Trump Has 'Productive' Talks With Zelenskyy And Netanyahu, France Wildfires

0:02President Trump's support for Ukraine seems to be growing.

0:05Ayesha Rascoe:First, the approval to build Patriot missiles at the NATO summit and now a cordial Oval Office meeting with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. That's Michelle Martin. I'm Leila Faldil and this is Up First from NPR News. The relationship between Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on the other hand, has been rocky. They're making a lot of decisions and disagreeing on a lot of decisions. How could this affect the U.S. war with Iran? And in France, raging wildfires have forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes. Firefighters are working around the clock to contain the fires, but a new heat wave is threatening to undermine their work.

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1:56Ayesha Rascoe:President Trump hosted two foreign leaders at the White House on Tuesday. Both are dealing with war at home. Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukraine's Vladimir Zelensky. Trump's relationship with Netanyahu has faced increasing strain, while his ties with Zelensky have steadily improved. We're going to talk about both meetings. To start, we're joined by NPR's Greg Myrie, who is in Ukraine's capital, Kiev. Greg, good morning. Hi, Michelle. So what are you hearing about how the Trump-Zelensky meeting went? Yeah, by all accounts, positive. We all remember the big blowup they had in the Oval Office last year.

2:28But they've met several times since, including twice this month. And they've been steadily rebuilding the relationship. Trump has been treating Zelensky with more respect, especially as Ukraine gained the momentum with its punishing drone strikes against Russia. Now, there were no cameras at the meeting yesterday, and Trump hasn't commented. But Zelensky called it a good meeting. He also received a warm welcome from more than 60 senators from both parties. So the general tone keeps improving, though Ukraine is looking for more, namely weapons.

3:00Ayesha Rascoe:Yeah, but Trump has effectively cut off additional military aid to Ukraine. Is there any sign of change on this front? No, and not in terms of the U.S. directly sending weapons to Ukraine. But Trump does appear to be following through on an offer he made to Zelensky earlier this month. He said Ukraine can have a license to build its own Patriot air defense missiles. And right after Zelensky wrapped up the meeting with Trump, he headed to talks with executives at Lockheed Martin, which makes the Patriots. Now, Ukraine has become a world leader in making drones, but making the Patriot air defense missile is a very complex task and it could take years.

3:40So this is by no means a quick fix.

3:42Ayesha Rascoe:Can you give us a sense of what it's like to be in Ukraine with these regular airstrikes? Yeah, the Russians fire drones and missiles all over Ukraine every night. Ukraine says it shoots down around 90 % of the drones with its own interceptor drones. And Ukraine also had enough Patriots and other weapons to shoot down most incoming Russian missiles. But now a much higher percentage of those Russian ballistic missiles are reaching the targets because Ukraine is just low on the Patriots. Now, Kiev has the best air defenses in the country. And previously, you could be pretty confident that Ukraine could stop most, not all the attacks on the city.

4:21But now when the air raid sirens start howling in the middle of the night, there is a much higher chance that some of those missiles will hit the city and other parts of Ukraine. And this is all based on the figures that Ukraine's military puts out daily.

4:35Ayesha Rascoe:Now, Craig, you know, we usually treat the wars in Ukraine and in Iran as entirely separate conflicts. But we've seen some overlap recently. Will you tell us about that? Yeah, sure. Zelensky said Ukraine carried out a long-range airstrike Saturday that hit an Iranian boat in the Caspian Sea that was carrying military cargo to Russia. Now, we don't independently know what was on that ship, but Russia and Iran have had a military partnership that goes back decades. Iran initially threatened to retaliate, but now says it's not seeking to escalate this episode. Now, separately, Zelensky also said Russia is sharing satellite data with Iran on the location of U.S.

5:18troops in the Middle East. He says this allows Iran to carry out more precise attacks on the Americans. And Trump was asked about this recently, and he said he would check with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

5:30Ayesha Rascoe:That is. NPR's Greg Meier in keep. Greg, thank you. Sure thing, Michelle. The recent pause in fighting with Iran is over. Iran launched a surprise attack on U.S. forces in the Middle East just before 6 p.m. Eastern time that, according to U.S. Central Command, all the missiles were intercepted. Then American and Saudi forces said they attacked Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, a rare show forced by Saudi Arabia in this conflict. This all happened the same day President Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. Netanyahu wanted to use his meeting with Trump to repair their strained relationship.

6:07Ayesha Rascoe:NPR White House correspondent Franco Ordonez is here to tell us about that. Good morning, Franco.

6:12David Greene:Good morning, Michelle.

6:13Ayesha Rascoe:You know, at the beginning of the war, there really was no daylight between these two leaders. How far away from that point in the relationship are we now, five months later?

6:22David Greene:Yeah, I mean, I'd say pretty far. I mean, it was only a couple weeks ago that Trump was calling the prime minister crazy. And ahead of yesterday's meeting, Trump actually expressed some frustration with Netanyahu. You know, Fox News asked Trump about the Israelis presenting evidence with Iran. and rebuilding its military capabilities at Pickaxe Mountain. I don't need Bibi to tell me that. Bibi's telling me that because he wants me to stay involved. Yeah, Trump went on to say this as well. Because as Space Force, we have the greatest cameras in the world focused on. We know exactly what's going on.

6:53But no, I heard Bibi announce that. I said, why don't you just tell it to me? Why do you have to announce it to the world?

6:58David Greene:You know, Michelle, I'll just add that Trump did not appear publicly with Netanyahu, which is notable. But Netanyahu did release a statement calling it an excellent meeting with shared goals.

7:08Ayesha Rascoe:That said, Franco, there have been periods of public disagreement before between these two. Is this different now?

7:15David Greene:Well, I mean, I think the stakes are different. I mean, the two sides launched a war together that Trump widely believed and told the public would be relatively quick and easy. I mean, it's now five months in and there's no end in sight. Michael O 'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution told me that the relationship is very complicated tactically. They're making a lot of decisions and disagreeing on a lot of decisions about when to strike what. And there's obviously the legacy of the last six months where President Trump, despite his denials, may feel like he got dragged into this a little bit by a Netanyahu who was too optimistic about what we could accomplish.

7:50David Greene:Now Hanlon says there's no fundamental rupture. They're still cooperative. But again, more complicated because neither side seems to know how to end the war. Israel has one theory and Trump has another.

8:00Ayesha Rascoe:And it seems clear that the two sides have different priorities. What are those differences?

8:05David Greene:Yeah, Israel wants to keep fighting. Now, it argues it still faces major threats from Iran and Hezbollah and Lebanon and wants to further weaken both. Israel also doesn't want Trump to sign a deal that could limit its ability to defend itself. Now, Trump supports Israel's security, but is focused on ending what is a very unpopular war, reopening the Strait of Hormuz and easing rising prices, especially gas prices.

8:30Ayesha Rascoe:Despite their differences, do the two still need each other for some reason?

8:35David Greene:Yeah, yeah, very much so. I mean, Netanyahu continues to need U.S. military cooperation and diplomatic support on a bunch of fronts. He's also facing an election in the coming months, and his relationship to the U.S. is very crucial. Now, Trump has his own political considerations. Israel is still the U.S.'s closest security partner in the region. and despite some cooling by some factions, maintains a lot of support for much of his own party, and he needs Israel for one of his primary foreign policy objectives, and that's expanding the Abraham Accords, the agreement that normalizes relations between Israel and several Arab countries.

9:14Ayesha Rascoe:That is White House correspondent Franco Ordonez Franco. Thank you.

9:17David Greene:Thank you, Michelle.

9:27Ayesha Rascoe:Authorities in France and Spain say wildfires that have been raging for nearly a week are mostly contained. But another heat wave is underway, which will bring high temperatures and strong winds. So there are fears that could cause the fires to grow out of control again and cause new ones to ignite. We're going to go now to NPR's Eleanor Beardsley in France. Eleanor, good morning. Good morning, Michelle. What is the damage so far where you are? Well, the two biggest fires started last week, so they've been burning for a while, in the southwest region of France near the city of Bordeaux. They burned through about 100 ,000 acres, including forests, farmland, and villages.

10:03The military's been mobilized, joining firefighters. About 5 ,000 people are now battling these blazes. The European Union has sent firefighting planes and helicopters to join the French Canadair planes. There's the planes that scoop up water and dump it on fires. And in France, more than 200 ,000 people, residents and vacationers, have been evacuated, about 100 ,000 in Spain.

10:25Ayesha Rascoe:Could you tell us a little bit more about what this area is like? What are the conditions there? Yeah, it's a wine-growing region around Bordeaux. It's on the coast with wide Atlantic beaches, good for surfing. But there are also vast pine forests. The forest of Les Landes is the largest man-made woodland in Western Europe. They began planting pine trees there in the 1700s to absorb the swampy soil. So the fuel is there, Michelle. Then there's the weather. It's one of the main causes for these fires. Heat waves have parched the country. I spoke with Munya Mustafawi. She's a climatologist and board member of the French Scientific Expert Group on Climate Change.

11:03She said all this was predicted. Of course, not the exact timing of the fires, but the conditions. She said at the rate Europe is warming faster than any other continent, models show that heat wave days will be multiplied by five, which is exactly what is happening. Here she is. These heat waves, they create drought conditions. It's exactly what we had currently in France. Like we had three, three heat waves. We're only in July. You know, August has not even started. And so now, Michelle, we're going into the fourth heat wave. And this is the perfect cocktail for these wildfires.

11:36Ayesha Rascoe:Eleanor, we've been hearing from French firefighters about the unpredictable nature of these fires. Why are they so hard to put out? Yeah, firefighters say that these are aggressive, erratic. They're calling them monster zombie fires that change course, reignite themselves. They say they're helpless because although firefighting rules seem the book is thrown out, you know. But what we're seeing is a phenomenon we've never seen in France before, though we've seen it in California. It's what are called firestorms or fire clouds, pyrocumulus clouds. And I spoke to Jean-Baptiste Philippe, who is a scientist with the French National Research Center.

12:12His specialty is fire weather forecasting. He said fire clouds form when an intense fire and a storm interact. He said there's an exchange of heat and energy in what he called a destructive feedback loop. Here he is. Anytime you have a cloud that is forming, you have energy in the atmosphere. But the fact that the fire is there is making this energy available for the fire. So the interaction becomes strong. You know, he says a column of gases, heat and vertical winds forms and it can reach six miles high and you cannot put out such fires just like you can't stop a storm. And he says this happened over the weekend with the Bordeaux fires and there's no time to react in such a fire.

12:55So, you know, that's why they have already evacuated 200 ,000 people preemptively, you know, before it would become too late. That is NPR's Eleanor Beardsley. Eleanor, thank you. You're welcome, Michelle.

13:11Ayesha Rascoe:And that's Up First for Wednesday, July 29th. I'm Michelle Martin. And I'm Leila Faldil. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Miguel Macias, Rebecca Metzler, Tina Crya, H.J. Mai, and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Ziad Butch and Nia Dumas. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Nisha Hainas. Our technical director is Carly Strange. And our supervising producer is Michael Lipkin. Join us again tomorrow. Thank you.

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