because they had previously worked on investigations of Donald Trump. Yes. And this is an example where the president has made clear he's using his second term as a way to kind of exact retribution on people who investigated him.

40:53That includes pulling out those investigators. What Senator Collins has to say to her constituents is, was this corruption or was this me delivering for you? Stories of possible corruption in the pages of ProPublica in Maine and also in the Bahamas. We've covered this story, but it continues. Don Jr., not the president, but the president's junior, his son, a lavish wedding in the Bahamas back in May. And it was bankrolled in part by a Russian oligarch with ties to Vladimir Putin. We've talked about it here on the show. Umar Kremlev reportedly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for some of the festivities, including the rental of a private island and a firework show for an after party at the wedding.

41:36President Trump has now said that his son has repaid the money. First, Anita Kumar, is there any evidence that Don Jr., in fact, has paid the money back to Kremlev, a Russian oligarch close to Putin. Second, Republicans are now speaking out about this relationship that Don Jr. has. What are they saying? What are they calling for? Yeah, I mean, they're people that want to look into what's going on here and what that relationship is like. I believe we've just seen President Trump saying this has been paid back and we haven't seen the evidence yet, but some of my colleagues here can correct me if I'm wrong.

42:11Oftentimes when we hear from President Trump, he says something but doesn't follow through with the evidence to show that. I can guess here that members of Congress are going to be asking for that in addition to asking more about that relationship, and they already are. Senator John Curtis of Utah says a toaster is a wedding gift. A private island party paid for by Putin-connected oligarchs is something else, Taylor Poppola. Some Republicans are extremely uncomfortable with this. They are. Senator John Curtis from Utah, he's trying to kind of take up the mantle of the former Senator Mitt Romney.

42:47We've seen Texas Senator John Cornyn, who got pushed out of a primary and is exiting him express interest in investigating this. We've also seen pushback, though, from President Trump's allies. Ohio Senator Bernie Marino essentially said Donald Trump Jr. is a private citizen and a businessman, and there should be no questions over his professional or personal relationships. What's striking is a lot of the Republicans defending Don Jr. were very critical of Hunter Biden and how he was potentially capitalizing or trying to capitalize on his family's political name and connection. So we'll have to see if it comes, if anything comes from it.

43:20All right. One more piece of important news before we round out the hour, an important story of another shooting by an ICE officer in Texas. On Sunday, an ICE officer shot Wilbur Rafael Garces Perez in the back. Garces Perez is Venezuelan. He was making door dash deliveries when the incident occurred. He's in stable condition, but he's in a Texas detention center with a bullet still lodged in his back. And an officer was not wearing a body camera at the time of the shooting, although he has now been issued one. There was another ICE officer at the scene, but only picked up some of the incident on their body camera.

43:56And we're going to continue to follow that story here on 1A. All right, it's time for the end of the hour. Cleanse your brain a little bit, because I want to give you the ultimate brain cleanser of them all as we finish up the roundup. Yeah, it's Fat Bear Week. It's back. Everybody loves this. You know how it works. Each year, bracket-style competition. It draws fans from all over the world who vote for their favorite beefy brown bear in the last year. More than 1.5 million people weighed in, get it, weighed in from more than 100 countries. Who will this winners be? Defending champion Chunk. What did he say?

44:35Other fan favorites. It's Backpack, Marshmallow, or a big bear named Studius. Alana Shore, who you got in the bracket? I like the one that's called Bucky Dent, just as a baseball fan. Taylor, anybody else have a vote? Actually, they don't give them names now. They're numbered because people were going out into the wilderness looking for their favorite fat bear. Public service from the Roundup. Don't do that. Don't go and find Bucky Dent in the wild in Alaska. It won't end well, and we want you to be around for the next roundup. Taylor Popplars, I thank you. From Spectrum News, Anita Kumar from Politico and Alana Shore from Semaphore.

45:15We're just getting started with the week's headlines. When we come back after the break, we'll have a new panel and all the news from around the globe. Stay with us.

45:29This week on Sources and Methods, an eyebrow-raising message from President Trump to the U.N. Quote, to the victor belong the spoils. Also, President Xi Jinping of China meets with Trump in D.C. We'll tell you what to watch for. Stay ahead of the week's biggest national security news with sources and methods from NPR. Welcome back to the 1A podcast. It's the international half of our weekly news roundup now. The United Nations was founded post-World War II to promote a rules-based order. And the United States was at the center of that world order. That's why it's in New York. But today, things are kind of different.

46:15This week, we heard the American president threatened to annihilate Iran. We'll get to that. And declare to the winner, go the spoils, which many people took as a boast of imperial coercion in Venezuela. We'll get to that, too. But first, all the news from the Chinese president's visit to Washington. In studio with us, Robbie Grammer. He's been at the White House covering Xi Jinping's state visit. He's national security reporter at The Wall Street Journal. Hi, Robbie. Great to be here. Jack Detch is also here, as he often is, defense reporter at Politico. Hi, Jack. Hi, Todd. And joining us from New York, where he's been covering the United Nations General Assembly this week, Andrew Roth.

46:55He's the Guardian's global affairs correspondent at the end of a very busy week. Thanks for being here, Andrew. Thanks for having me. All right. The summit that everyone is watching this week, Chinese President Xi Jinping, his first visit to the United States in over a decade. On Wednesday, President Trump traveled out to Joint Base Andrews to greet Xi personally and to roll out that red carpet. Only popes have been greeted by American presidents at their planes instead of at the White House. at least in recent times. Still, Trump posted on social media that he was angry that the TV cameras weren't there to capture what he called a made-for-TV event.

47:36Networks refused to provide pool coverage because of the president's ban on some media outlets from the White House. A full disclosure, my spouse works for one of those banned outlets at the White House. Then, on Thursday, Xi was treated to a military review in the Rose Garden at the White House, including a colonial era band.

48:00There was also a flyover by a B-2 bomber and four fighter jets. Now, we are not using audio of the president and Xi's remarks. That's in solidarity with other news organizations whose reporters were not allowed to access that event. But I'll recap for us. The president took a solicitous tone with Xi Jinping, a White House tour. There were some insults for Joe Biden and a social media post where he declared that Xi is, this is a quote now, strong, vibrant and fit, the president said about the president of China. Robbie Grammer, you've been covering all of the details of this visit this week. Set the scene for us.

48:40What do you read into statements and images that these two leaders were cutting during this visit? Well, this visit was all vintage Trump, right? It's about the pomp and circumstance. It's about the imagery. It's about the symbolism at the same time that Trump loves to do these mono-a-mono type meetings, these big diplomatic events where he speaks directly head-to-head with the leader of another great superpower. But behind all this pomp and circumstance, it's not really clear what the U.S. got here. I mean, there are these massive structural tensions in the U.S.-China relationship over trade, over the race to be dominant in AI, over the fact that China is increasingly, albeit indirectly, supporting Iran in its own conflict with the United States.

49:29And Russia in its conflict in Ukraine. And Russia in its conflict in Ukraine. And U.S. military planners are increasingly alarmed about China's rapid military buildup in the Pacific, its expansive nuclear program. You didn't hear about any of that, at least publicly from Trump. It seems like what we got was sort of underwhelming given all of this pomp and circumstance. We got an extension in the truce on the U.S.-China trade war, which is significant. This has been a really punishing trade war. Obviously, the U.S. economy is going to be a huge deal in the upcoming midterms, and China plays a part in that.

50:05Two-month extension. Two-month extension with Secretary of Treasury Scott Besson hinting that there might be a bigger deal, but not elaborating on that. But China agreed to send two pandas to a zoo in the United States. I mean, panda diplomacy, who doesn't love that, right? I think we'll talk about that by the end of the hour. I have a sneaking suspicion since senior producer Maya Garg is in charge of the international news roundup. But go on. Who doesn't love panda diplomacy? But beyond that, not much is there. And, you know, the Chinese readout of this meeting had a lot about Taiwan, which is a huge issue.

50:37They independently govern Ireland that the U.S. supports, but China considers its own territory. but there weren't many meaningful concessions that Trump seemed to get from this incredibly lavish welcome to Xi Jinping. So Jack Detch, we certainly saw Trump's motivation to lavish attention and praise on Xi. That got the attention of a lot of people in Washington who would like to see a more adversarial or muscular approach to China, certainly on the world stage. But what about Xi's main goals at this summit? What is he here for? Well, Xi is playing for a little bit more time than Trump is. Remember, he's not facing an election in November like Trump is with the midterms.

51:17So he doesn't actually have to play up the domestic angle. He's not looking for deals, deals, deals like Trump is. He's looking for stability and predictability in the relationship. He's trying to smooth out the trade war. He's trying to get rid of U.S. technology restrictions and trying to avoid frictions over things like Taiwan. So you see this very, very difference in tone and tenor between Trump and Xi Jinping. Trump wants these deals right now. Xi Jinping is more in this long-term game of managing U.S. power. Andrew, what did you see in the stagecraft, but also in the motivations of these two leaders this week?

51:54Yeah, it's quite extraordinary. You know, it was a bit of whiplash with Trump being at the U.N. and giving, you know, a kind of very aggressive speech, and then going out and rolling out the red carpet for Z in D.C. And I think that, you know, as Jack and Robbie kind of covered, both sides are kind of playing for time. You know, Trump in particular is worried about the midterms and worried very heavily about trade at the moment. And, you know, even though we don't have a kind of clear understanding of what's going to happen with the trade war, and I don't think that we're any closer to a kind of deal at the moment.

52:27You know, we do see Trump very much focusing on pressuring the Chinese, you know, and using tariffs potentially as a kind of cudgel in exchange for, you know, the Chinese kind of balancing out the trade imbalance at the moment. So trade was one. The other was AI really jumping to the top of the issue here. China in particular worried about these constraints coming from the United States and, you know, very angry about export controls also on U.S. semiconductors. And on the other side, the U.S. trying to avoid any kind of really any kind of constraint in what, you know, Trump is saying is going to be U.S.

53:08dominance over AI in the future. So AI certainly at the top of the agenda, Jack Detch, Andrew makes it clear there. there is talk now, we're talking about possible guardrails between the two countries. You've heard about the arms race dynamic. There's talk of a possible reciprocal alert system for breakout AI in the future. I think this is reminiscent of the kind of red hotline phone alert systems that nuclear powers have, especially famously the United States and the Soviet Union, still Russia going back to the Cold War. There were a long list of tech giants at that state dinner last night, people, big players in the AI game.

53:49Any developments on that? Where do you think the AI standoff is headed with all of the warnings of the potential dangers of super intelligence and breakouts in this country? What we have so far is concepts of a plan, to quote Donald Trump's saying. We have two guys on a hotline that's being proposed by Scott Besant with China's vice premier, where they would basically go over a phone line. China hasn't even agreed to this. And these two aren't technical experts, so there's two big problems there. Then you have action at the UN Security Council and within the UN General Assembly, Finland and Norway, pushing for rules of the road on AI.

54:28Trump pushing back on that. He's calling it globalist. You've heard some of his aides, Michael Kratzios in the White House, calling it globalist as well. China seems nominally on board, but they've sort of sent out this word salad of a statement that they want to enhance alignment and coordination. So Trump and Xi Jinping not on the same page. And when it comes to hotlines, Todd, Beijing has a very, very fraught track record of actually answering the phone in a crisis. Just remember 2023 when those balloons were flying over the United States, China was not picking up. AI experts have pointed out the problem with alert systems and hotlines also in the future is that they require human to make the call.

55:06And a highly sophisticated superintelligence could convince that person that there's no need to call China because they've been manipulated by the AI. That's another show. But from the technical standpoint, the standpoint of designers of AI, that's another problem with how a system like this would actually work in the future. Robbie, you mentioned it, another top issue between these two countries, Iran and energy prices. China gets most of its oil from Russia, from Saudi Arabia, other countries in the Middle East. Most of it goes through the Strait of Hormuz, now controlled by Iran, and through the Bab al-Mandab Straits in the Red Sea, now controlled by Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen.

55:45What is China's posture now in the Mideast War? What is it doing to pressure Trump? Well, right now, China wants a stable, semi-drama-free Middle East so that it can keep fueling its really energy-hungry economy. Obviously, that's a long way away. But it's also in China's interest in a very real, politic way to let the U.S. get bogged down in another Middle East quagmire. Burn up resources, burn up valuable munitions that the U.S. otherwise would allocate to the Pacific to help support its allies in a confrontation with China. So China, at the same time as, you know, talking about wanting stability, you know, stable energy resources, is supporting Iran indirectly, shipping dual-use equipment from China to Iran that could be used for missile guidance and drones.

56:35And Iran has also leaned on Chinese satellite imagery for strikes earlier this year that took out U.S. troops. Is China padded by the fact that they have massive oil reserves also? They can kind of wait this out in a way that Trump can't? I mean, there is that calculation, but they still need Middle East oil flows to fuel their economy. That's not something they can get around. Jack Detch, what about Taiwan? How is Xi trying to press Trump to continue delaying arms sales to Taiwan? There's a perennial issue and a dance between the two countries' arms that, of course, would bolster Taiwan's stance to protect its own independence from a potential Chinese invasion across the sea while China watches the United States languish in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.

57:21Xi Jinping has made Taiwan the price of a dance ticket to meet with Donald Trump. Essentially, he's said that there's not going to be White House meetings if this$14 billion arms sale goes through. And this is the largest U.S. arms sale to Taiwan in history. It's an alphabet soup of all the capabilities that Taiwan really needs when it comes to sea missiles, air defenses. It seems like he has a receptive audience now in Donald Trump, Xi Jinping does. And we see Donald Trump moving very much away from the first term calculus of being a China hawk on almost everything but trade and AI. So China looking to buy time with Donald Trump, looking to push back on this arms sale.

58:04Remember, 2027 is China's military deadline to be prepared to seize Taiwan. That doesn't mean they're going to do it, but to slow down this arms sale is a key bit of leverage. Right, key bit of leverage. You're suggesting Donald Trump wants meetings with China and wants deals on the trade war he created, on the Iran war he created, and now you're suggesting that those two things have created leverage for China on Taiwan. There is leverage for China on Taiwan because they realize Trump wants these meetings. He wants these set pieces. And so it's very easy to put the squeeze on the U.S. in this way, especially when we've seen Trump kind of carve through the ranks of China hawks.

58:44The rhetoric become much more complementary towards China. And also this puts the squeeze very, very heavily on Taiwan because now it puts them at the back of the line for some of these weapons systems. If this goes on long enough, these contracts may have to be renegotiated. All right. From Washington and Taipei to New York, where this week the United Nations General Assembly, they call it UNGA. It meant for the 81st time at a time when the U.N.'s effectiveness in the world appears to be more in question than ever. This week, we heard from world leaders lamenting the state of the U.N., but we heard from others emphatic that an increasingly violent and destabilized world needs a form like the United Nations to achieve peace.

59:27I think it's very important to strengthen the multilateral order and especially the U.N. So, you know, in a way, we advocate not for a mini-lateralism, but maxi-lateralism, which means that perhaps there's a temptation of leaders to work in small circles, only with like-minded partners. So we advocate for the contrary. We need to open the scope. We need to strengthen our collective action. That's Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez speaking to CNN's Cristiano Amonpour outside of the U.N. this week. And 1A listener Lee from Richmond, Virginia, thinks we need the U.N. more than ever. People that most oppose it are billionaires, corporate states, and ultra-nationalist states who don't want to be held accountable in the U.N.

1:00:23Andrew Roth, you've been speaking to people all week at the UN. What did you hear from leaders, from diplomats? Is the U.N. fit for purpose in 2026? Yeah, I mean, this has been a question since, you know, that's been brought up directly by the Trump administration pretty regularly because of, you know, attacks of the U.N.'s kind of bloatedness. You know, budgets have been cut. And I think even more importantly at the moment, we have, you know, multiple conflicts raging around the world from, you know, Iran to Ukraine, across Africa and elsewhere. And the UN Security Council in particular, you know, doesn't seem like a place at the moment that's really able to push anything through the veto structure.

1:01:02The countries that are involved in no countries, you know, from Africa on the permanent security council mean that, you know, in general, the actual the structural ability of the UN to end these conflicts is very much doubted. But at the same time, you know, as a forum, as a place where people are kind of able to get together, we have seen some pretty extraordinary meetings take place this week. And it has been a place where we've seen, you know, at the very least the kind of like dialogue that I think would be quite difficult to do in one on one. You know, just being there and seeing, you know, Trump being able to sit down with Zelensky and we see these kind of direct quotes come about it.

1:01:37The U.S. meeting with Iranian leaders or senior U.S. officials for the first time in some time. I mean, this is the kind of, you know, forum basically where I do think that leaders and diplomats do see a kind of use to it. So the UN itself, in terms of its ability to end conflicts at the moment, is very much, you know, under fire. The defunding has also had a very, you know, serious impact in terms of the UN's ability to, you know, spread humanitarian aid around the world. But at the very least, it is a place where we see very unusual meetings, interesting meetings taking place as well. Well, existential questions aside for the U.N.

1:02:11around the world conflict still rages, of course, the war in Iran and the widening theater in Saudi Arabia and in Yemen. Let's go back to the podium at the U.N. General Assembly again with some comments from President Trump. Now, these are on U.N. TV, not on the White House press pool, these comments on Monday. His response and a response to it from Iranian President Pazeshkian on Tuesday. For 51 years, the fanatical Iranian regime has ruled by bloodshed and mass murder, spreading death and carnage and chaos across the entire Middle East and beyond. They were the bully of the Middle East, but they are the bully no more.

1:02:53200 years for the past two centuries, Iran has not attacked any country or any territory, but we've always defended ourselves steadfastly. But now we're being accused of being source of instability in the region. We're labeled terrorists. The first time, by the way, that a leader of Iran has set foot in the United States, you were hearing there. Jack Detch talks on the sidelines at the U.N. Notable and important, as Andrew mentions, forget about, you know, U.N. resolutions and blue hats maybe. But that's important meeting between the United States and Iran on the sidelines here. Who brought what to the table in those talks?

1:03:31Yeah, this is a big deal because it looks much more like a roadmap from the Iranians than what we've seen before. We're closer to a negotiation, but not really close to a final deal. The Iranians are kind of saying, you do this, then we do that. If the U.S. begins reducing their military and economic pressure, the Iranians can reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days, and then you can kind of unlock some of the harder issues, nuclear program, sanctions, so on and so forth. So we have seen diplomacy restart, but the Iranians have a very important factor on their side. They have time. So they're looking at the midterm elections.

1:04:08Donald Trump insisting this isn't a force of leverage for them because he's not running. But the Iranians very, very clear that if they're facing a post-midterm Donald Trump who's more wounded, who's facing questions about the war, who's facing war power votes in Congress, they can begin to chip away at him for leverage. Andrew, one thing we've been wondering about around 1A here, the extraordinary security, the extraordinary situation of Iran's president landing in New York. This is the leader of a country whose supreme leader and other high officials have been killed by the United States. Of course, a plot by Iran to kill President Trump, what led to him getting on an alternative Air Force One.

1:04:47And yet the Iranians believe that their safety was guaranteed to come to the United States. Can you give us some insight into how that works? Yeah, I mean, this is the case where we have the president of a country that's at war with the United States flying in and his security is actually being guaranteed by the U.S. Secret Service. They were the ones providing security to Iranian President Ymasud Bedeskin and the others from the delegation that were here. And I have to be honest, I mean, the amount of access and just openness with which they were able to move through New York, it's pretty extraordinary.

1:05:22I mean, you know, you giving a press conference just, you know, at a hotel, just a stone's throw away from the UN, taking questions and no real questions of, you know, whether or not there will be any attempts at arrest or, you know, assassination or anything else like that. I mean, it shows basically that there was a lot of interest in having them in the United States, you know, for this meeting. And we can see that, you know, other delegations, for instance, the Palestinian delegation was not given visas to come to New York. So we see that in this case, the administration was very interested in having the Iranian delegation come here.

1:05:57And I mean, the scenes in New York were extraordinary because of that. Well, directly related to the war in Iran, exclusive reporting this week from The New York Times, President Trump vacillated but ultimately decided not to join Saudi Arabia in joint strikes against Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen. And this week, friend of the show Elizabeth Hagedorn reports that the Yemeni government also asked the United States for help in fighting the Houthis as Yemen's civil war flares up yet again. In recent weeks, Houthis have secured massive land gains along Yemen's Red Sea coast, closed a key Saudi oil pipeline, strengthened their ability to choke off Saudi Arabia's oil exports, rattling the global economy.

1:06:42Robbie, give us sort of some context here. who has the leverage right now in this area is it the united states is it iran ultimately is it the houthis is it the saudis the iran war i think it's safe to say is spreading and that that's absolutely accurate um who has the leverage right now it's the houthis they have the upper hand and who's their prime backer it's tehran so um this bob amanda straight just for a little bit of context on the geopolitics you know there's two parallel uh maritime choke points through which a lot of the world's energy flows. One is the Strait of Hormuz that's been closed and contested ever since the U.S.

1:07:20launched the war back in late February. So a lot of this oil movement has moved down to the Bab-a-Mendab Strait, which is the Red Sea, which is the Red Sea on the southern end. And all of a sudden, if Iran's proxy force takes control of the choke points around the Red Sea, then the United States is sort of back to square one and guaranteeing some of these really strategically important international waterways. And remember that the Trump administration last year in the opening months of his administration launched a big military operation against the Houthis, tried to pummel them into submission with a big air campaign.

1:07:55So why did Trump say no now to the ask for help with the Houthis? Some of this is speculation. The Trump administration hasn't come out publicly and fully articulated it. One is that they're really busy. They're resource constrained with what's going on against Iran in the Strait to the North. And some administration officials say, look, I mean, we sell the Saudis a lot of high-end military weapons and equipment. Like, this is their own backyard. Maybe they should take care of it. Of course, that's easy to say. But when you almost have Iran on the mat, when you've got some oil flowing out of the Strait of Hormuz, you've sort of rendered Iranian threats inert there, and all of a sudden their proxy is taking over this other strategic joke point, That just creates an entire new headache for you and gives Iran yet another trump card in negotiations with the United States.

1:08:43And just very briefly, the Houthis, what are they calculating in terms of why now is the time to move? Now is the time to move for exactly the reason I said. Iran seemed to be on the mat, and suddenly they have given Iran a new point of leverage. And at the same time, they have shown themselves to be the most effective proxy in the region countering the United States and its allies there. Well, there was a lot of other news out of the Middle East as the General Assembly got underway this week. Donald Trump's Board of Peace announced$2.45 billion in recovery money for Gaza. Now, that money would be spread across 66 programs over six months directed at housing, diesel generation, waste removal, other infrastructure and human needs.

1:09:26Speaking via video at the General Assembly on Thursday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas urged faster implementation of the plan and warned against another catastrophe. Listen. Do not allow terrorist gangs protected by the Israeli occupation forces to burn Palestinian homes while their occupants are sleeping inside them. Do not allow our children to live afraid and threatened. Jack Detch, since October 7th, 2023, which is the day Hamas attacked Israel and killed some 1 ,200 people and took 250 hostages, Israeli strikes have destroyed 90 percent of Gaza's water and sanitation infrastructure, according to a report by Medsense Frontier.

1:10:12What were some of the headlines from this plan for humanitarian aid and reconstruction now? These are some of the first big bullet points that we've seen on rebuilding Gaza that aren't vague promises. You have a six-month, nearly$2.5 billion plan. You're talking about temporary housing, rubble clearing, disposing of unexploded bombs, repairing hospitals and roads. So a lot of the big ticket items to get things done to start reconstruction. The problem is you can't start reconstruction until you've dealt with the disarmament of Hamas, which is still being haggled over. And so still in phase one.

1:10:50Exactly. On the ground. Phase one for a year. Right. So we've been we've had the ceasefire for a year. We haven't had large scale reconstruction. So there's a playbook on the table. The problem is the politics are in the way. Mahmoud Abbas said one other thing that I thought was very, very interesting and you could almost forget it. he warned that continuing violence, that these two sides, the sides need to get back to the ultimate goal of the two-state solution. Is Mahmoud Abbas alone in that in Israel and Palestine now? I mean, certainly the Israelis are not on board with that. We're going to see where that election goes very shortly in October with Benjamin Netanyahu, although it seems like the Israeli body politic very much behind the security strategy that Netanyahu's embraced after October 7th, trying to clean out the region and make Israel more secure on its own terms.

1:11:39Robbie Grammer, your view on the$2.45 billion now, Jack Detch gave some vital context here about phase one. Israeli withdrawal from Gaza hasn't happened. Hamas disarmament hasn't happened. Israel drawing back behind the yellow line hasn't happened. Reconstruction money now and clearing rubble and rebuilding water. Is there any indication that we're getting toward a real path to disengagement here? And can the 2.45 billion be effective, effectively while the war is still going on? Well, look, I mean, this Gaza negotiation, it seems like two steps forward, 1.99 steps back at every turn. And so, you know, this is clearly the administration, the international community trying to move the dial, trying to dangle that this really important financial incentive to try to shake these bogged down negotiations out of a rut.

1:12:37But the bottom line is Israel is not willing to bend on what it sees as really existential security interests, and Hamas is refusing to relent finally. And so we're back at square one, which is exactly what Jack said, where the politics are going to get in the way of real, meaningful reconstruction that helps these embattled civilians. We have been on the floor, on the dais and in the hallways around the United Nations General Assembly for much of this hour. And Andrew Roth, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, also addressed the General Assembly. Hundreds of diplomats walked out en masse as Netanyahu stepped up to the lectern for his speech on Thursday.

1:13:17Not the first time that has happened. but he had an additional audience aside from just in the room. His electorate back home, elections in Israel are at the end of October. What did we hear from the prime minister? What did he say? And maybe just as importantly, how did he say it? Yeah, I think that Benjamin Netanyahu definitely came to the UN this week looking to pick a fight with just about everybody, you know, from world leaders to New York City mayor Zoran Mamdani. And I think that the goal here really was to give essentially a stump speech in front of the UN. And that's important because he was really getting up there to show himself on the world stage, giving a very aggressive speech and basically saying that Israel is not going to bow to any kind of criticism about humanitarian concerns over the war in Gaza, the expansion of settlements or the war in Iran, that Israel is going to remain strong.

1:14:14The line he kept repeating during this speech was that we have no other choice. So when Netanyahu came to New York, there were going to be street protests. He knew that there were going to be people walking out of the hall as well. He immediately got on stage and called them moral cowards and basically welcomed them leaving before jumping into this big speech where he took aim at pretty much everybody from Turkey's Recep Erdogan, really focusing for quite a while on Zoran Mamdani. And the reason is that he knows that this is going to be kind of red meat to his hardline conservative electorate back in Israel.

1:14:52He's facing a situation which is probably the biggest political fight of his life. Polling at the moment does not look great for him, even though the opposition is also disorganized. So when he got on stage this time, he didn't really offer much new in terms of policy. but the point was really to show himself in front of the UN showing a sign of kind of Israeli defiance. He was in New York for just 12 hours, didn't hold many meetings while he was there, didn't meet with Donald Trump, and quickly headed back to Israel. All right. Well, while the General Assembly was going on in New York and all of the confrontations, talks and speeches and posturing that we've been talking about, in Ukraine, Russian drones pounded Kiev.

1:15:34They hit infrastructure, warehouses and fuel stations. That was in response to Ukraine sending more than a thousand drones into Russia and launching the biggest ever attack on Moscow, at least in this war. The timing, right as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned the General Assembly about a hard winter ahead. Ukrainians understand that this winter could be very harsh for us. But in response, we will have no choice but to make it painful for Russia too. And that's exactly why we say that these collation steps are important, are needed before winter. Now, we need diplomacy and we need strength.

1:16:18And step by step, we are closing the gaps in both. Jack Detch, the Trump administration has renewed diplomatic efforts to end this war. Now the president is pushing for what's called, what's been referred to anyway, as an energy ceasefire. Why this approach? Why now? It's the economy. The Iran war has driven diesel prices above$6 a gallon. That hits everything in the United States from grocery prices to the cost of putting buildings up. And by the way, while America's been at war, Ukraine and its defense against Russia has knocked out half of the Kremlin's top refineries. So Trump is looking at this ugly midterm map right now.

1:16:57He's trying to end the war, and he's doing it through a very familiar tactic by trying to extract leverage from Ukraine. Now, Zelensky is not being moved by this, and we saw at the UN a very defiant Volodymyr Zelensky, somebody who said Russia's energy isn't the target. He has to put pressure on the Kremlin's war machine ahead of the winter that we talked about. So, Volodymyr Zelensky, somebody who's not backing down to Trump's pressure right now. It's a clash of two very big egos and very different politics. Meanwhile, Zelensky said today on X, and this is a quote, at our meeting, President Trump stressed that he had made his final decision.

1:17:33Ukraine will receive licenses to produce Patriot missiles. What more do we know? Well, this has been going on for a while. Lockheed Martin has a designed for a more simplified version of the Patriot PAC-3 missile. We don't know exactly what's under the hood. These are exactly sort of the only interceptors the U.S. has in its arsenal it can give to Ukraine that can reliably intercept both cruise missiles and ballistic missiles has been the big challenge for the Ukrainians. I think the proof is going to be in the pudding, right? We already have deals with the Germans, with the Ukrainians to build this stuff.

1:18:08It could be years before we actually see these capabilities in Ukrainian hands. Well, while Zelensky spoke in New York, an invitation for Vladimir Putin to come to Florida, here's Secretary of State Marco Rubio talking to reporters in New York. We've invited President Putin to the G20. We think it's an opportunity for him to engage not just with the president, but with other world leaders. We hope that's an invitation he'll accept. There's an opportunity in December if that happens. Now, what you didn't hear there is that this invitation to the G20 for Vladimir Putin in December will be to one of the president's own golf courses in Miami, Florida.

1:18:45No response from Moscow yet. Robbie Grammer, what's been the reaction to this invite from European allies? I mean a mixture of shock and eye rolls right now. Europe has really pushed to keep Vladimir Putin an international pariah, given how Russia has been pummeling Ukraine in what they very credibly see as an entirely unprovoked war. And even giving the invitation, you know, it's unclear if Putin will come. There's a lot of officials who predict he won't end up coming. But, of course, the Kremlin hasn't given a response yet. But even the fact that he's getting an invitation shows that Russia can still be a major player in the international community despite this war against Ukraine.

1:19:30And some of Ukraine's top backers in Europe are privately furious that they're giving him this platform and this olive branch to come rub shoulders with other leaders here. One thing I want to point out that's important to remember, the G20 will be at Doral, Donald Trump's golf club in Florida, which means Trump hosts the summit and charges to host it. Revenue at Doral,$122 million last year. Revenue at Mar-a-Lago soared 50 % to$78 million last year, according to disclosures. And when the G20 is at Doral, Donald Trump makes a profit. Want to make sure we don't forget that. Speaking of Donald Trump and American profit, though, Robbie, Greenland, we all know the story.

1:20:16Trump over and over saying the United States is going to take it over. Now there's a deal, a security deal for the U.S. in Greenland. Is it different than the deal we've had for decades? It's slightly different. And for context, this is an extraordinary crisis that Trump triggered in threatening to go after Greenland with NATO. And Denmark, of which Greenland is a part of the kingdom, is one of the United States' historically most loyal members. It had the highest per capita casualty ratio of any ally in Afghanistan. So these troops of Denmark fought and died alongside the United States, and they felt a real sense of betrayal here.

1:20:55What this new deal does is up front it rules out U.S. ownership of Greenland, which NATO is breathing a huge sigh of release, the Danes and Greenlanders, because that was a key point of pressure. But it does reaffirm U.S. rights to station troops and build bases on Greenland and brings Greenland into Trump's so-called Golden Dome anti-missile shield to protect the U.S. homeland. All right. One last stop. Let's go back to New York, by the way. I just brought you to Greenland, to Nook. Go back to New York just for a moment to the General Assembly where acting president of Venezuela, Delce Rodriguez, told the United Nations that her country is being reborn.

1:21:33Here she is through an interpreter. I wish before the 81st General Assembly of the United Nations to thank President Donald Trump and his government for their readiness to resume the course of diplomatic relations and cooperation with Venezuela. The last time that two presidents, the president of Venezuela and the United States, met together was in 2009. Today we are working solemnly to, through dialogue, settle our differences. is. Now, Delce Rodriguez also promised that elections in Venezuela would be, quote, at the right moment. The last time she addressed the U.N. as vice president in 2019, her tone was different, I would say, saying that Venezuela, quote, does not kneel before any imperial power.

1:22:19Andrew, which brings me to Donald Trump's comments at the U.N. about Venezuela. I mentioned it at the top of the show. To the victor belong the spoils, said the president in talking about Venezuela. Put that statement into context. What does it say about what foreign policy doctrine, what philosophy the United States is now projecting to Latin America and to the world under Donald Trump? I think that this is really a classic case of kind of saying the quiet part out loud. In terms of, you know, the U.S.'s approach to Venezuela, I think it's being decried by many as a kind of neocolonial approach to it, you know, saying that directly after the U.S.

1:23:00has established a majority stake in, you know, 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil, points to the fact that the U.S. really launched this intervention specifically for its own economic gain, or at least that's been one of the major results that's come out of it. And this is part of the larger sort of what Donald Trump says is an America first, but actually a very self-interested U.S. policy, which is that we act around the world in places where there's kind of a U.S. gain to come from that. And we see the U.S. playing a very large role in terms of how we redraw the map around the world, but especially in Latin America, where the U.S.

1:23:36is welcoming a number of new right-wing leaders in countries throughout the region and in many cases is looking for a way that it can create economic gain from those tighter relationships. So it's very self-interested and many people are also looking at it as a form of, you know, neocolonialism or economic colonialism. That's Andrew Roth from The Guardian, Robbie Grammer from The Wall Street Journal is here, and Jack Detch from Politico. I'm Todd Zwillick. You're listening to 1A. Well, we leave the United Nations General Assembly for some important news from the African continent, starting with escalating violence in Ethiopia's Tigray region and concerns over return to a devastating civil war.

1:24:19Their authorities with Tigray People's Liberation Front, the TPLF, said on Thursday that they are in a, quote, full-blown war with Ethiopia's government. The TPLF is the largest political party in the region. On Sunday, it announced an alliance with six other armed groups, all aiming to overthrow Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. Jack, the last time Tigray went to war, with the federal government in Ethiopia was 2020. It lasted until 2022. This floored me. 600 ,000 people were killed by estimates in that conflict. At the time, Tigray forces were not allied with any other groups in Ethiopia, and the government is also accusing neighboring Eritrea for financially backing the Tigray, which Eritrea denies.

1:25:10What makes this round of the conflict unique? Where are we headed here? Well, this kind of looks like a dog's breakfast. It's the old Tigray war with the alliances all mixed up, split on its head. At one point, we had, as you said, Ethiopia and Eritrea allied and the Amhara fighting against the Tigrayans. Now we have that almost split. Ethiopia pointing fingers at Eritrea, that it's supporting members of this new coalition that the Tigray People's Liberation Front, which used to be part of the government, is setting up. So this is kind of the danger here that you have less unity. It could be very dangerous.

1:25:48It's not just this straightforward conflict between the central Ethiopian government and the Tegrans. You have armed groups in many different regions, worsening rivalry geopolitically, and then, of course, Sudan knocking on the door. Meanwhile, I want to bring you up to speed on this. The Democratic Republic of Congo says it's running out of health workers needed to combat the Ebola outbreak in that country. Cases have surged 73 % in the DRC's province of North Kivu. More than 3 ,700 people have died since May due to Ebola. The outbreak is the second deadliest on record behind the outbreak from 2014 to 2016.

1:26:29The Trump administration is pledging and upping aid to the DRC now because of Ebola after deep cuts to health programs, USAID, and medical personnel that have affected not only government public health forces, but also NGOs like the International Rescue Committee and others, deep cuts in Doge and other cuts to USAID. So now sort of a clawback of U.S. funds as Ebola continues to spread in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We have just a minute before we're going to round out the hour. One quick thought from each of you. I'd like to get inside your reporter's notebooks. Give us a sense of what stories you think are going to be important next week, what you're watching, what we should be watching.

1:27:10Andrew, you go first. Yeah, I mean, one thing that I'm just really interested in is the kind of, I guess, the spread of the conflicts that are taking place in Gaza and also, you know, settlements in the West Bank and the way that it's kind of pervading, you know, all parts of the news agenda, you know, even spreading into the culture war. So one thing that, you know, we've been watching quite closely is first the rollout of a major documentary film called NASA that is, you know, the Israelis are now threatening or considering at least tabling a bill to take citizenship away from the people who are behind it, from the documentary filmmakers.

1:27:48So the ways that that's playing out right now in Israel and what the reaction will be is one thing that I'm focused on. Robbie? One country we haven't heard about yet during the Trump-Chi meeting, North Korea. Trump has clearly opened the door, said, I'm willing to talk with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, keep it up. We'll see if that happens. There's a bunch of multilateral meetings coming up in the next few months where Trump could try to do that. Right now, the ball is in Kim Jong-un's court. Jack? The Miami G20 looks like it has more smackdowns than a WWE pay-per-view. Trump-Chi, Trump-Zelensky, Putin.

1:28:23How about being a fly on the wall for that one? How about it? At Doral, where diplomacy and money flow. You listen to the Roundup often enough. You know that David Rennie, friend of the Roundup, loves to hate panda diplomacy. Listen. The giant panda has been an envoy of friendship between the Chinese and Americans. Here, I have a piece of good news. In a few days, two pandas, Ping Ping and Fushuang, will come to their new home in Zoo Atlanta and meet with the American people. David Rennie cringes in London for The Economist as Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House on Thursday restores a program that had temporarily lapsed in Georgia.

1:29:08Keep in mind, we do have pandas in Washington. This is panda diplomacy. We've covered it here on the Roundup. It's a real thing. And everyone at the National Zoo and who loves the National Zoo in Washington can tell you that. ATL, what can I say? Enjoy your pandas. A big thanks to our panelists and in the studio for the week, Jack Detch, defense reporter at Politico, and Robbie Grammer with The Wall Street Journal. Andrew Roth in New York for The Guardian. Mike Kidd is our sound designer and engineer. Chris Castano is our digital editor. Maya Garg is our senior managing producer. And Alexandra Botee is our senior supervising producer.

1:29:43Aileen Humphreys is our senior producer and editor of 1A On Demand, and Thomas Liu and Matthew Simonson produce our podcast. This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington. It's distributed by NPR. I'm Todd Zwilich. Let's talk more soon. This is 1A.

1:30:19This week on NPR's Newsmakers, Tucker Carlson has broken with President Trump over the war with Iran and says he warned the president to his face that the war would be a mistake. And he looked at me and said, yes, you're right. But in the end, we all die anyway. So it doesn't matter. Tucker Carlson, this week on NPR's Newsmakers. Watch or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Some groups have been sounding the alarm about AI safety for years. But in the last few months, something changed. The conversation has just shifted so quickly away from we don't even know if this is real to, okay, what are we going to do about this?

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