Latest / Washington Post / 6.21.25
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to the reading of Today's Washington Post for Saturday,
- 0:05June twenty first, twenty twenty five. Your reader is Alice Stainer,
- 0:11with the reminder that RADIOI is a reading service for
- 0:14those blind with difficulties holding printed material. And I will
- 0:21start with the front page of the Washington Post. And
- 0:26the top of the paper is taken up mainly by
- 0:29a huge picture. Above the fold, taking up maybe maybe
- 0:38two thirds of the front page is a picture of
- 0:44migrants in Spain, and it is a window with reflecting
- 0:51a woman walking by two people leaning against derailing.
- 0:56Speaker 2: The day is sunny with people.
- 1:01Speaker 1: On a pretty and sunny day, and it's entitled for Migrants,
- 1:06a new Land of Hope. Spain opens its doors as
- 1:11US cracks down, giving a boost to its best growing
- 1:16economy by Anthony Fiola. To the right of that article,
- 1:24taking up the final third of the page.
- 1:27Speaker 2: In large.
- 1:29Speaker 1: Bold letters around turns down. Europe's overture parties say they
- 1:36are open to more talks. Diplomats urge Tehran to restrict
- 1:42nuclear activities. This is by Ellen Francis and Claire Parker
- 1:48out of Geneva, and below that is the second part
- 1:54behind Trump's pause, A battle.
- 1:58Speaker 2: To bend his ears.
- 2:01Speaker 1: Competing voices in recent days weighed in on possible US
- 2:06attack by Natalie Allison. Below the article on migrants bound
- 2:15in handcuffs determined to resist arrests showed Democrats defiance of
- 2:23Trump and raised their profiles. And this is by Toulouse Orlarunneepia.
- 2:32And below that Columbian protester Relieve Columbia protester released on
- 2:39judge's order by Anna Slator and it says suggest highly
- 2:45unusual detention is reprisal for Khalil's political view. And to
- 2:51the right of those two articles, one I think it'll
- 2:53be fun to read. It's a picture and it's like
- 2:56a puzzle type of thing. How two hundred and eighty
- 3:01thousand eggs were stolen and a scramble over prices profits
- 3:08and Giant Industry Calmaine or Industry Giant Calmaine was posting
- 3:15record earnings when the company was hit by one of
- 3:19the biggest egg thefts in history. I think that's kind
- 3:24of interesting to see what happens there. I'm going to
- 3:28start with as Trump shuts out migrants, Spain opens its
- 3:34doors and fuels economic growth, defining the anti immigrant trend
- 3:41in the US, Spain is reaping economic benefits by granting
- 3:45citizenship to tens of thousands of newly arrived workers. By
- 3:54Anthony Fiola out of Madrid when nightfall on the other
- 4:00side of the Atlantic, her thirty two year old cousin,
- 4:04a house cleaner in New York, huddles inside a dim
- 4:09basement apartment, terrified of ice raids. But in the virgin
- 4:15In quarter of the Spanish capital, where immigrant staffed restaurants
- 4:19tempt newcomers with Dominican chic charonies and Venezuelan efinatus. Edith
- 4:28Chimbo sat in the sunlight, musing about the Spanish dream.
- 4:33My cousin told me go to Spain, said Chimbo, twenty two,
- 4:39who landed in Madrid earlier this year from the Ecuadorian Highlands,
- 4:44armed with a college degree but no work permit. She's
- 4:48cleaning houses under the table, just like her cousin in
- 4:52the United States. Yet she is counting on something in
- 4:55the weeks ahead that her ken almost certainly cannot legalization here,
- 5:05she said, we have hope as the Trump administration's crack
- 5:10down on immigrants and asylemn seekers brings tear gas protests
- 5:14and raids to the streets of the United States. Spain
- 5:18is positioning itself as a counterpoint. A new land of
- 5:22opportunity in this nation of forty eight million, with long
- 5:27colonial links to the New World, and influx of predominantly
- 5:31n In American immigrants, is helping fuel one of the
- 5:35fastest growing economies in Europe. The Spanish economic transformation is
- 5:40unfolding as the Centa left government of Prime Minister Pedro
- 5:45said Chez has streamland immigration rules while offering legal status
- 5:50to roughly seven hundred thousand irregular migrants since twenty twenty one.
- 5:57A landmark bill now being negotiated in the Congress of
- 6:00Deputies could grant legal amnesty to hundreds of thousands more,
- 6:05most of them Spanish speakers from predominantly Catholic countries in
- 6:10Latin America. Those newcomers often enjoy visa free traveled in Spain,
- 6:16even as Madrid controversially works with Morocco, Mauritania and other
- 6:22countries to block irregular arrivals from the African coast. Though
- 6:27Sanchez has also called for tolerance toward migrants fleeing poverty
- 6:32and violence in Africa, Spain's approach is attracting at least
- 6:37some migrants rejected a barred from the United States, including
- 6:41Venezuelans who are now subject to President Donald Trump's travel band.
- 6:49The number of Venezuelans applying for humanitarian protection in Spain
- 6:54surged to thirty six thousand, nine hundred and twenty three
- 6:58between January and m May, a thirty six point four
- 7:02percent spike from the same period last year. With no
- 7:06visa requirements, all Venezuela's need is a valid passport and
- 7:11a plane ticket. In May, the most recent period available,
- 7:16applicants enjoyed a ninety eight point six percent acceptance rate.
- 7:22My plans and hopes for the United States ended overnight,
- 7:27said Alexander Salazar, thirty four, of Venezuelan living in Peru,
- 7:33who found out in February that is US visa on
- 7:37humanitarian grounds as an LGBTQ plus migrant had been suspended.
- 7:43His plan is now to join other family and friends
- 7:47who have already left for Spain. That's where my road leads,
- 7:54he said by telephone from Lima Siero OReGO, a minister
- 7:59in China's government, since she was glad to see immigrants
- 8:03choosing Spain. It makes me feel a certain pride because
- 8:08it represents the kind of country we want to build,
- 8:11a welcoming country with rights. Sanchez now finds his party
- 8:17embroiled in a political corruption scandal that has sparked calls
- 8:22for new elections. Still, Spanish lawmakers across the political spectrum
- 8:28have adopted a less demonizing approach toward immigration, at least
- 8:33from some countries than many of the American and European counterparts.
- 8:38Even the far right Box Party has appeared moderately welcoming
- 8:42of some Spanish speaking, culturally similar immigrants from Latin America. Spain,
- 8:49which like most European countries, has an aging population, for decades,
- 8:55was more a source of outward immigration than a destination
- 8:59for grants. It first emerged as a tempting target for
- 9:03foreign job seekers during its economic boon in the two thousands.
- 9:08More recently, it has experienced a historic post pandemic surge,
- 9:13with two point six seven million people born outside the
- 9:16European Union arriving between two and e twenty one and
- 9:21twenty twenty three, an eighty five percent increase compared with
- 9:26the previous three year period.
- 9:29Speaker 2: Many of its.
- 9:30Speaker 1: Immigrants, particularly from Latin America, arrive legally either with worker
- 9:35student permits or as tourists and laters seek to change
- 9:39their status. Yet the country still harbors a hidden mass
- 9:43of migrants without legal permission to work. The government has
- 9:47no official figure of how many could be legalized under
- 9:50the new bill, but estimates suggest anywhere from six hundred
- 9:55thousand to one million. Critics point to Spain's unemployment rate
- 10:02over ten percent, the highest in European Union, though less
- 10:06than half what it was a decade ago, as evidence
- 10:11that welcoming migrants is wrong headed. They argue it suppresses
- 10:17wage growth, increases competition for Spanish workers, and threatens Spanish identity.
- 10:24Some opinion polls also show a hardening public stance on migration.
- 10:31Yet the legislative amnesty push came not from a government plan,
- 10:36but a grassroots efforts backed by civil actors, including small
- 10:40town mayors, companies, migrant advocates, and the Catholic Church. Spain
- 10:46also has a history of normalizing irregular migrants who can
- 10:49prove steady work, with the last large scale amnesty under
- 10:53the center left government of Jose Luis Rodruguez Zappartero in
- 11:00two thousand and five. Should Sanchez survive the corruption crisis
- 11:05and Spain's economy continue to thrive. His policies could set
- 11:10up this nation as an antithesis of Trump's America, a
- 11:14migrant friendly, progressive paradise. Under Sanchez, Spain has leaned in
- 11:21as few other nations to diversity, equity and inclusion. A
- 11:27new government rule, effective May first, compels companies with more
- 11:30than fifty employees to enact anti discrimination policies protecting LGBTQ
- 11:36plus workers. The government is also forging a close economic
- 11:41relationship with Beijing, generating large scale investment, including Chinese auto
- 11:47Giant cherries first factory in Europe. No policy has been
- 11:53as transformative to Spanish society as the stance on immigration,
- 11:57which officials and economists say is helping to reverse population
- 12:01decline and a boost social welfare funding at a moment
- 12:05when baby boomers are retiring. Immigration is also helping drive
- 12:10the strongest period of economic growth since Spain's construction boom
- 12:15in the mid two thousands. Between twenty twenty two and
- 12:18twenty twenty four, average GDP per capita increased two point
- 12:22nine percent, the strongest of the EU's four largest economies.
- 12:28A report published this year by the Bank of Spain
- 12:32estimates that Up to twenty five percent of that growth
- 12:35was linked to the influx of foreign workers, paying taxes,
- 12:40filing jobs, of filling jobs, renting homes, and purchasing goods
- 12:45and services. Spain is a complete anomomally a country where
- 12:52the government is easing the arrival of migrants, and migrants
- 12:55have been absolutely existential to the dynamism of the economy,
- 13:02said Gonzalo Fanul, co founder of Pocassa Foundation, a research
- 13:09group on migrant causes. Experts and officials say the arrival
- 13:14of large numbers of Latin American immigrants, who speak Spanish
- 13:21and are overwhelmingly Catholic, has led to fewer societal visions
- 13:26of assimilation than in countries like Sweden and Germany, which
- 13:30have experienced a large influx of Moslims. I really doe
- 13:36that there is any other country in the world where
- 13:38migration is playing as much a role in economic growth
- 13:41right now as it is in Spain, seed Juan Chiruti,
- 13:47an Argentine immigrated Spain and now the global chief economist
- 13:51at Madrid based Banco Santander. Immigrants are filling labor gats,
- 14:00not only in Spain's lower wage tourism, construction and agricultural sectors,
- 14:05but also in the more highly skilled tech and medical sectors.
- 14:10In an office park on the edge of Valencia, companies
- 14:14such as Aventio, a digital services and software provider for
- 14:19the tourism industry, have leveraged Spain's streamline immigration rules to
- 14:24employ foreigners and grow business. Company officials say they have
- 14:30turned to foreign labor for positions that otherwise may take
- 14:33up a year to fill. Almost seventy three percent of
- 14:37the company's hires in twenty twenty four were born outside Spain,
- 14:41mostly in Latin America. We hire people from outside because
- 14:47we need them. We don't differentiate based on where they're from,
- 14:51said Becker Hore, Avialiti's director of human resources. Spain has
- 14:59also changed to rules to help legalize the status of
- 15:02migrants with proof of long term work, to ease access
- 15:05to work visas for new immigrants, to loosen work restrictions
- 15:09on student visa holders, and to simplified family reunification rules.
- 15:15Those simplified rules could aid Chimbo, whose mother immigrated from
- 15:20Ecuador to Spain a decade ago and became a citizen.
- 15:24Chimbo arrived on a three month visa in apriland is
- 15:27now applying for long term legal status and the right
- 15:30to work through family reunification. She said she is confident
- 15:35that if it fails, the amnesty legislation could aid her.
- 15:40Before arriving, she considered it following her cousin to the
- 15:43United States, a path Chimbo's father tribe before being detained
- 15:48and deported from Texas last year. Speaking on a videophone
- 15:52from her dark basement apartment in a New York City suburb,
- 15:56her cousin Christina, said she warn Chimbo away from the
- 16:00United States. I'm afraid all the time now. Whenever I'm
- 16:05outside taking the bus to work, I'm afraid, said Christina,
- 16:09who is trying to apply for a solemn but fretz
- 16:12better chances. I've seen the videos. I've seen what they're
- 16:16doing the migrants in the US.
- 16:18Speaker 2: Here.
- 16:19Speaker 1: My biggest years mondays when I have to go to work,
- 16:22Jimbo said. Two hundred and twenty five miles east of
- 16:27Madrid in the Orange Blossom Tinshiar of Valencia, men from Columbia, Ecuador, Morocco,
- 16:34Senegal and a host of other countries laybored on crews
- 16:38rebuilding infrastructure and erecting new apartments. Following the devastating floods
- 16:43that hit the region in October this year, Spain offered
- 16:48legal status to more than twenty two thousand irregular migrants
- 16:53in the affected area, helping populate an army of construction
- 16:58workers and filling up the jaw key jobs in the
- 17:01rebuilding effort. It was a decision driven by humanitarian concern
- 17:06for migrants unable to access government aid following the disaster,
- 17:11but it was also driven by pragmatism. I asked the
- 17:16Spanish government for this. We needed these people to have
- 17:20an identification number, the number to be able.
- 17:23Speaker 2: To exist in Spain.
- 17:25Speaker 1: There was a bottleneck in the prestigures and we needed workers,
- 17:30said Jose Vincente Morata, president of the Valencia Chamber of Commerce.
- 17:37The region has now evolved into a many test case
- 17:40of Spain's legalization efforts. After the floods. Gerardo Lopez matur,
- 17:47president of the nearby village of Rio, struggled to find
- 17:50workers willing to work in the town's ongoing clean up effort.
- 17:55He had four positions opened, three of them now filled
- 17:59my migrant. We still kind of fill the fourth job,
- 18:03he said. There are some jobs that Spaniards just won't do.
- 18:11One of his workers is Ibra band, a twenty four
- 18:14year old Senegalese who arrived in Spain by sea in
- 18:18twenty twenty one, living ever since off the precarious shadow economy.
- 18:24He'd pick oranges or deliver food. At best, he said
- 18:28he'd earn the equivalent of thirty five dollars a day.
- 18:31As a documented migrant, he has been able to get
- 18:34a driver's license for the first time and access basic
- 18:39medical care. Now he can also travel back to Senegal
- 18:43to visit family without risk. His salary is no fortune,
- 18:48sixty euros a day about seventy dollars for clean up
- 18:51work in the hot southern Spanish sun, but it's twice
- 18:55what he was earning before, and enough to afford a
- 18:58small room with a vase of fresh flowers on a
- 19:01desk and a large window that brings a cooling breeze.
- 19:06My life is better now, he said, I can live
- 19:13a second article. Columbia protest Mahmood Khalil freed from ICE detention. Khalil,
- 19:21a prominent leader in campus protest over the war in Gaza,
- 19:26was the first high pro non citizen activist to be
- 19:29detained as part of a crackdown on alleged anti Semitism
- 19:35by Joanna Slata. Former Columbia University student Mahmood Khalil was
- 19:41freed from detention on Friday after a federal judge ordered
- 19:45his release, ruling that the government's efforts to keep him
- 19:49in custody were highly unusual and potentially a formal punishment
- 19:53for his political views. Khalil was the first non citizen
- 19:58activist to be arrested in aimed by the Trump administration
- 20:01this year, as it launched a crackdown on what it
- 20:04said was anti Semitism on college campuses. Khalil, a legal
- 20:09permanent resident, was arrested in New York in March and
- 20:13flown to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement CEE detention center
- 20:19in Louisiana. In April, his wife gave birth to their
- 20:23first child.
- 20:24Speaker 2: Dean u S.
- 20:26Speaker 1: District Judge Michael Farbriars of New Jersey said Friday that
- 20:31prosecutors had not provided a legitimate justification for Khalil's continued detention.
- 20:38The government's bid to keep Khalil detained based on a
- 20:41relatively manner alleged immigration in fraction when he is neither
- 20:46a flight risk nor a danger to the community is
- 20:50highly highly highly unusual, Fabriars said. The facts of the
- 20:57case suggest that there is at least something to the
- 21:00underlying claim that the government is using the emigration system
- 21:04to punish Khalil for his activism, the judge said, and
- 21:08of course that would be unconstitutional. Just before eight pm,
- 21:14Khalil walked out of the detention center in Jene, Louisiana,
- 21:18flanked by his lawyers and wearing a cafea a symbol
- 21:23of Palestinian solidarity. No person should actually be detained for
- 21:30protesting a genocide. Justice will prevail, Khalil said. The first
- 21:37thing he hopes to do after one hundred and forty
- 21:40days in detention, he said, is just hug my wife
- 21:44and son. The judge's order to release Khalil on bail
- 21:49marks the latest setback for the Trump administration in its
- 21:52pledge to detain and deport what it has determined progy
- 21:57hortist students with federal courts deliver bring a string of
- 22:00defeats to the government. In recent weeks, one by one,
- 22:04the targeted students and scholars have been released as judges
- 22:08have taken a dim view of the rationale offered by
- 22:11prosecutors for their detentions. The lawyers for the detainees have
- 22:15said their arrest are a form of unconstitutional retaliation for
- 22:20their activism in opposition to the war in Gaza. Those
- 22:24freed in recent weeks include Rumesa Osturk, a Turkish graduate
- 22:31student grabbed by masked federal agents outside her apartment, mo
- 22:37Sin Mahdawi, a Palestinian student detained at his citizenship interview,
- 22:43and Badara Khan Suri, an Indian scholar at Georgetown University,
- 22:49seized outside his home in Virginia. Federal courts have uniformly
- 22:56rejected the Trump administration's efforts to target inns, international students,
- 23:02and Green card holders based on their speech, said to
- 23:05Laura Macuerche, a law professor at Columbia University, Taken together,
- 23:12Macquariche said, the rulings sent a clear message that the
- 23:15administration shouldn't be snatching up peaceful protesters in those who
- 23:21write op eds. Khalil had been detained far longer than
- 23:26any other targeted student has not been accused of any crime. Instead,
- 23:32officials initially relied on an obscure provision of immigration law
- 23:36to arrest him and launch deportation proceedings. The provision allows
- 23:42the Secretary of State to determine that a non citizen's
- 23:46presence in the country would harm a compelling foreign policy interest.
- 23:53In a March memo, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said
- 23:56that Khalil's participation in antisemitic protest fostered a hostile environment
- 24:03for Jewish students and undermanned US foreign policy. Last month,
- 24:09Fabriaz found that the provision of immigration law cited by
- 24:13Rivio was probably unconstitutional because of its vagueness, and last
- 24:18week Fabrias blocked the Trump administration from continuing to detain
- 24:24Khalil on foreign policy grounds. However, prosecutors subsequently said they
- 24:30were detaining Khalil based on a different rationale, namely their
- 24:34allegation that he had omitted information on his application for
- 24:38permanent residency. His lawyers denied that claim. Babrias also noted
- 24:45previously that the government virtually never detains immigrants solely on
- 24:50that basis. Trisia McLaughlin, the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs
- 24:55at the Department of Homeland Security, called Fabriaz a rogue
- 25:00district judge and said friday zuling was yet another example
- 25:05of how out of control. Members of the judicial branch
- 25:08are in undermining national security. The Trump administration acted well
- 25:13within its statutory and constitutional authority to detain Khalil, McLaughlin
- 25:19said in a statement, adding that she expects a higher
- 25:22court to vindicate that position. While Khalil was released on
- 25:27bail in his federal detention case, his immigration proceeding will continue.
- 25:32Speaker 2: On Friday.
- 25:33Speaker 1: An immigration judge in Louisiana de not Khalil's request for bond,
- 25:37a decision overruled by Fabreeza's order. For Khalil and his family,
- 25:43there was relief in exaltation. We can finally breathe a
- 25:47sigh of relief and know that Mohammed or Mahmoud is
- 25:51on his way home to me and Dean who never
- 25:54should have been separated from his father, nor Abdallah, Khalil's
- 25:59wife and a US citizens said in a statement. Khaliah
- 26:03was born and raised in a refugee camp in Syria
- 26:06and went to college in Lebanon. He and his wife
- 26:09moved to the United States in twenty twenty three to
- 26:11begin his graduate studies in Columbia. That fall, protest over
- 26:16the Israeli Gaza war erupted Khaliah was a prominent leader
- 26:21in the protest who interacted with the media without disguising
- 26:24his identity. While President Donald Trump has called him a
- 26:29radical foreign pro Hama student, the government submitted no evidence
- 26:34in the case to back up those assertions. Instead, friends
- 26:37and colleagues described Khalil as someone who diffused tensions enacted
- 26:42as an intermediary between student protesters and the university administration.
- 26:47Several Jewish students at Columbia wrote letters to the court
- 26:50attesting to his commitment to nonviolence and dialogue, and Khalil
- 26:55told CNN last year that act our censor Semitism in
- 26:59any form of racism has no place on campus and
- 27:02in this movement. Khalil missed his graduation for Columbia School
- 27:07of International and Public Affairs in May because of his detention.
- 27:12Khalia was freed without any form of GPS monitoring, and
- 27:15ICE officials will return his green card, although they will
- 27:19retain his passport. Under the terms of his release, he
- 27:23will be able to travel to New York, Michigan, New Jersey,
- 27:26and Louisiana, as well as to Washington for lobbying and
- 27:29legislative purposes. Khalil has remained cautious through his long detention
- 27:36and separation from his family, but as a billion On Friday,
- 27:39his lawyer said it's an enormous relief that Mahmoud's night
- 27:44mayre of arrest and detention is coming to an end.
- 27:48Sidbeya Asmi, legal director at the Center for Constitutional Rights
- 27:54and one of Khalia's lawyers, adding that it should not
- 27:57have taken this long to free him. Americans should be
- 28:03grateful that there is someone who is willing to fight
- 28:05so hard for our collective First Amendment freedom against this
- 28:09obvious authoritarian tactic that threatens all of us. We all
- 28:15owe a debt of gratitude to my mood I, May
- 28:19said from evacuate Tehran to two weeks behind Trump's shift
- 28:28on Iran, the president said he was waiting to see
- 28:32whether or not people come to their senses.
- 28:36Speaker 2: By Natalie Allison.
- 28:38Speaker 1: Four days after President Donald Trump abruptly left a summit
- 28:42of global leaders in Canada, calling on civilians to evacuate
- 28:46tomorrow and stoking global talk of war, the president on
- 28:51Friday said he still wanted more time to decide. Trump
- 28:56said he was waiting to see whether or not people
- 28:59come under their senses. He also would not commit to
- 29:03calling for a ceasefire as negotiations continued. Speaking to reporters
- 29:08as he headed to his New Jersey golf club for
- 29:10a fundraiser for his super pack, the president reiterated the
- 29:14threat posed by Iran's nuclear program, but said he was
- 29:18not going to talk about what a hypothetical US response
- 29:23would look like. Indeed, besides a brief gaggle after exiting
- 29:28Air Force One, Trump spent much of the day Friday
- 29:31trying to shift public attention to anything but Iran. He
- 29:35and his White House team posted on social media about
- 29:38the need to pass his One Big, Beautiful Bill. Trump
- 29:42called for a special prosecutor to investigate the twenty twenty election,
- 29:47posted repeatedly about the charges that the Justice Department under
- 29:51President Joe Biden had brought against him, and wrote that
- 29:54they expect that He expected a federal settlement with Harvard
- 29:58Universities soon. In recent days, a relentless battle for Trump's
- 30:03ear has swirled around the president. As he often does,
- 30:08Trump has picked up the phone for and received advice
- 30:11from prominent voices pushing opposing views, According to people with
- 30:16knowledge of his conversations, who, like others in this story,
- 30:20spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the president's process.
- 30:25The advice some solicited, others not from prominent donors. Right
- 30:30wing media figures and often and elected officials played on
- 30:34Trump's own conflicting impulses on Iran. On the one side,
- 30:39Trump resolutely has stuck to his long held belief that
- 30:42Iran must be stopped from developing a nuclear weapon. On
- 30:46the other hand, he has tried to avoid the war
- 30:49and approach that is a major element of his political movement.
- 30:54On Thursday, Trump responded, as he often has when faced
- 30:57with difficult decision are difficult options. He bought himself time,
- 31:03declaring that he would wait up to two weeks to
- 31:06make a decision. So far, those cautioning the president to
- 31:11avoid authorizing a strike and holding out for diplomatic negotiations
- 31:16appear to be breaking through. On Thursday, Trump had lunch
- 31:20with Stephen K. Bannon, his former adviser who remains a
- 31:24leading voice among the hardlined MAGA wing of the Republican Party.
- 31:28Bannon arrived at the White House after skipping the eleven
- 31:31a m. Hour of his two hour morning show Warroom.
- 31:36He opened the first hour by decrying the urgency that
- 31:40pro Israeli or israel Hawks were pressing upon Trump, Bannon
- 31:46and Jack pro Speagutt, a right wing influencer who joined
- 31:51Warroom on Thursday morning, likens those speaking to Trump and
- 31:55advocating for a US attack on Iran used car salemen
- 32:01who make an upsell by telling buyers that they only
- 32:06have limited time to decide. Bennon has been excoriating Robert Murdock,
- 32:12Rupert Murdoch and the host on his Box network, accusing
- 32:16them of faumenting war Talk. Shortly after Trump's lunch with
- 32:21Bennon drew to her clothes, white White House Press Secretary
- 32:26Caroline Levitt stepped onto the podium in the White House
- 32:30Press Briefing Room to read a statement she said was
- 32:34directly from the President. The message was that Trump was
- 32:38going to let negotiations play at longum based on the
- 32:43fact that there's a substantial chance of negotiations that may
- 32:47or may not take place with Iran in the near future.
- 32:50I will make my decision whether or not to go
- 32:52within the next two weeks. Trump extructed Lebtt to read.
- 32:57The statement had already been in the works before the
- 33:00lunch with Bannon. According to a person with knowledge of
- 33:03the day's events, but Trump's meeting with Bannon at the
- 33:06White House was notable at a time when the former
- 33:09adviser had been particularly outspoken as leader of the MAGA
- 33:13movement's anti intervention fraction. A day earlier, Charlie Kirk, the
- 33:20influential right wing commentator and another skeptic about an attack,
- 33:25had also visited Trump at the White House, according to
- 33:28two people with the knowledge of the meeting, which had
- 33:31not been previously reported or publicly acknowledged by Kirk, the
- 33:35thirty one year old activist hast emphasized to his meetings
- 33:40of followers that he trusts Trump's instincts, while insisting that
- 33:44getting involved in fighting against Iran could lead to a
- 33:48war that is much more drawn out than the US attends.
- 33:52Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement
- 33:56that President Trump has never waited in his stance that
- 34:00the Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon, and repeated that
- 34:04promise to the American people during and after his successful campaign.
- 34:08The President is a great foreign policy mind who listens
- 34:12to many perspectives but ultimately makes the decisions he feels
- 34:16a best for the country. The dumb drumbeat of MAGA
- 34:21opposition to the US joining Israel in its conflict with
- 34:24Iran stands in contrast to the course of hawkish Republicans
- 34:29urging Trump to strike and even seek regime change. That
- 34:34opposition has been complemented over the past two days by
- 34:39European efforts to negotiate with Iran. A Friday meeting in
- 34:43Geneva of the top diplomats of Iran, Britain, France, Germany,
- 34:48and the European Union ended with no breakthrough, and with
- 34:52the Europeans pressing Iran to agree to limits on its
- 34:55nuclear program, and the Iranian delegation saying it would not
- 34:59negotiation until Israel stops it strikes, they agreed to keep talking.
- 35:05Referring to the meeting in Geneva, a White House official
- 35:08told The Washington Post on Friday that the President supports
- 35:13diplomatic efforts from our allies that could bring around closer
- 35:17to taking his deal. Trump had a more downbeat assessment
- 35:23when asked how effective the European talks were. He told
- 35:26reporters on the New Jersey tarmac that Iran doesn't want
- 35:30to speak to Europe. They want to speak to US.
- 35:33Europe is not going to be able to help on
- 35:35this one, he said. Trump also said for the second
- 35:39time this week that his Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbitt,
- 35:44was wrong in her assessment in the spring that there
- 35:48was no evidence that Iran was building a nuclear weapon.
- 35:52His position on Friday have a still revealed interest in
- 35:55letting the diplomatic process play out, whether it's with Europe
- 35:59or the United States, and Trump reiterated that US officials
- 36:03have been speaking with Iran. Steve Whitcoff, Trump's Special envoy
- 36:08to the Middle East, did not travel to Geneva for
- 36:11the talks, Levitt told the Post, but has remained in
- 36:14correspondence with Iranian officials that willingness to continue talks. Stood
- 36:20in contrast to this sense of urgency Trump had telegraphed
- 36:24at the start of the week. On Monday night, as
- 36:27the president prepared to leave the Group of Seven summit
- 36:30in Canada to return to the White Horse earlier than planned,
- 36:34prominent ven voices were pushing the President to seize the moment.
- 36:38They advised him to not only take out Iran's nuclear facilities,
- 36:42but also its government. Trump meanwhile posted on social media
- 36:48instructing people to evacuate Tehran, and he told reporters on
- 36:52Air Force One that he wanted to see a real
- 36:55end to the problem. That night, Senedd toln Graham, a
- 37:00Republican of South Carolina, appeared on Sean Hannity's Fox News
- 37:04show and called for Trump to be all in to
- 37:08help Israel take on Iran, asking wouldn't the world be
- 37:12better off if the Ayatolas went away and were replaced
- 37:16by something better? Wouldn't Iran be better off? A day earlier,
- 37:22on the same network, Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas,
- 37:26said it would be in the US's interest to see
- 37:29resume change in Iran. Trump arrived back in Washington near
- 37:34five a m.
- 37:35Speaker 2: Tuesday.
- 37:36Speaker 1: Later in the day, he met with advisors and reviewed
- 37:39options for an attack. That evening, he told aides that
- 37:43he was okay with the potential attack plans he had reviewed,
- 37:47but that he was holding off on giving final approval
- 37:50to see if Iran would budge by Wednesday. Trump expressed
- 37:54annoyance as he was asked by reporters about his thinking
- 37:57on Iran, mocking one such question by saiduggesting he should
- 38:00tell reporters when he would be bombing Iran so they
- 38:04could be there to watch. He offered glimpses into his
- 38:08thinking throughout the day, however, telling the Post he had
- 38:11issued them ultimatum to Iran, but conceding that he had
- 38:17not yet made up his mind whether to strike. On
- 38:20Wednesday afternoon, he held another meeting with advisors in the
- 38:24White House Situation Room. By Thursday, however, the focus had
- 38:29shifted to attempts at negotiations with Iran. British Foreign Secretary
- 38:34David LeMay met with with Cough and Secretary of State
- 38:39Marco Rubio in Washington to coordinate ahead of LeMay's participation
- 38:44in Friday's talks in Geneva, and in a call Tuesday
- 38:49evening between Rubio and Francis Minister for Europe and Foreign
- 38:52Affairs Jean of Albarro, the two men discussed the Europeans
- 38:57planned approach and agreed to follow up after the Friday
- 39:01meeting to continue coordinating on negotiations. According to a French diplomat,
- 39:07as he stood on the tarmac of the Marstown Municipal
- 39:10Airport on Friday, Trump told reporters he wasn't sure how
- 39:14long he would allow the negotiations to continue with Iran.
- 39:19We're going to see what period of time is. But
- 39:23I'm giving them a period of time, and I would
- 39:26say two weeks would be the maximum, Trump said. Next
- 39:31article For Democrats, handcups are the latest symbol.
- 39:36Speaker 2: Of resistance to Trump.
- 39:38Speaker 1: Democratic officials are increasingly being detained, arrested, or indicted, shining
- 39:44a spotlight on the President's use of federal law enforcement
- 39:47and raising.
- 39:48Speaker 2: Their own profiles.
- 39:50Speaker 1: And there is a picture of New York City control
- 39:53of Brad Landa being placed under arrest by Emigration and
- 39:57Customs enforcement and agents outside Federal Immigration Court on Tuesday
- 40:04in New York. And Lander is in a blue suit
- 40:07with a blue tie, white diagonal strikes. He has masked
- 40:14immigration officers on edith's one to his right and one
- 40:19behind him, and an unmasked one on his left side.
- 40:23His hands are handcuffed behind him. There are people holding
- 40:27up cameras and filming the process. To loose Overloonipia, PA.
- 40:35A growing number of Democratic officials are being arrested in
- 40:39tense situations with federal agents over immigration, raising their profiles
- 40:44in a party angry with President Donald Trump's policies. Images
- 40:49of Democratic officials bound in handcuffs, jostling and scrums with
- 40:54immigration officers or standing defiantly on quot host steps have
- 40:59ricocheted across the internet in recent weeks, creating some new
- 41:03political battle lines in Trump's second term.
- 41:06Speaker 2: New York City ConTroll of.
- 41:08Speaker 1: Brad Landa, a mayoral candidate, was the latest Democratic elected
- 41:12official to be arrested after he tried to escort a
- 41:15defendant from his appearance at an Emacras Grac court this week.
- 41:21While many Democrats contend the frequency of these confrontations reflects
- 41:26the Trump's administration's harsh law enforcement tactics, party lawmakers and
- 41:32strategists also say they show how leaders are responding to
- 41:36Democratic voters desire for a robust resistance that goes beyond
- 41:41stage speeches and statements. In this moment of time, we
- 41:47have to find our political courage. Representative Leamonica Macawock, Democrat
- 41:53of New Jersey, who was indicted last month for allegedly
- 41:56assaulting two federal agents during a fractics outset an immigration
- 42:01detention facility, said in the interview, adding, if we let
- 42:06this get so out of control and let so much
- 42:08space for what this president is doing with no resistance,
- 42:12we're going to find ourselves in a place that we
- 42:14will not even be able to recognize this country anymore. Yet,
- 42:20some in the party are uneasy with the clashes, suggesting
- 42:23the politics may work against them on issues of immigration
- 42:26and law enforcement, which have tended to favor Republicans. Addressing
- 42:31the scrum that led Macibre's indictment, Representative Jared Golden, Democratic
- 42:37Maine told Axios this week where I come from, if
- 42:41you shove a police officer, you're probably getting arrested. Macaba
- 42:45has denied any wrongdoing. Since that May nine dust up
- 42:50in New Jersey, at least three of the Democratic elected
- 42:53officials and a judge have been detained, arrested, or indicted
- 42:57for allegedly interfering with Trump's master Dear quotation effort. With
- 43:01more and more of them finding themselves and at times
- 43:05placing themselves in standoffs with federal agents, party leaders are
- 43:10navigating the combustible politics of a more visibly contentious dynamic
- 43:15with the president they have announced as tyrannical. The currency
- 43:21right now in the anti Trump coalition is who is
- 43:25ready to fight, who is willing to fight, and who
- 43:28knows how to fight. The Democratic politicians who are being
- 43:33punished right now, the ones who are being careful and
- 43:36plotting and fighting a twenty first century war with twentieth
- 43:40century tactics. The ones who are being rewarded are those
- 43:44ones throwing caution to the wind. Democratic strategist Joel Payne said.
- 43:52In recent weeks, Trump has endorsed the idea of arresting
- 43:56the sitting governor of California, threatened to target demos democratic
- 44:00inner cities with deportation raids, deployed National Guard troops and
- 44:05active duty marines to Los Angeles against the wishes of
- 44:08local officials, and used the Alien Enemies Act to deport
- 44:12margarets with the outer Court hearing. Since taking office, he
- 44:16has signed executive orders calling on the Justice Department to
- 44:20investigate a wide range of political foes, including law firms,
- 44:24democratic fundraising organizations, and even his predecessor, Joe Biden. Against
- 44:30that backdrop, democratic officials have expressed a growing willingness to
- 44:34be seen putting their freedom on the line as a
- 44:37response to Trump's actions, arrest me, let's go, California Governor
- 44:43Gavin Newsom said last week on msn BC, responding to
- 44:47threats from Tom Hohman. Trump's border Cizaar Homan has warned
- 44:52that anyone who interferes with immigration enforcement will be arrested.
- 44:56Lusim later told The Atmanic that his staff recently held
- 45:00held in all hands meeting to plan how to respond
- 45:02if the governor of the nation's most populous state is
- 45:06detained by federal authorities. Trump and his allies are ramping
- 45:10up their law and order political emphasis, accusing Democrats of
- 45:15committing crimes to score political points. The officials who end
- 45:19up in handcuffs, the White House says, are appropriately suffering
- 45:23the consequences of their actions. Here's the real story. Why
- 45:28do so many Democrat officials feel in bodal jews, brazenly
- 45:32break the law and then complain when they are being
- 45:35held accountable, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in his statement,
- 45:40suggesting Democrats were to blame for an increase in assaults
- 45:44against immigration officers. Democrats and some legal scholars have raised
- 45:49concerns about the trend of public officials being detained, arguing
- 45:54that it could have a chilling effect on prominent administration critics.
- 45:58In particular, the administration willingness to arrest members of Congress
- 46:02marks a terribly unhealthy departure from past norms, said Russell Riley,
- 46:09a presidential historian at the University of Virginia's Millicenter. This
- 46:15kind of treatment of the membership was quite literally unthinkable
- 46:18for the framers of the Constitution. What's happening today would
- 46:22have been as jarring to their imaginations as this is
- 46:26to our own, Riley said. The clash between the president
- 46:31and his political opponents escalated earlier this month when demonstrators
- 46:36took to the streets in Los Angeles to protest immigration raids.
- 46:40Trump responded by federalizing thousands of the state's National Guard
- 46:44members and sending in hundreds of marines to quell the unrest.
- 46:48He told reporters that he would arrest Newsom if he
- 46:51were homean calling the prospect of locking up the California governor.
- 46:55Speaker 2: Great.
- 46:57Speaker 1: Newsom set the tone for the emerging Democratic Greek response
- 47:00with the June tenth speech, describing a perilous moment and
- 47:04calling for all Americans to stand up and reject silence
- 47:09and complicity. This is about all of us, This is
- 47:13about you. California may be first, but he clearly will
- 47:17not end here of the states, So next, he said.
- 47:20In the speech, which one plauded from others in the party,
- 47:24adding democracy is next. Democracy is under assault right before
- 47:29our eyes. This moment we have feared has arrived. There
- 47:35is a picture of Senator Alex Padilla, a Democratic California,
- 47:40being removed after interrupting a news conference by the Secretary
- 47:44of Homeland Security Christy L. Nome and others in Los
- 47:48Angeles on June twelfth. That's the picture of him with
- 47:52ICE agents unmasked around him. In the following days, Senator
- 47:58Alex Padilla, Democratic Californi, and Lander were man handled and
- 48:02handcuffed by law enforcement after embracing more confrontational approaches to
- 48:07challenging federal officials over Trump's immigration crackdown. Take back It's
- 48:13not Ice, it's just federal law enforcements officers.
- 48:17Speaker 2: Padella was forcibly.
- 48:18Speaker 1: Removed and pushed to the ground and placed in handcuffs
- 48:21after he interrupted a June twelfth news conference held by
- 48:25Homeland Security Christy L. Nome, Secretary of Homeland Security. Padella
- 48:32had identified himself as a senator and tried to question
- 48:36Gnome about deportations when Secret Service and FBI agents forced
- 48:41him out of the room and handcuffed him. He was
- 48:43not charged or arrested, but Department of Homeland Security spokesman
- 48:47Tricia McLachlan accused him of disrespect disrespectable political theater and
- 48:54alliged with the evidence that he had lunged towards Secretary
- 48:58Nome mclock One similarly accused Lander, who has been trailing
- 49:03in the polls ahead of New York's primary next week,
- 49:06of endangering the safety of law enforcement to get a
- 49:09viral moment. No one is above the law, she said
- 49:13in a statement, using a phrase that Democrats repeatedly levied
- 49:17against Trump last year as he faced several criminal prosecutions.
- 49:22Speaker 2: And if you lay a hand on.
- 49:23Speaker 1: A law enforcement officer, you will face consequences. Trump's allies
- 49:28have reveled in the spite the spate of Democrats being detained, arrested,
- 49:34or charged with crimes, noting the change in fortunes after
- 49:37Trump's legal troubles during the twenty twenty four presidential campaign.
- 49:42But just as Trump used his prosecutions to raise loads
- 49:46of money and rally support from this party, many Democrats
- 49:49have seen political benefits as they cast themselves as political
- 49:53prisoners standing up to a dictatorial president. Newark mayor Ros Baraka,
- 49:59who saw us passing charge against him, dropped Search to
- 50:03finish second in the state's gubernatorial primary last week and
- 50:06has been floaded as a top contender for lieutenant governor.
- 50:11He has sued the interim US Attorney in New Jersey
- 50:14and the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Newark Field
- 50:17Office for false arrest. Padea and Landa each catapulted onto
- 50:22the public's national stage after being placed in handcuffs, with
- 50:26their allies using the moments to drive fundraising and support.
- 50:30During a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday, Padea referred
- 50:33to Trump as a tyrant beyond the Trump administration. Other
- 50:38Republicans have decried democrats action as self promotional gimmicks to
- 50:43all of my colleagues and government. Just because you have
- 50:46a title does not give license to touch, assault, resist,
- 50:50or interfere with law enforcement. Furthermore, stop using this as
- 50:54a means of self promotion in an effort to make
- 50:57yourself relevant in advance of an election. Representative Michael Lawla,
- 51:02Republican of New York, wrote on x after Lander's arrest.
- 51:08Landa was ultimately released with their charges. While Democrats have
- 51:12largely rallied around there, arrested colleagues. Some have suggested that
- 51:16the party baby mishandling the politic of immigration are misleading
- 51:21the optics of the moment.
- 51:23Speaker 2: I don't think politics.
- 51:24Speaker 1: As theater is what our job is here, Golden said
- 51:28in his interview with Axios last week, referring to the
- 51:31incidents involving Magava and Pathea. Magiva, who called Golden's moments unfortunate,
- 51:38said she has watched the recent string of democratic arrests
- 51:41with a mix of disbelief and resolve. She is accused
- 51:45of assaulting two officers as they attempted to wrest Baraka
- 51:48outside an immigration detention center. Magiva and two other members
- 51:53of Congress have been attempting to conduct oversight at the
- 51:56facility last month, when a scuffle erupted between the lawmakers
- 52:00and massed law enforcement agents. Prosecutors say she slammed her
- 52:05forearms into the bodies of the officers while trying to
- 52:08protect Baraka. Magava, who was pushed from the back during
- 52:11the scrum, plans to plead not guilty. She has said
- 52:15her indictment as an attempt to intimidate Democrats who are
- 52:18speaking at against Trump. I wake up every day and
- 52:22I'm like what they held with this administration. It's just truly,
- 52:26truly a sad time for me, in a sad time
- 52:29for many Americans.
- 52:31Speaker 2: She said.
- 52:32Speaker 1: Members of Congress have the right to make unannounced visits
- 52:36at ICE facilities. The DHS recently issued a new policy
- 52:40limiting lawmakers access to certain detention centers. Magava is charged
- 52:45with two felony and one misdemeanor of assaulting, resisting, impeding,
- 52:50and interfering with the federal officer, according to the indictment,
- 52:54which was unveiled by Elena Habba, the interim US Attorney
- 52:58for New Jersey. Hubbab is a close ally of Trump
- 53:01and his former personal defense attorney. Magava faces up to
- 53:06eight years imprisoned on each of the two felony charges
- 53:09should she be convicted, and up to a year I
- 53:12found guilty of the misdemeanor. And there's a picture of
- 53:16Representative la Monica mcgava, a democratic New Jersey, demanding the
- 53:20release of Newark Mayor Ross Braka after his arrest while
- 53:25protesting outside an ICE detention prison in Newark on May ninth.
- 53:31She is in a red blazon with her representative pen
- 53:35on her lapel. She has a microphone an umbrella over
- 53:39her head and then pictures of people surrounding her. Wisconsin
- 53:44judge Hannah Dugan is also set to face trial next
- 53:48month after Justice Department lawyers accused her of interfering with
- 53:52an immigration arrest. She is pleaded not guilty. DHS agents
- 53:57entered the Manhattan office of Representative Jerry Adler, Democrat of
- 54:01New York last month byfully handcapping one of his aides.
- 54:05In a video of the incident published by the news
- 54:07outlet Gothamist, the aid can be seen crying while an
- 54:11agent detains her. She was later released without charges. And
- 54:16we'll read as much about the Great egg heist as
- 54:19I can. Two hundred and eighty thousand eggs disappeared from
- 54:25America's top producer. Then came a ransom note by Jen
- 54:29Abelson and Jessica Trero. I'd like to report a crime,
- 54:35said the man who called a Maryland Sheriff's office on
- 54:37April sixteenth. There was a theft, he explained, involving a
- 54:41freight truck, so they stole the whole freight a pass.
- 54:45A dispatcher asked, only took the cargo? The man answered
- 54:50it was valued. He said at about one hundred thousand dollars.
- 54:54The dispatcher asked what was stolen. The call hesitated.
- 54:59Speaker 2: They took.
- 55:00Speaker 1: Basically, they took a whole trailer full of eggs. The
- 55:05hens were unaware of the heist. They had done their part,
- 55:08the shuffling around, the squatting down, the gentle PLoP to
- 55:12release one perfect orb, ready to be tucked into a
- 55:15carton and shipped to the grocery aisles and dinner griddles
- 55:18and breakfast tables of America before the product of their
- 55:22label was an item on a police report. It was
- 55:25a shipment headed from Maryland to Florida two hundred and
- 55:29eighty thousand brown eggs, sizes large and extra large. They
- 55:34belonged to Cawmaine Foods, which boast being number one in
- 55:39the pecking order of egg supply. One of every five
- 55:43eggs sold in America are laid by a Calmaine hem
- 55:47They lined the refrigerated shelves of Walmarts, Costcos and other
- 55:51supermarkets labeled Eggland's Best, Lando Lakes and bar est generic brands.
- 55:58Speaker 2: By gobbling up.
- 55:59Speaker 1: Its comp edators, Cowmaine built an egg empire without most eggs.
- 56:03It is knowing the company's name but by the April afternoon,
- 56:08when the two hundred and eighty thousand eggs left the farm,
- 56:11that was beginning to change. A winter spike in bird
- 56:15flew was widely seen as the cause of empty shelves
- 56:18and eggs doubling or tripling in price. Breakfast joints from
- 56:23small town cafes to the mega chain walkfull House began
- 56:28charging extra for eggs backyard chickens. A DIY solution to
- 56:33one shortage led to another of baby chicks. In his
- 56:39first four months ANAFICE, President Donald Trump, who declared he'd
- 56:43won on groceries, said the word eggs in public at
- 56:47least one hundred and sixty seven times. With prices soaring,
- 56:52eggs of all brands were reported stolen from porches and
- 56:55farm stands. Two thieves were captured on camera sprinting through
- 57:00snow with more than five hundred eggs from a Seattle cafe.
- 57:04A truck full of eggs was driven off an organic
- 57:06farm in Indiana. At one point, federal agents that the
- 57:10border was seizing eggs more often than fentanyl. Then in February,
- 57:15banditscrabbed about one hundred thousand organic eggs from the back
- 57:19of a trailer at a facility in Pennsylvania. The theft
- 57:22guarded weeks of international media attention, but.
- 57:26Speaker 2: It remains unsolved.
- 57:28Speaker 1: The chipment of eggs stolen from Calmaine's Maryland farm in
- 57:31April was nearly three times that size. One worker at
- 57:35the farm suspected an inside job. An employee of a
- 57:39nearby deli wondered, who really really loved egg salent with
- 57:43these to just days away. Neighbors on Facebook pointed fingers
- 57:47at a certain bunny. Calmaine said nothing publicly about the
- 57:52disappearance and declined interviews with The Washington Post. In the
- 57:57weeks leading to the heist, Calmaine itself had come under investigation.
- 58:02The Justice Department had launched a formal inquiry into the
- 58:05spiken egg prices and was specifically looking into cal Maine's
- 58:11business practices. Farmers accused the egg giant of pricecouraging. Lawmakers
- 58:17demanded answers about the company's record profits, and with that,
- 58:22I sadly have to end a day's reading of The
- 58:24Washington Post for the twenty first of June of twenty
- 58:28twenty five. Please continue listening to programs on RADIOI stay cool,
- 58:36hydrate and take care of yourself for the rest of
- 58:39the weekend. See Ya next Thursday.
- 58:45Speaker 2: Bye