Israel And Iran Pull Back, Primaries In Four States, Trump's Election Fraud Claims

0:02At the urging of President Trump, Israel and Iran put attacks on hold again, at least for now. Both sides are setting conditions that could send them right back to war. But the president is saying again that a deal with Iran is close at hand. Is it? I'm Leila Fadil. That's Michelle Martin. And this is Up First from NPR News. Voters head to the polls today in four states. In Maine, Democrats are picking a candidate to take on Senator Susan Collins in a midterm race that could decide control of the Senate. while South Carolina's primary will be another test of how much weight Trump's endorsement carries.

0:38And California election officials are still counting ballots a week after Election Day. President Trump is calling the delay evidence of fraud without providing any evidence. Election experts predict Trump will repeat that claim in November if Republicans lose. Stay with us. We'll give you news you need to start your day.

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1:53with a licensed therapist from anywhere on your schedule. Don't just survive the summer. Thrive. Visit BetterHelp.com slash NPR. Israel and Iran both say they will stop attacking each other, at least for now. In a major escalation, they exchanged missile fire for several hours and then called it off as abruptly as it began. NPR's Greg Myrie is covering this story in Tel Aviv. Hello, Greg. Hi, Michelle. First, let me ask about another development. A U.S. military helicopter went down in the region. What do we know about this? So two crew members of an Army Apache helicopter crashed as they were patrolling near the coast of Oman and also near the Strait of Hormuz.

2:33Now, U.S. Central Command said the two were rescued within approximately two hours of the crash and are in stable condition. A statement said the cause was under investigation and we've heard no reports of hostilities in that area. U.S. forces are operating close to the strait, but not necessarily inside the strait itself. They're enforcing this U.S. blockade of ships going to and from Iranian ports. And Iran, of course, is also enforcing its own blockade. So let's go to this missile exchange between Israel and Iran. It escalated very quickly and then ended the same way. What should we take away from this?

3:12Yeah, so Michelle, it came after days of shooting exchanges that were increasing on two separate fronts, the U.S. and Iran in and around the Gulf and Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. And this all boiled over on Sunday. Israel and Hezbollah were trading fire, and then Iran intervened and fired missiles at Israel. Israel then launched missiles at Iran. As you noted, this ended very quickly as Israel and Iran agreed to stop attacking each other, but nothing was resolved, and both sides set conditions that could lead to another round at any time. Israel says its forces will keep operating in Lebanon, and just this morning it ordered the evacuation of remaining residents in the Lebanese coastal city of Tyre, and Iran says further attacks in Lebanon could lead to another and larger Iranian response.

4:04You know, Greg, we've been focusing so much on the U.S.-Iran confrontation, but the Israel-Hezbollah conflict is now getting more attention. Does this make it harder to end the fighting across the region? Yeah, it certainly seems so. Iran sees Lebanon as a way to pressure Trump and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu and to divide them. Remember, just last week, Iran said it would stop negotiations with the U.S. if Israel went ahead with a threat to bomb Hezbollah in Beirut. Trump then had an angry phone call with Netanyahu and told him, don't do it. And then when Israel and Iran were trading missiles on Monday, Trump intervened again and told both sides to stop.

4:45So we're seeing a public rift between Trump and Netanyahu over Lebanon. Netanyahu says he won't tolerate attacks on northern Israel. Trump is telling him not to escalate in Lebanon because that's making it harder for Trump to get a deal with Iran. Greg, before we let you know, President Trump continues to say that an agreement with Iran could come soon. Is there evidence to support this? Well, not really. Trump said again last night he thinks there's a good chance of a deal in two or three days, but it's not clear why. Iran's decision to fire on Israel was a bold move. It could have spiraled out of control very quickly.

5:22So this episode demonstrates Iran feels it's in a strong position, and combined with the aggressive statements we see every day from Iranian officials, Iran just doesn't seem to be in the mood or the position for the kind of compromises Trump is demanding. That is. And for us, Greg Myrie and Tel Aviv. Greg, thank you. Sure thing, Michelle.

5:49Today, voters in Maine, Nevada, North Dakota, and South Carolina will be casting ballots for the candidates they want to see advance to the general election. In Maine, Democrats are gearing up for a competitive Senate race. Nevada and South Carolina voters are picking their nominees for governor. NPR's Sage Miller is following those races, and she's with us now. Good morning. Good morning. So let's start with that Maine Senate race. How important is the seat for Democrats? Yeah, this is really important. It's quite a big deal. If Democrats have any chance at winning the Senate majority in November, picking up Maine is all but necessary.

6:24That requires flipping the seat away from Republican Senator Susan Collins. She's held the position for 30 years, largely because of her more moderate stance on the Hill. She isn't a Trump loyalist, but she is still a Republican, which means the president's unpopularity nationally and in the state could hurt her. But she's been here before. She's won many competitive elections. And like I said, Democrats want this seat. They need this seat. So they are trying to pick a candidate that can win it. And it looks like that candidate will be Graham Plattner, as he's still expected to win, even with all these controversies around his personal behavior that have emerged in the past few weeks.

7:03It would be very surprising if he didn't win. That's because no other Democrat is really going against him. Plattner is a combat veteran turned oyster farmer. He's a political newcomer, and he's had to answer a lot about his past since launching his campaign less than a year ago. Most recently, the New York Times published a story where Plattner's previous romantic partners described him as toxic and as a person who does not respect women. Plattner spoke to our colleagues at Maine Public, saying he believes these stories serve as a distraction away from the political movement he is building. He also told Maine Public he doesn't think his past will haunt him at the primary ballot box because voters know he's not the same man.

7:46OK, so let's move to South Carolina now. Republicans are picking their nominee for governor. Is there a frontrunner? There isn't. And there are five Republican candidates on the ballot. But there is only one Trump-endorsed candidate. The president is backing Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evitt. She's a longtime Trump supporter. And on the other hand, Congresswoman Nancy Mace is also vying for the nomination. She's a member of the Freedom Caucus in Washington, which just translates to she is also very conservative. But Mace gained the ire of Trump after she pushed to release the Epstein files. And this is another test of how much weight the president's endorsement carries.

8:24And there is also a chance voters won't know who the nominee is by the end of the night. The race will head to a runoff if no candidate can secure 50 % plus one of the vote. Okay, now to Nevada, where Democrats are going to pick their nominee to challenge the Republican governor. Voters will be picking between a more establishment candidate, Attorney General Aaron Ford, or a more left-leaning progressive candidate, County Commissioner Alexis Hill. And here is why that is important. Nevada is a case study of where Democrats and swing states are. That signals to the national party what kind of Democratic leadership can win in these tough, high-stake races and places.

9:03Democrats believe they have a shot at winning the office. That's because Trump is pretty unpopular in Nevada at the moment. Tourism is down in a state that really relies on it. Gas is expensive. The war in Iran is unpopular. His immigration and tariff policies aren't boating well. And all of that is making it harder for Republican Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo to keep his job in November. That's NPR's Sage Miller. Sage, thank you. Thank you. The L.A. mayor's ballot in the fall is set between two Democrats. Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nithya Rahman will face incumbent Mayor Karen Bass. That according to the Associated Press.

9:40The results are coming in almost a week after Election Day in California. President Trump claims taking that long to call races is evidence of fraud. He stormed out of an NBC interview over the weekend when host Kristen Welker pushed back. Local election officials say they are doing their best in a state that prioritizes making it easy to cast a ballot. NPR voting correspondent Miles Parks is here to talk us through a situation that could be a preview of November's midterms. Good morning, Miles. Hi, Michelle. So as we just said, President Trump says there is fraud. He didn't present any evidence of that.

10:15So let me just ask, why is it taking so long to count in California? So there are a couple reasons, but the biggest one comes back to the timing of when voters return their vote-by-mail ballots. It takes a bit more time for officials to process vote-by-mail ballots compared to in-person votes. They have to deal with scanning barcodes, removing the ballots from envelopes, getting them ready to check the signatures, for instance, to verify identity. That is the case everywhere, all over the country. But in California, we see this rush of voters, roughly a quarter of the electorate, that return their mail ballots on election day.

10:47So all that work can't even begin until after voting is completed. California election expert Kim Alexander coined that sort of logjam, the pig in the Python effect, because it takes a while to work through all those votes. So that seems pretty straightforward. But President Trump's response plays into one of his preferred narratives, which is that elections where he doesn't get what he wants are stolen. Yes. And part of that is because we saw a similar dynamic play out in this L.A. mayor's race as what happened to Trump in 2020, where Trump's preferred candidate looked like he was going to advance to the general election as the first votes were counted, but then ended up falling behind as more mail ballots were counted.

11:25Trump posted about this a lot. And we saw a number of other Republicans and influencers jump in as well. Elon Musk, Ron DeSantis. Here's Speaker of the House Mike Johnson talking to CNN's Manu Raju. Some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream, it is impossible to prove. But I think everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here. Even for Republicans who have not gone full bore into Trump's stolen election narratives, they've been bashing California. It's just a pretty low risk way to score political points. What are you taking away from all this as you look ahead to the midterms?

11:57I mean, every single election expert I talk to expects Trump to follow this exact same playbook in November if he does not like the way results are coming in. You can sort of imagine a scenario where control of the U.S. House rests on a few competitive districts in California. We're waiting on those results for up to a week, just like we are right now. That could be a potentially dangerous time. I was talking to Tammy Patrick, though. She's the chief programs officer for the National Association of Election Officials. And she said voters should look at this another way, as extra motivation to tune out the noise and just show up.

12:29If this meant nothing, no one would be doing all the things they're doing to try and make it more difficult. it would be ignored. But it's not being ignored. Every election will leave some people sad at the result, Patrick said. But the U.S. needs to get back to a place where that doesn't automatically mean questioning the election's legitimacy. That is NPR's Miles Parks. Miles, thank you. Thank you.

12:56And that's Up First for Tuesday, June 9th. I'm Michelle Martin. And I'm Leila Faudil. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Tina Kraja, Megan Pratz, Mohamed El-Bardisi, and H.J. Mai. It was produced by Ziad Batch and Nia Dumas. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Zoe Van Genhoven. Our technical director is Carly Strange. And our supervising senior producer is Vince Pearson. Join us again tomorrow.

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