The News Roundup For September 4, 2026

25:07DHS agents are using personally identifiable information about individual voters, sometimes posing as voters. Is this legal? So they're making lists of voters that they're taking from states through various agencies. and some of their efforts include just taking people's first and last name and putting that into a state website that is set up so that individual voters can look at their own registration status. And in some states, it says on these websites, you are not allowed to look up someone else's registration status with this information. And that's a crime, but it varies by state. It's not clear exactly if this would be a federal crime, but it is a kind of funny activity.

25:50It sounds like these are the agents who you've seen in masks tackling delivery drivers off mopeds, and now they've got them looking at computers and, like, punching in data. It doesn't sound, from the training videos that are described in that New York Times story, like really the most sophisticated or professional operation. And obviously, they're not going to find widespread voter fraud by illegal immigrants. And they know that. And it's another part of this very broad, elaborate, multifaceted effort to undermine the midterm elections because they look like they're going to be so bad for Republicans.

26:25We got this email from Kit Gerhardt who says, my fear is that there won't be fair elections voted by mail for years in Florida, but I no longer trust it. I voted in person in 2024 and will again this year. Democratic lawmakers have expressed concern in recent weeks that the Trump administration plans to deploy troops to the polls during midterms. But this week, in a letter to Michigan Democratic Senator Alyssa Slotkin, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan Cain, wrote there were no plans to, quote, use such personnel to seize ballots, voting machines or other election-related material on Election Day.

26:59Taylor, have we ever had to have a top U.S. military official dispel a concern like this in the past? Not until what we saw play out after November 2020 and January 6th. We know from all the committee investigations and all the reporting that had been done after President Trump lost that election and then continued to insist it was stolen, that he was exploring a lot of these possibilities in terms of seizing voting machines, in terms of going into voting centers and getting material that many people in the first Trump administration essentially prevented him from doing. There's concern now in the second term where he's surrounded by a lot more allies and a lot more people willing to do what he says, that if, as Arthur pointed out, the midterms don't go in Republicans' favor, that there could be efforts to do that.

27:44So Senator Slotkin, who also is considering running for president herself in 2028, so she's trying to make a name for herself on the national stage, I think she was trying to get ahead of it. What was interesting is she did hear from General Dan Cain, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. She had not heard back from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth because she also reached out to him, essentially sent him the same letter. So there remains questions over it, even though it would be a very extreme step to take. I'm describing like we're describing elaborate efforts to perhaps undermine. I would just want to say I feel like it won't work.

28:16The Trump administration has been, you know, in their in their most like brazen attempts to do things improperly. That's when they're at their very clumsiest. And just the way voting is set up, the Constitution putting it in the states, the power is so dispersed that it doesn't seem plausible to me that they actually could undo the election or prevent the election from taking place or throw out the results. But it's important to look at what they're trying to do, even if I don't think it will be effective. Before we go to a break, a moment to remember Gloria Steinem, a journalist who became a giant of feminism and the fight for equal rights.

28:52She co-founded Ms. Magazine, the first national outlet of its kind to be created, owned, and run exclusively by women. In 1999, Steinem spoke to WAMU and NPR's Diane Rehm. We know now that women can do what men can do, and the majority of the country agrees. But we still haven't learned that men can do what women can do. Until men are raising babies and little children as much as women are, women won't be able to be equal in the world outside the house. And also children won't grow up knowing that human beings are human beings. We don't come with limited gender labels. She remained an activist throughout her life.

29:30Steinem died this week at the age of 92. And we're also remembering another great we lost this week, Award-winning jazz singer Cassandra Wilson, who's died at age 70, will be right back after this break.

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30:34Each week, Lizanne, Colin, and their guests analyze economic developments and bring context to conversations around stocks, fixed income, the economy, and more. Download the latest episode and subscribe at schwab.com slash oninvesting or wherever you get your podcasts. This message comes from IXL. IXL's Level Up Diagnostic gives immediate benchmark results along with personalized action plans that link directly to IXL's skill practice. More at IXL.com slash NPR. Welcome back to the 1A podcast. It's the Friday News Roundup. On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled to allow construction of President Trump's ballroom to continue.

31:15It was a split 5-4 vote. Chief Justice John Roberts and three liberal justices dissented. The case was brought by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which is a nonprofit chartered by Congress to protect government buildings. On Monday, the president of the trust, Brent Leggs, wrote in a statement, quote, this is not the final decision on the merits of our case and does not resolve our fundamental argument that each president is a temporary steward of the people's house and does not have the unilateral authority to demolish and redesign it without the approval of Congress. Catherine, why did the Supreme Court disagree?

31:52Well, the Supreme Court ruling essentially put on hold to lower court rulings that he is probably or possibly violating the law. And it didn't actually rule on the merits of the dispute about the lawfulness, but it allows the White House to continue building the new ballroom. So essentially the majority of the court agreed with the administration that this preservation group likely lacks legal standing to make the case. So that's why they're saying it's not over. They're saying it's not over because the ruling is not on the legal merits. And so I think you will see this continue. But the real issue is, you know, while they can try and continue legal proceedings, building is going on.

32:43So the White House is moving forward with this. This is a real, you know, win for Trump in the midst of a pretty tough time. And obviously, as I think anyone who's been following Trump knows, he is very fixated on this ballroom. He talks a lot about it. He is very focused on it. The administration says it's about 65 percent built at this point and is on track to be finished by the summer of 2028. It's a classic Supreme Court decision where they say, oh, well, we're not ruling on the merits. We're just saying that this group doesn't have standing as if they don't know that they are giving Trump the ballroom.

33:19And even John Roberts was disgusted by this and dissented. He's usually the one trying to split the baby. And if you look at the law, there's a bunch of laws that say only Congress can do this. And John Roberts said that's very obvious in his dissent. And so Trump gets his ballroom. I think it actually will basically be the last word. And on the question of standing, who can sue? They don't want to let just anybody sue. So this group said, well, here's a person who knows about architecture who walks through here every month. And so they said, well, that doesn't cut it. And just leaving the question unanswered of who could possibly sue, maybe a member of Congress, but it's too late.

33:54Let's turn to Congress, which once again kicked the can down the road to avert a government shutdown. On Tuesday, the House passed a short-term extension funding the government until December 11th after the midterm elections. Democrats came on board to pass the continuing resolution, but some weren't happy about it. Here's California Representative Ted Lieu. We have a whole nother month left. And Republicans who control the House, the Senate White House, are basically waving the white flag of surrender and saying we don't know how to govern. We don't know how to pass appropriations bills. So we're just going to pass this continuing resolution.

34:29It is not a good way to run our federal government, but it's the only alternative that's going to be put before us. so be voting for it. Arthur, what else did we hear from Democrats during this process? What else do we need to know about this continuing resolution? The CR included a provision delaying a Trump-approved ban on hemp-derived marijuana products, hemp-derived THC. So all these sodas that get you high, that have proliferated massively in recent years, are going to remain on the shelves past this deadline in November. So they're giving another month as if that'll be enough time to make legal.

35:06So that is, I think, the biggest deal there. Nobody wanted to fight about funding the government. No block of Democrats or Republicans wanted to use this as a chance to make demands because they want a campaign. And there's the fact that House Republicans, after they did this, they then canceled two additional weeks in September that they were supposed to be in session. So they're on recess again next week. They're back for one more week. And then that's pretty much it until Election Day. So if you look at the calendar going back from June or July through November, the House has barely been here.

35:36And it's mostly because other than funding the government by kicking the can down the road, they don't really have anything else to do. And it is the least productive House, I think, in U.S. history. Congratulations. They will say the opposite, Republicans. They argue it's the most productive Congress, mostly pointing at the big, beautiful bill from last year because that was a laundry list of things. But yeah, they haven't been here for most of this year. It's pretty stunning. So productivity depends on what laws are passed this year. They passed the law. Yeah, they passed one with the word big and the word bill in its title.

36:05So they get extra credit. Let's move on to this week's immigration news, starting with an update on the Department of Homeland Security's pledge to equip all immigration officers with body cameras. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement now says it has enough body cams to do that. There's been a renewed push for immigration agents to wear body cameras after deadly shootings of immigrants in Maine and Texas in July where the officers involved were not wearing cameras. Taylor, DHS Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen says by the end of September, all ICE agents will wear body cameras. How much do we know about that timeline?

36:41We're assuming that it will be able to get there in this next four weeks? We are based on what the secretary said. This has been a bit of a struggled rollout for the agency. What's interesting is they are not lacking the funds to do this. We talk about that big, beautiful bill. Part of what Congress did last year is give DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, more money than it's ever had before because that agency covers so many of President Trump's policy priorities. So DHS is swimming in cash. It's just been an implementation factor, getting these cameras not only out and working, and And the secretary talked about working with Motorola because there are microphones involved with the cameras and all of that.

37:20There's also this conversation of, OK, once the cameras are out, let's say it's by the end of September. Will the footage that they're capturing? That's the big question. What's going to happen to this footage? And so the acting director of ICE put out a statement last month and I pulled it up. I'll just read part of it. He said, here is the truth. ICE policy permits expedited release when appropriate and clarifies that it's not appropriate to release footage when doing so could compromise investigations or privacy. So they're essentially saying on a case by case basis, they'll determine whether or not they can release this body camera footage while also saying by the end of the month, all these agents will have the cameras on them.

37:57But a lot of advocates who are against DHS's policies are worried that that's not going to mean that the footage is going to be released publicly and that it won't increase transparency. see. Let's talk about the fact that this week far-right conspiracy theorist and political commentator Milo Yiannopoulos was deported to the United Kingdom after being arrested by ICE agents at a New Orleans airport. Yiannopoulos, an early supporter of Trump dating back to the president's 2016 campaign and social media posts last year, he's been consistently supportive of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown until this week.

38:29He spoke about his experience on the Pierce Morgan YouTube show on Tuesday. I didn't really understand the physical reality of how institutionalized the brutality is in America. The manner in which they arrest you, they put you in manacles, your hands, your feet. Sure, it was humiliating and it was disorientating and the rest of it. It was physically degrading. It was frightening. So Yiannopoulos described his arrest and deportation as degrading, as we heard there, Taylor. So now he's no longer advocating for this? apparently not and sadly we are seeing this is a high profile example because he is such a provocateur and has had such a big audience in the u.s um vice president jd vance was even asked about it in thursday's briefing and claimed that he didn't know about it that that yiannopoulos was getting deported until there were news reports about it but i think what's striking is countless times over the last two years we have seen reports of people who supported president trump's immigration policies and his deportation agenda who voted for him, then have it occur to someone they love, someone they know, a friend, a family member.

39:34And then they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I'm really taken aback by this. I had an upfront experience with it. And this is a lot worse than what I was expecting. And it's striking. So it goes from these high profile, controversial people like him, but also you could Google any story and it's farmers in random states. There are teachers who have been picked up, you know, folks who work at local diners and establishments. Cubans in Florida. Yeah. Yeah. Who are not even going, getting sent back to Cuba. So it's just an interesting example of where a lot of these folks, especially the online figure like Milo, talk a big game and kind of showed no mercy when they were advocating for it.

40:11But then once he faced it himself, he's saying, wow, this was very traumatic and I am rethinking everything. People are laughing about this, but he, I mean, Laura Loomer and other right where he'd fallen out of favor. And so it's possible that he was, you know, this is an example of the administration targeting somebody. Yeah. Also this week, we saw a 20-year-old Haitian college student die from an apparent suicide in Ohio after stepping in front of oncoming traffic. Pierre Damas Bell was a star student athlete who arrived in the U.S. in 2024, settling with his family in Springfield, Ohio. In January, ICE placed him into what they call an alternatives to detention program that meant wearing an ankle monitor.

40:51His family say that ankle monitor caused humiliation and bullying at his school. Arthur, how are we seeing this tragic death highlight conversations about ankle monitors and other immigration tactics, particularly in Springfield? Well, I mean, it's a full circle moment for the Springfield story, which I think came on to the national conversation when Vice President J.D. Vance was falsely accusing of the Haitian immigrants there of eating people's cats and dogs. And this is a group of people that is here legally, did everything right and were allowed to stay specifically because Haiti is so dangerous that we tell people don't go there.

41:28And it's cruel. It's cruel how they were called in and had these ankle monitors placed on them and also being videoed, being put on planes and deported and having those videos promoted by DHS, it's, I think, the starkest example of the administration using cruelty to promote the policies that they promised they would do on the campaign. One interesting thing about the Springfield case is the outgoing Republican governor of Ohio, Mike DeWine, who's retiring after decades in public office. He has long advocated for the Haitian population in his state. He and his wife, Fran DeWine, have spent a ton of time in Haiti.

42:09They even, I think, ran a nonprofit there at one point. And he came out talking about this case saying this is just tragic. It's another example of the pressure this community is facing. And he always talks about, again, he's a pretty conservative Republican, how the population, the Haitian population in Springfield has in many ways uplifted that city's economy because they're working and they're helping fill so many jobs. now because of this crackdown on temporary protective status and these families being broken up in cases like this, they're seeing kind of an economic downturn of that. And DeWine is one of the few Republicans speaking out against what the Trump administration is doing, even though the Trump team shows no signs of kind of backing away from it.

42:46Catherine, what are we hearing from the White House about this this week? Anything? I think this is obviously a case that's getting a lot of attention. There's been a lot of media coverage of this. And it's a really sad story. It's a young student. All the reports are that he was a great student. He was a national honor society. He was in the ROTC. And so it's a very, I think, relatable story. Yeah, as was just said, the administration has been very vocal about their immigration policies. We haven't seen any signs that they are backing off or changing. But sometimes moments like this can, you know, catch a lot of public attention, and we'll see if that happens.

43:31But this, you know, certainly obviously is. And the fact that, you know, officials in the state, Mike DeWine and others, have been talking about this as a tragedy. I mean, people will hear that. We have to take a quick break, but we're just getting started with the week's headlines. When we come back after the break, we'll have a new panel and all the news from around the globe, thanks to our domestic panel today. Arthur Delaney, senior reporter at HuffPost, Catherine Lucy, White House correspondent for Bloomberg News, and Taylor Poplarz, national political reporter at the White House for Spectrum News.

44:00More to come. Stay with us.

44:06This message comes from Angie. Angie has been helping homeowners find skilled pros to get their home projects done well for over 30 years. For everything from minor repairs to major remodels, Find reviews, pricing, and booking at Angie.com or on the Angie app. This message comes from NPR sponsor Charles Schwab with its original podcast, On Investing. Each week, you'll get thoughtful, in-depth analysis of both the stock and the bond markets. Listen today and subscribe at schwab.com slash oninvesting or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back to the 1A podcast. It's the international half of our weekly news roundup.

44:47With me in studio today, Nancy Youssef, staff writer at The Atlantic covering national security and the Defense Department. Hi, Nancy. Hi. Joining us on the line from London, David Rennie, geopolitics editor at The Economist, where he writes the Telegram column. Hello, David. Hello. And Jack Detch, also joining us, a defense reporter at Politico. Great to have you as well, Jack. Good to be here, Naila. Email us your questions or comments about the week in international news. It's 1a at wamu.org. After a month-long lull in fighting this week, the White House announced a major escalation in the war with Iran.

45:21The U.S. military conducted intensive airstrikes across the country. On Wednesday, the president said this. We hit them hard last night, very hard. They gave a little love tap, but we hit them very hard last night. We took out all of the new equipment that they tried to build along the Strait of Hormuz, some defensive, some offensive. that they were trying to see the ships because they can't see the ships. You know, we're taking out a lot of ships. They can't see it because they have no radar because we blew it up. And we blew up much more than their radar last night. It was a very heavy attack last night.

45:58And we're prepared to do another one anytime we want. President Trump said the strikes were in retaliation for an Iranian attack on a base in Jordan and to destroy new offensive equipment, including a rocket designed to deploy sea mines. Tehran responded by firing drones at U.S. allies in the Gulf, including Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE. Nancy, I don't need to remind you that when the White House launched the war more than six months ago, we're starting the seventh month, right? The American public was told this would be over in a matter of weeks, that the U.S. had won, and that 100 percent of Iran's military capability was destroyed.

46:34Why are we here again? Because it's not destroyed. It's degraded. And there's a big difference. degraded means that they still retain some capability. And while the White House will boast that they've sunk their Navy and Air Force, as it turns out, the Iranians don't need a Navy or Air Force to pose a threat to ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz. They need relatively cheap ballistic missiles and drones to build, which they can do far quicker than the U.S. can build the defenses against them. And so this continues to be a campaign. and in fact has moved from an operation to a more sustained campaign.

47:13There are two carrier strike groups in the region. There are 50 ,000 troops. I would argue that the U.S. is moving actually away from a short-term one to campaign to a longer one in which it is preparing for a more sustained presence rather than a war that is in its final stretches as it seeks to use the military to put pressure on the Iranians to come to the negotiation table and to slowly try to degrade, further degrade the capabilities that they retain. We saw Iranian state media reporting on Tuesday, shrapnel from a U.S. strike hit a home hosting a wedding party, killing several civilians and injuring dozens.

47:50The Iranian Red Crescent said five people had been killed and nearly 70 injured. That's according to the semi-official Fars News Agency. The IRGC has accused the U.S. military of war crimes. This man's child was killed in the attack. Here's what he said to Al Jazeera.

48:09They were innocent. They had no weapons. They weren't military. There isn't any military facilities around here for them to hit. They hit a wedding party and did this to my child. Jack, what do we know about this attack and the U.S. investigation into it? Yeah, this is a strike that hit a wedding party near the town of Kunistak. So this was near a large telecommunications tower and area. Yeah. And this is the second time, right, that the U.S. has struck either military installations, near military installations or military infrastructure and ended up accidentally hitting another target in the Iran war.

48:47Of course, after the Manav school attack that's still being investigated, that killed over 100 children at the outset of the war on the first day. So this is going to raise a lot of questions about American targeting, the efficacy of how these strikes are being undertaken. The vice president says it's under investigation, but we'll see how far this investigation really goes. Last week, we saw U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Besson announcing widespread sanctions intended to strangle Iran economically. This week, more strikes, and The Wall Street Journal's Alex Ward reports the Pentagon is extending 50 ,000 Mideast deployments into 2027.

49:25Nancy, to your point about this extended presence. David, what kind of options are the president looking to create here with Iran? He has been betting for a long time that in a contest of pain, he can inflict more pain on the Iranian economy than they could inflict on him. And part of this was a misjudgment about how much pain would be transmitted to American voters. because at the very beginning, I think there was a great deal of overconfidence in the Trump administration, in the White House, that because America is a net exporter of oil and gas, that somehow what comes through the Strait of Hormuz wasn't really going to affect prices in the US.

50:03Now, that misjudged the fact these things are global markets. So we are really stuck in this game of incentives. This is the problem is, you know, you can talk about this strike or that strike or President Trump saying we hit them hard. But the thing that would make Iran change its calculation and stop this war and agree to open the Strait of Hormuz is Iran believing that it will not be hit again by America and Israel, that it has an effective deterrent that will stop America from coming back and doing all of this all over again in six months time or 12 months time. And I think at the moment we're locked in this deadly cycle where we have these rounds of attack and then counterattack, which leave the hardliners in Iran believing that they need to maintain the pressure.

50:46They cannot end this war because they need to show America that they can deliver more pain to President Trump in the run-up to the midterms and that they can deter him from coming after them again. And so we are locked in this endless cycle, even, you know, to the level of President Trump saying he does care about, you know, doing a deal with them or he doesn't care about doing a deal with them. And so every week it's kind of rinse and repeat. And in the meantime, the global economy is suffering. The people of Iran are suffering. The people of the Gulf are suffering as they get attacked by Iran.

51:14And there doesn't seem to be a plan for victory or a plan for an exit. Nancy, as we're talking about the suffering, the Iranian real has fallen to record lows over recent days. Reuters is reporting from one senior source, Iran only has another two months supply of gasoline because of limited refining capability. What are the potential risks the IRGC is facing if there is a further economic meltdown in Iran. So as you both know, there's been huge economic suffering amongst the Iranian people and continues to be so. But that's different than the IRGC suffering. And so we have to sort of look for an economic situation which they can't pay their staffs, that they lose the support of the key people within their infrastructure that allow them to continue their grip on power.

52:05And there is a paradox that as they get weaker, they, at least in the short term, may have actually more incentive to take risks before they're actually weaker. And so that's an area we have to be prepared for. Remember that for the Iranian regime, this is an existential threat. And so they are prepared to withstand, I think, more pain, economic and military, given what they see at stake, which is their very survival. This week at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Iranian President Masood Pazeskian and Russian President Vladimir Putin made a joint appearance.

52:41And one noteworthy bit of news, we'll get to a second one a little bit later in the program, a pledge of support for Tehran from the Russian leader. Jack, what kind of support are we seeing Moscow actually provide Tehran right now? Well, Nyla, there's the support that we do see right now, which is targeting intelligence, It's satellite imagery. And so that's helped the Iranians take out some very expensive American radar arrays. The early warning radar in Qatar has been severely damaged as a result of this war. Thad radar systems have been damaged. So you're talking about billions of dollars already that are going to U.S.

53:17taxpayers based on this relationship and Iran's lethality as a result of it. The other thing is the thing that some of the things that haven't manifested yet. apparently the Iranians and the Russians are working on supersonic cruise missiles and ramjet systems. Those can be quite beautiful. There's, of course, the collaboration on the Shahhead drones. While the Iranians came up with the design, the Russians have now industrialized it at a massive scale. So there's an ability now for Moscow to help Tehran scale up its industrial ambitions and become a threat in the region for quite a while. We'll see how far it really goes.

53:55David, I just want to ask, we just have about a minute or two before we get to the break, but this declaration comes as China extends varying degrees of political, economic, and strategic support to Moscow and Tehran. And I wanted to ask you about how these alignments are testing the limits of Washington's ability to project power globally. I think you can see it in the gap between the ferocious rhetoric we hear from someone like Scott Best in the Treasury Secretary, where he was talking about economic D-Day, cutting Tehran off from all of its most important backers. But if you really wanted to do that, you would go after the biggest Chinese banks.

54:28You would cut them off from the dollar system. You would really go after the fact that Iran sells a considerable amount of oil to China and needs that link with China. But because President Trump wants a good big deal with China, he's got a state visit coming up later in September with Xi Jinping. We have not actually seen the big Chinese banks being targeted. I think that shows the leverage that China currently enjoys, that it believes it has a kind of lock on President Trump. Nancy, you have reporting this week in The Atlantic about the internal turmoil and leadership exits at the Pentagon. On Monday, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned.

54:59This came on the heels of the firing of Army Chief of Staff General Randy George. The Washington Post counts more than two dozen top officers that have been dismissed under Secretary Hegseth. And this statistic from your story really stood out to me. The Army, with more than 450 ,000 active duty soldiers positioned across the globe has fewer generals than at any point in recent history. The AP and several other outlets are reporting the war in Iran has consumed 65 percent of the Patriot interceptor inventory, potentially squeezing supplies for NATO and munitions needed for a potential war with China.

55:36Nancy, you've covered the inner workings of the Pentagon for a long time. I just wanted to ask you about how this turmoil is straining, not just military readiness, but as well as the dynamics of the wars in Iran and Ukraine? So very simply, the military is trying to fight and sustain two very demanding conflicts in Ukraine and Iran while destroying the leadership structure that is supposed to manage these conflicts. So on a macro level, that's what's happening. Hundreds and hundreds of years of experience are walking out the door. When someone is tapped to be a general, that's a decision that's made sometimes decades ahead of time.

56:15And that's a military that's really invested in those people to get them to the point where they can be effective generals. And they're leaving in droves. And there's not an explanation for why they're being pushed out. There is a lot of conjecture that they're either female minority or that they're too close to people that the president doesn't like. For example, General Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Of the 10 Army general positions, five are filled right now. Among those missing, the Army general in charge of U.S. Army forces in Europe, which is key to the campaign in Ukraine.

56:53We have two carrier strike groups in the region and no confirmed Navy secretary. It's a lot of disruption. And so at a time when you need experience, your most experienced people are not there. And just as importantly, and can't not be said, is there's a real climate of fear in the Pentagon right now because people don't know what they need to do to stay in their jobs and whether they even want to stay in. We talk so often about the impact on general officers, but it's also the colonels and majors and captains who are watching this and asking themselves, is this the military that I want to stay in?

57:32I can't call a source now without hearing some story about someone leaving, considering leaving, counseling someone who's been taken off a promotion list. It's a ubiquitous part of now the military and it's affecting every facet of it. And it's affecting decision making. Now it's also affecting what the military will look like in the future. Let's head to Europe and to Russia's war against Ukraine. The Ukrainian government is preparing for another blitz of attacks from Russia this coming winter, the fifth since Russia's full-scale invasion in February of 2022. Ukraine has hardened infrastructure like power lines, power substations, and more.

58:14But meanwhile, Russia struck Kiev for a seventh day in a row overnight Wednesday, injuring at least 17 people. The night before, drone and missile attacks killed at least 12 people in the capital region. Jack, what's the latest we've seen in how Russia is striking Ukrainian cities? The strikes are basically nonstop right now, Nyla. So you have a situation where Kiev has been under fire for nine straight days. Sometimes these waves of drones are coming every 30 to 60 minutes, as opposed to sort of the isolated nighttime strikes that we used to see. So the amount of ballistic missiles targeting Ukraine, the sophistication of some of the drones, we now see jet-powered drones, which can't be intercepted by more simple uses, such as machine gun turrets.

59:03So the Ukrainians have a very, very difficult problem on their hands, not to mention they've basically run the stockpile of Patriot interceptors dry that they need to intercept Russian ballistic missiles. Volodymyr Zelensky says they need 5 % of that stockpile to survive the winter. They have about 1 % or maybe even less. Russia continues to experience its own woes from President Putin's war. In a video posted on Tuesday, Ukraine's President Zelensky warned airlines, insurance companies, and civilians who use Russian airports that Russia's airspace is effectively closed because of Ukraine's attract drones.

59:40Zelensky said despite Russian authorities not saying anything about the situation. The airspace is, quote, completely dangerous. Ukraine also notified the International Civil Aviation Organization that Russian airspace is unsafe. David, what's Zelensky trying to do by broadcasting this warning to airlines and other companies? He's trying to raise the costs to the countries that are still treating Russia as a relatively normal partner. So I've experienced this. I fly to Asia a lot for work. And if you fly on a Chinese airline, you go straight over Russia as you did in the old days. If you fly a European airline, you go hours around through Southeast Asia, down through India.

1:00:19You have to avoid Russian airspace. And so, you know, there is an argument that he is trying to increase the costs, not just with these warnings about airspace, but also, you know, the dramatic attacks we've seen on oil refineries, the petrol queues, the gas queues, the attacks on e-commerce sites. But the problem is that that does not appear to be changing the calculation on Vladimir Putin's side. And I was just in Sweden last week interviewing their prime minister, and he was saying, look, that the pain being felt by the Ukrainians, because they don't have interceptors, as Jack was describing, is very, very intense, but isn't making them change their mind about wanting to fight on.

1:00:53The pain being felt by Russia is very intense, but is not changing Putin's calculations about wanting to fight on. And so when you ask someone like the Swedes, who are very close allies of Ukraine, So then where does this war go? They say it looks like it is completely stalemated and is going to drag on indefinitely. And that is a very gloomy conclusion that people are coming to even some of Ukraine's strongest supporters, that Ukraine is neither winning nor losing this war. And in the meantime, a lot of pain is being felt. While we're talking about danger at airports this week, the German government blamed Russia for a drone located with military-grade explosives that it discovered and diffused in early August.

1:01:30This happened in an airport near the city of Leipzig in eastern Germany. The drone was near a Ukrainian-owned plane. The airport has been a logistics hub for military aid to Ukraine. Jack, what did Germany's government say about the operation and its connection to Russia? Looks like we're having a problem. Sorry, the Germans said the Russians were going after basically planes that would be shipping ammunition to Ukraine in the past. What we saw was sort of an attempt by the Germans to shame Russians for this attack. This would have been basically three explosive drones blowing up this plane. What we're hearing, though, from within Germany is sort of this frustration that the condemnation wasn't strong enough.

1:02:18Basically, some German officials hoping for a more proactive response, responding more proactively to what the Russians are doing. and then really supporting the Ukrainians with much more heavy firepower and more effective threats against the Russians. So this is really earning some very negative reviews in Berlin. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Wednesday that Russia had grown increasingly reckless. That's a direct quote with these attacks. Speaking alongside him, EU Chief Ursula von der Leyen said European countries must accept that, quote, this is the new normal. She also said the Kremlin's intimidation efforts would not stop the EU and NATO from supporting Ukraine with aid.

1:03:01Nancy, what are Europe and NATO leaders realizing about Russia and what it might do to Europe in the near future? So the concern that you hear is that Russia, through these attacks, is trying to do just enough to test Article 5. Not to start a full-fledged conflict, but to do something that really tests the premise of Article 5, in which one nation under attack will be defended by all the other nations at a time when there's real question about the U.S. commitment to that alliance. So now Europe is trying to build its own defense industrial base in which they can provide supplies for themselves and not be as dependent on the United States given that instability.

1:03:40The problem is time, that there's a point where Russia might emerge from this conflict emboldened in some way, more willing to be aggressive towards other NATO members. And Europe doesn't have the infrastructure in place to support itself without U.S. support. And so there is a real anxiety because it's a race against the clock. Europe is trying to defend itself independent of the United States, but right now can't do it precisely at the time where Russia might test that very supposition of the strength of the NATO alliance. David, one last Russian question for you here. One of Putin's friends told him to stop this week.

1:04:22On Monday, Indian leader Narendra Modi told the Russian president in person that he needs to end his war in Ukraine for the sake of humanity. Modi also called for a peace settlement. Putin looked visibly uncomfortable during these comments. This took place during a press conference between the two leaders at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit we mentioned earlier. Why is Modi speaking up now, David? So I don't think it's quite as neat and tidy as the Indian prime minister telling Putin he needs to stop his war, as if that's a rebuke of Putin, who is a very important trade and military partner in some ways of India.

1:04:58He said that the war needed to stop and that allowed Putin to say, thank you, of course I would like the war to stop and we're on a path to that. Because of course if you're Russia, you say, yes, we'd love the war to stop with us winning. That's how we get peace. And so I think that unfortunately, if people are hoping that this is a sign that some of Russia's closest friends, including India, are losing patience, I don't think that's what was happening with the Indian Prime Minister. I think it was somewhat just kind of for the cameras that India is suffering from all kinds of costs to do with the war in Iran and the war in Ukraine.

1:05:31But at the end of the day, Narendra Modi is not about to cut Vladimir Putin loose. Let's move on to news from Caracas this week. President Trump's mission in Venezuela is straightforward. The mission is to bring peace, freedom, opportunity, and prosperity to the people of Venezuela. In Venezuela, days seems like years. I agree with the Secretary Chris Wright that we are making history. That's U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Interim Venezuelan President Delce Rodriguez, signing an agreement this week that gives a U.S.-led company control of roughly one-fifth of Venezuela's oil reserves, the largest in the world.

1:06:17Jack, how does this deal work? Who's going to benefit from this? Well, if this works, Naila, The if is a major question here. This would be the U.S. getting a 35 percent stake in a major Venezuelan private oil producer, North American Blue Energy Partners, to develop a number of oil fields. The issue with this is, as Politico has talked to oil executives this week, what we found is the fields that they're targeting really don't look like they're very viable within the near term, probably a longer term prospect. And this company just may not have the infrastructure to actually get it going. So it's the scale of trying to do this in a place like Venezuela, where the oil has not been good and it's been degrading for a long period of time as the refining capacity has been low ever since the Hugo Chavez era.

1:07:11You just don't have the capability. So this does seem like a bit of wish casting from the administration to get the technical details right to actually be able to do this. Nancy, what kind of reaction have we seen inside Venezuela to this? Well, it's very divided because there's a long history of nations coming in and extracting their oil and the Venezuelan people not reaping the benefits of it. Having said that, I think the other area of sort of concern is for such a consequential deal, there have been very few details released about it. We're talking about a multibillion-dollar deal with an unelected government in the case of Venezuela.

1:07:51And so there's real questions about the durability of this. And not just from the Venezuelan people, but as Jack noted from the oil industry itself, will such an investment last through the next Venezuelan election or even the next U.S. election given the legal ambiguity around this? Opposition figures within Venezuela are also raising objections because of the government in place that has put this deal in place. And I think investors are also worried about this because, as Jack pointed out, this is very heavy crude and will require billions and billions of dollars in investment. And so I think if you were to sort of give a sweeping assessment of how the Venezuelan people are seeing it, I think it's with a lot of uncertainty.

1:08:33A, because of lack of details, and B, because of their own personal history with seeing nations come in, extract their resources, and not seeing those riches benefit them at a very economically challenging time in Caracas right now. David, there's something else at play I wanted to ask you about here, the president's updated Monroe Doctrine. You've studied this extensively. How does this deal in Venezuela fit into that plan? It's a lot shabbier than that. So, you know, basically you had the Monroe Doctrine then updated by Teddy Roosevelt. And that was that America got to have veto power over beginning European empires trying to kind of carve out bits of territory for themselves, markets for themselves in the Americas.

1:09:18And then under Roosevelt, the idea that America got to play policeman. It got to be the cop that played policeman all over Latin America in the interest of Latin American stability. And that sometimes meant propping up unsavory regimes. What we are seeing with this Venezuela oil deal is much more similar to the really grubby deals that, say, the British Empire or the French Empire struck in places like the Middle East at the end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th century. It's basically cutting a deal with local elites to grab the oil. And it's interesting, you play the clip of the energy secretary saying this is about a new era.

1:09:51We saw President Trump at a rally in Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago saying, actually, we're doing this the old way. Remember the old way? the old way is to the victor, the spoils. Those are the words that President Trump used. And so as so often with the Trump administration, his own assistants, his own cabinet secretaries try and dress it up as something grand and inspiring. And then President Trump comes out and says the quiet part out loud, which is that he believes that he has the right to grab the oil, which is what he has consistently said he wants to do with Venezuela. Within that context, then, David, what are you watching for next?

1:10:25look the real worry uh is that uh you've now created this giant incentive for a fairly unpleasant bunch of people in caracas including uh oligarchs who got very rich under the old dictatorship and veterans of that old dictatorship who now take orders from america they're now potentially sitting on a lot of money if they can get the oil to flow with all the difficulties that nancy and jack correctly point out and that means that that chance to get Venezuela moving towards a real democracy, towards an elected government, potentially now has to get past a giant roadblock, which is what do you do about the oil deal?

1:11:01Have we now created a giant incentive that powerful people are making a lot of money from the status quo and will block that path to democracy? And I think that's a really major concern. And you're starting to hear that out loud from members of the Venezuelan opposition. This week marks one year since Since the Trump administration's boat strike campaign began, more than 65 attacks so far have targeted alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific. U.S. military strikes have killed more than 220 people. After weeks of dormancy, another strike this week killed four people. Jack, a year later, what have we learned about the effectiveness of these strikes?

1:11:42Well, not a lot. I mean, it's interesting. The situation has been that fentanyl has been a massive problem for the U.S. And with the situation in the Caribbean, they're largely targeting drug routes for cocaine. So you just have a targeting set that may not conform to the major problem the U.S. is dealing with. And then just on top of that, you have the killings, the legality. This relies on a secret memo that indicates the U.S. is not engaged in an international armed conflict. So it's going to be very difficult to continue to hang this on this type of legality, especially if you're in a situation after the midterms where the Democrats have taken over and they'll be looking for any ammunition they can get to try and target Pete Hegseth.

1:12:35Nancy, how is this campaign being viewed inside the military by military officers? What are you hearing? I think it's been one of the most divisive campaigns of this administration because from the military's perspective, the U.S. is using military tools to combat a law enforcement problem and treating suspected drug traffickers as combatants in a war zone. So where could this lead to? What other instances could we see the U.S. military deployed this way? And while, as Jack mentioned, there's a secret memo, I think there's real questions about whether this meets the sort of international norms and accepted practices in terms of the laws of armed conflict.

1:13:15General Francis Donovan, who's the head of Southcom, which is responsible for this operation himself, on Capitol Hill earlier this year said that the boat strikes aren't the answer, but rather one of the tools, which I think speaks to the military's interest in not becoming the front force on combating drugs. And we should note that there's no clear evidence that this has actually been effective in reducing the flow of drugs into the United States. I mean, the street price for cocaine, for example, has plummeted, which is not something you would expect if these campaigns have been so effective at getting smugglers to not aim for the United States.

1:13:55Let's do one last headline from North America. This week, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney had some strong words for the Trump administration. When the Americans stop doing memes, stop throwing shade, stop trying to be tough and start being serious about having those discussions, we can have those discussions. But it's not constructive. He also pushed back on Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick's claims that Canada walked away from talks for domestic political reasons. Carney says his government will talk when the U.S. is ready. You'll remember Canadian negotiators walked away from trade talks last month after failing to clinch a deal before an August 22 deadline for a new 50 % U.S.

1:14:38tariffs on more than$20 billion worth of Canadian imports. Canada has retaliated with dollar-for-dollar tariffs on U.S. goods, which are set to take effect next week. It's been more than a week since catastrophic floods tore through Himalayan communities on the Nepal-Tibet border. Police in Kathmandu have buried dozens of people in mass graves. More than 1 ,300 people are now dead as of Friday morning, and more than 5 ,000 are still missing, according to officials. Families of the missing have gathered at a hospital in Kathmandu. Here's Bikesh Thami. It has been eight days since I lost my brother.

1:15:17We haven't been able to contact him, and his body has not been found yet. So I came here today to give a DNA sample. Jack, nearly 12 ,000 people have been rescued, but the death toll does keep rising. Authorities are collecting blood samples to help identify recovered bodies. Where does the search stand now? Right now, NILA, rescuers are looking in small pockets, what they call Goldilocks zones, areas where there might be people who are trapped who have access to air or food or clean water. There's, of course, some progress with the hydropower tunnels. There's been efforts to remove people from hydropower stations after the disaster.

1:16:01So there may be as many as 40 people in one of these hydropower tunnels that they can still rescue. But it's very, very difficult. They're trying to pump fresh air into these areas, trying to get access holes in there. But the confidence of rescue officials is very low right now that they're going to continue to be able to rescue people alive. Two people were rescued on Thursday, Jack. I'm fascinated by the engineering involved in these Goldilocks zones. It's a really interesting technology they're using to try to locate people. Yeah, I mean, just the ability to create small air pockets and access people in these areas is an interesting new technology that they've been working on and adapting.

1:16:45So, you know, fingers crossed, of course, they can be able to locate and access more people and they can tell them where air in before, of course, it gets too late. Right. On Friday morning, they did rescue two survivors and recover the body of a third man, a mechanical engineer. The 5.2 magnitude shock was caused by a melting glacier shearing off of the mountain and slamming into the valley floor. It sent a wall of ice, rock and water onto riverside communities at 180 miles per hour. In some places, the river rose nearly 30 feet in just 30 minutes. Nepal's prime minister, Belendra Shah, wrote on social media, quote, The incident has indicated that the risks we face in the Himalayan region are increasing with climate change.

1:17:31The region must be alert, and at the same time, it is time for us to strongly raise the issue of disasters caused by climate change before the international community. Nancy, before we get to what the prime minister said, can you just share what the scale of the damage is from this flood and what it will take to recover? The pictures look pretty awful. I mean, it's catastrophic. It's something I've never seen in my lifetime before. I mean, nearly 1 ,300 people confirmed dead. And I should note that among those missing are 85 Americans. And I've been struck by sort of how little we've talked about that in this country.

1:18:11And so it gives you a sense. I mean, 85 Americans, that's just one nationality. There's so many represented there. I mean, if 85 Americans died in one incident in the U.S. Yeah. That gives people a sense of, right? Yeah. And the reason I also mentioned that, and this might just show my bias as a Pentagon reporter, I think we've actually seen in this the change in terms of the soft power that the U.S. projects. Because we haven't had the Trump administration boasting about the kind of resources and support that it's sending to help this devastating crisis. And it's just really stood out to me. But to your specific question, to me, there's sort of three steps.

1:18:50There's the immediate effort now, this massive rescue and humanitarian effort that's going on to try to get to these pockets that Jack was referring to. Then there's the millions, if not billions, you're going to need to restore connectivity and sort of the immediate for those who have survived as they're starting to come out of this tragedy. And then there's the rebuilding. And that's a potentially years, if not decades, long effort. And then if you get through all that, as the prime minister noted, that underlying vulnerability remains there that they will have to combat as well. And so when we talk about the scale of this, it is massive in the short term and it's massive in the long term.

1:19:28Nancy, to your point, Nepal is one of the smallest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. And David, as we think about the risk going forward, I can't help but think of being at UN climate talks in countries like Nepal talking about bearing the brunt of these effects of climate change. Do we think events like this will change the conversation at the global level? Look, most of the global conversation at the moment in rich countries about cutting aid budgets and voters wanting to do less from people a long way away. And we've seen, you know, to Nancy's point about we haven't seen American troops or military transports landing with lots of aid.

1:20:03The initial American contribution of assistance was$3.6 million, which for a country like America is kind of, you know, small change. And Nepal is a very, very poor country. Some of the estimates you're talking about are 10 % of their GDP to rebuild. And even if we can never prove that one glaciers collapse is directly linked to climate change, We do know that glaciers are melting twice as quickly as they did in 2000. And we know that there are going to be more collapses. And we also know that most of these glaciers are completely unmonitored by early warning systems. There's 63 ,000 glaciers in the Himalayas.

1:20:38There's only 38 monitoring stations at the moment. And that gets into politics too because the floodwater, there are a lot of complaints in Nepal that China could have given some early warning because this was a disaster on two sides of a border because it came through Tibet. The problem is that the Chinese treat a lot of this stuff as a state secret. They're very sensitive about their rivers. They're very sensitive about their border with places like Nepal. And the Chinese have been very aggressive in pushing back and saying that absolutely this has nothing to do with them. They don't want any of the blame.

1:21:10And they have been playing the usual Chinese propaganda and censorship playbook. David, I do want to ask you a little bit more about that. China has reported 31 deaths and more than 500 missing on Wednesday, but the authorities aren't releasing much more information. What can you tell us about the information blackout? And a reminder to our listeners, Tibet is an autonomous region within China. So it's interesting. We've seen the Chinese state media going after Western news organizations for saying that there has been limited coverage. And they're saying, how dare you say that it's been front page news?

1:21:42Now, I've been in China for, I spent 10 years as a journalist in China. and I've been through many of these disasters. When they say coverage, what they mean is there is coverage of Chinese rescue workers going and doing heroic things. There is coverage of Chinese Communist Party officials giving orders for rescue workers to go and do heroic things. What you do not see is victims being interviewed, the families of the dead or the missing being interviewed. And there is this very, very intense propaganda campaign to say that everything is stable, everything's under control. And we've seen the usual thing happening, which is that when people have gone on social media inside China and estimated what they think the death toll might be or talked about potentially missing people.

1:22:21Some of them have now been arrested and charged with kind of crimes against social stability by the Chinese, which is exactly how they do this. And you see Chinese nationalists also ferociously going after anyone who tries to wonder whether things are worse than the official account and saying, well, you're just kind of, there's this phrase they use, renxie manto, which means like eating blood-soaked steamed buns, the idea that you're kind of trafficking in misery. So there's this entire kind of apparatus to say, just listen to the official account, celebrate the heroic rescue workers, and don't ask questions.

1:22:53We've just got a few minutes left in the hour, and I want to take a look at what's in your reporter's notebooks. Jack, can I start with you? Yeah, Nancy had a great point about all of the cuts at the Pentagon, all of the personnel changes. Of course, a big one this week, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, a close ally of J.D. Vance departing. So looking at who's next, of course, Sean Parnell, a close Pete Hegseth ally, waiting in the wings. We'll see if it happens. I just got back from a trip to India, and I was struck by how much the war in Iran had affected every Indian citizen I met there. So I'm curious at this BRICS conference next week where these countries get together, how they talk about the war in Iran and how they sort of align together to deal with this new economic reality in which the Strait of Hormuz continues to be closed.

1:23:41What did you see, Nancy? And everybody I met talked about a direct impact. I met someone who couldn't get supplies for his kitchen remodel because it couldn't reach. Prices had gone up. Price of sugar had gone up. Tourism had gone down. People talked about layoffs. People talked about restaurants closing. It was striking to me that everywhere you went without even trying, you were hearing a conversation about the effect on the war. And now you have this conference of BRICS nations coming together, and I think it'll be a format in which so many countries likewise affected are going to talk about this new reality.

1:24:14It was just very striking. I hadn't been overseas since the war started, and to see such direct impacts on so many people was really illuminating and I think highlighted for me how important the conversations with these nations are now going forward. David, I think you wanted to tell us about something that's been happening with the Falkland Islands this week. Yeah, I don't want to sound too parochial. And it may be that it dies down. But we saw a really interesting address on TV by the Argentine president, Javier Millet. He's obviously a big ally of Donald Trump's on the right in Argentina. He went on TV last night, very excited about saying that a familiar argument that the Falkland Islands that they call the Las Malvinas belong to Argentina.

1:24:52But the reason for the excitement is that on a couple of occasions in the last few days, Donald Trump has been asked about the Falklands and has said, has been a bit kind of equivocal about whether America would actually defend Britain's claim to those islands and then started talking about how Britain wasn't the country that it used to be, that had defended them under Margaret Thatcher in the 80s and that Britain had annoyed him by not helping in the Iran war. And so if this turns into the next example of Donald Trump throwing an ally under the bus to defend one of his MAGA friends, in this case the Argentine president, then this is going to have some legs even beyond the UK.

1:25:25David, is it surprising to you that this continues to be an issue, particularly in Argentina? I mean, look, the reality is that when an Argentine government is losing popularity and is in trouble, there's like a kind of lever you pull that says Falkland Islands, Malvinas, and that's what's happening. Javier Millet, he's dropping in the polls. He's being attacked from the left and the right for not being tough enough about this. So he's pulling that lever. The thing that is new is that Donald Trump sees an interest in just sticking it to allies and just needling them and trying to gain leverage.

1:25:56and we've seen leaks of Pentagon memos saying maybe America should threaten not to help the Brits over the Falklands to get the Brits to do what they want in Iran or with defense spending. So we live in a new world as far as allies are concerned. A big thank you to our panelists, David Rennie, geopolitics editor at The Economist, where he writes a Telegram column, Jack Datch, defense reporter at Politico, and Nancy Youssef, staff writer at The Atlantic, covering national security in the Defense Department. And a very special shout out to Nancy for joining us today on her birthday. Happy birthday, Nancy.

1:26:25Thank you so much. Great to be with you guys. Mike 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 our senior producer and editor of 1A On Demand. And Thomas Liu and Matthew Simonson produce our podcast. This program comes to you from WAME, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR. I'm Naila Boodoo. Thanks for listening. This is 1A.

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