Transcript

7.20.26 · Washington Post

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Speaker 1: Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the reading of the Washington
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Speaker 1: Post for this Monday, July twentieth, the day that Neil
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Speaker 1: Armstrong stepped on the moon. As a reminder, radiois a
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Speaker 1: reading service intended for people who are blind or have
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Speaker 1: other disabilities that make it difficult to read printed material.
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Speaker 1: Your reader for today is Rod Brotherton. Now let's look
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Speaker 1: the weather. Today. It's partly sunny with the high of
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Speaker 1: eighty eight. Tonight partly cloudy and warm, low seventy four.
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Speaker 1: Tomorrow there will be thunderstorms with a high of eighty
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Speaker 1: six and low sixty nine. Mostly sunny on Wednesday high
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Speaker 1: eighty three, low fifty nine, and Thursday sunny as well
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Speaker 1: and lower humidity, high seventy nine, low sixty two. Friday
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Speaker 1: is still partly sunny, high of eighty, low sixty four,
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Speaker 1: Saturday sunshine high eighty four, low sixty nine, and Sunday
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Speaker 1: mostly sunny but humid, high eighty eight, low seventy one.
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Speaker 1: Get out there and enjoy it if you can. Looking
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Speaker 1: at the almanac, yesterdays high and low ninety and seventy one.
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Speaker 1: Normal is eighty seven and sixty seven. Last year it
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Speaker 1: was seventy one eighty eighty seven and seventy excuse me,
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Speaker 1: record I one hundred nineteen fifty four record low fifty
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Speaker 1: four nineteen seventy six precipitation on Saturday, a whopping one
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Speaker 1: one hundredth of an inch. Month to date one point
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Speaker 1: ninety nine normal two point nine three. Year to date
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Speaker 1: we've had twenty seven point oh nine normal twenty nine
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Speaker 1: point two nine, and last year the gully Washer, we'd
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Speaker 1: already had forty two point one eight. Record for yesterday's
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Speaker 1: date was two point oh one and nineteen seventy one.
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Speaker 1: For the sun and the moon, sun rose today at
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Speaker 1: six point thirty two, it will set at eight fifty
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Speaker 1: eight tonight. The moon will come up at one twenty
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Speaker 1: seven this afternoon and set one minute after midnight tonight.
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Speaker 1: And a weather trivia for the day. What ocean water
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Speaker 1: temperature is required for a hurricane to form seventy nine degree?
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Speaker 1: All right, let's take a look and see what's going
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Speaker 1: on with the Washington Post this morning. US teetors on
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Speaker 1: all out war with Iran after more troops are killed.
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Speaker 1: The United States in Iran moved closer to an all
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Speaker 1: out war over the weekend, as the exchanges of attacks
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Speaker 1: on civilians and military structures continued to escalate, with at
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Speaker 1: least three and possibly four US service members killed since
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Speaker 1: the combat resumed a week ago. On Monday morning, the
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Speaker 1: Kuwaiti military said it was responding to drone attacks from Iran,
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Speaker 1: after President Trump said Sunday night, the US Central Command
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Speaker 1: launched another wave of attacks against Iran and retribution for
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Speaker 1: the deaths of two service members during a strike on
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Speaker 1: a military base in Jordan on Friday. We had them
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Speaker 1: very hard again tonight. We did that in honor of
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Speaker 1: the great patriots who were hill, he told the reporters
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Speaker 1: after landing in a joint base Andrews following the World
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Speaker 1: Cup final on Sunday that new wave of US strikes,
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Speaker 1: which ended around ten pm Eastern time, targeted Iranian military
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Speaker 1: command centers, air defense and coastal surveillance sites, maritime capabilities,
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Speaker 1: missile and drone launch sites, and communications networks to further
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Speaker 1: diminish Iran's ability to attack commercial vessels and civilian mariners
3:31
Speaker 1: transiting the Straight of Horn Moves, Central Commands said in
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Speaker 1: a statement overnight. Sincom also said Sunday that another set
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Speaker 1: of identified remains had been found at the base in Jordan.
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Speaker 1: Separately reported that a US service member in northern Iraq
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Speaker 1: was killed in action Saturday morning during a controlled detonation
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Speaker 1: of an unexploded ordinance from a down to Iranian drone. Earlier,
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Speaker 1: Trump called the two initial US deaths, which occurred as
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Speaker 1: the war moved into its fifth month, a very sad thing.
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Speaker 1: He told News Nation what the outlet said Sunday was
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Speaker 1: a brief telephone call. He couldn't care less about Iranian's
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Speaker 1: announcement that it would no longer abide by the bilateral
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Speaker 1: memorandum of understanding reached a month ago. The US is
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Speaker 1: planning for a wider war, said one US official familiar
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Speaker 1: with internal administration discussions, adding that the Pentagon was increasing
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Speaker 1: the number of military aircraft in the region. But the official,
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Speaker 1: of course, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they
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Speaker 1: were not authorized to talk to the media, cautioned that
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Speaker 1: the expansion of US operations would be limited by dwindling
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Speaker 1: stockpiles of air defense and long range munitions, and constraints
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Speaker 1: on the ability to surge more troops and aircraft into
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Speaker 1: the area because of battle damage. We do not have
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Speaker 1: enough to say flee sustain operations, and I don't think
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Speaker 1: the White House is aware of that, the official said.
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Speaker 1: Many experts have said that, in addition to the toll
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Speaker 1: taken on US equipment and munition stocks, the US is
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Speaker 1: unprepared possible ground operations. Insiderro that Trump said last week
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Speaker 1: refused to rule out. I would think it would be
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Speaker 1: a mistake to put ground forces anywhere in islands, on
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Speaker 1: the streets or on shore, said Seth Jones, who heads
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Speaker 1: the Defense and Security department at the Washington based Center
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Speaker 1: for Strategic and International Studies. I don't think US forces
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Speaker 1: are prepared for standoff strikes from Iranians. It was the
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Speaker 1: eighth straight day of bombing since the negotiated ceasefire collapsed
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Speaker 1: with a hailstorm of retaliatory attacks from ran And as
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Speaker 1: it attacked commercial vessels transiting the Straight of Horror Moves
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Speaker 1: in what it said was a violation of the MoU,
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Speaker 1: which oversees operations in the region. Said its overnight Saturday
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Speaker 1: strikes had successfully hit Iranian military coastal surveillance and air
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Speaker 1: defense facilities, maritime capabilities, and missile and drone storage sites,
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Speaker 1: and said they also targeted Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces
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Speaker 1: that hit US troops in Jordan. Iran said US forces
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Speaker 1: had also attacked a nuclear power plant under construction of
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Speaker 1: the in the country's southwest, but the Trump administration made
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Speaker 1: little comment during the day. Sunday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright,
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Speaker 1: an appearance on ABC's This Week, said that the US
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Speaker 1: mission to degrade Iran's ability to terrorize the world would
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Speaker 1: go on until the mission is done. The US officials,
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Speaker 1: who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said US strikes
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Speaker 1: on bridges and rail lines around Bandar Rabats near the
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Speaker 1: Strait of Horn Moves last week were viewed by Iran
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Speaker 1: as an escalation and generated wider response. They had less
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Speaker 1: concern about inflicting mass casualties on the United States, the
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Speaker 1: official said. On Sunday, Kuwaiti authorities Iran had attacked a
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Speaker 1: power and water plant there for the second day in
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Speaker 1: a row. Ron said it had launched drone strikes against
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Speaker 1: US military positions in Kuwait. Jordan said it had intercepted
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Speaker 1: three Iranian missiles targeting the kingdom. Amid the report that
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Speaker 1: the airport in the southern city of Akaba, near the
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Speaker 1: Strait of a Lot in Israel, were under attack. The
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Speaker 1: Jordanian government denied a report by the US Embassy in
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Speaker 1: Aman that the Akaba Airport had been evacuated. Iran also
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Speaker 1: said two on unidentified vessels had met with an unspecified
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Speaker 1: accident while trying to transit an unsafe route through the strait,
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Speaker 1: presumably the US protected Southern Page along the coast of Oman,
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Speaker 1: and Iran said it will not allow. Trumpet said the
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Speaker 1: radicals in Tehran have fractured the Iranian government, although some
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Speaker 1: internal assessments there have indicated that the war has begun
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Speaker 1: to solidify support for a harder line. Secretary of State
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Speaker 1: Mario Rubio, speaking to reporters at the Joint Base Andrews
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Speaker 1: before departing for the Philippines, said the US always remains
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Speaker 1: open to a diplomatic solution, but he said it's growing
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Speaker 1: apparent that even within their own system there's a growing split.
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Speaker 1: Echoing a Saturday statement attributed to the Iitola Motjaba Khamenei,
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Speaker 1: Parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagar Glibaf said in a social media
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Speaker 1: post that sacred unity is not merely a more or
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Speaker 1: social recommendation. It is a necessary a condition for victory
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Speaker 1: and a struggle against the enemy. The administration as considered Galibaf,
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Speaker 1: Tehran's chief negotiator in earlier talks with the US, one
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Speaker 1: of more of the pragmatic Iranian leaders. Right defended Trump's
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Speaker 1: original statement that the war, which began with the US
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Speaker 1: and Israeli strikes on February twenty eighth, would last four
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Speaker 1: to six weeks until Iran capitulated. Fighting was paused under
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Speaker 1: the Moui said to try to get an agreement with
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Speaker 1: the Iranian people to allow oil to flow without them attacking.
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Speaker 1: Wright said the public data indicated the flow of oil
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Speaker 1: through the Strait of Hormones has come to a near
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Speaker 1: stop was incorrect. The US, which has reimposed its naval
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Speaker 1: blockade on all shipping entering and leaving Iranian ports, is
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Speaker 1: that it will protect other ships traveling through the strait
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Speaker 1: along the Southern Corridor, is assuring that oil and gas
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Speaker 1: and other products can flow with or without Iranian cooperation,
9:57
Speaker 1: he said, adding then an average of s seven million
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Speaker 1: barrels a day of oil has successfully navigated that route
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Speaker 1: over the past week. Comparing today's US gas prices to
10:09
Speaker 1: the high they reached four years ago during the COVID
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Speaker 1: nineteen pandemic, Wright said they're now one dollar a gallon
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Speaker 1: cheaper than under the Biden administration, but prices which increase
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Speaker 1: rapidly after the start of the war before falling during
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Speaker 1: the immediate MoU negotiations, have risen rapidly over the past
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Speaker 1: week and now averaging about four dollars a gallon. I
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Speaker 1: don't know what gas station secretary is going to but
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Speaker 1: for the war, the average price in gasoline was two
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Speaker 1: dollars in eighty one cents, said Senator Mark Warner, the
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Speaker 1: Democrat of Virginia, who followed right on this week. I
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Speaker 1: see no path in the short term how the strait
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Speaker 1: is going to be settled, said Warner to the ranking
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Speaker 1: Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. This war of Choice
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Speaker 1: has been a disaster. It's been a disaster militarily, it's
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Speaker 1: been a disaster in terms of how we're viewed around
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Speaker 1: the world. The recent US troop deaths revived questions about
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Speaker 1: the safety of American forces at bases in the Middle East.
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Speaker 1: A soldier who had previously employed to Jordan's Mukafa Santi
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Speaker 1: Air base where the two US service members were killed,
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Speaker 1: said many of the buildings there are containerized or meteral
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Speaker 1: buildings intents and not able to withstand rocket, mortar or
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Speaker 1: drone attacks, but even the military's newer construction in some
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Speaker 1: bases in the region, where they are hardened with layers
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Speaker 1: of thick walls, cannot protect against a direct hit from
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Speaker 1: a ballistic missile, said the soldier, who spoke on the
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Speaker 1: condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. In early March,
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Speaker 1: during an intense exchange of missile strikes between the US
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Speaker 1: and Iran, a direct hit on hardened barracks at Camp
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Speaker 1: Afry John, a US Army facility in Kuwait, broke through
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Speaker 1: the layers of protection, destroying about half of the structure.
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Speaker 1: The soldier said. Similar heavy destruction has occurred at US
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Speaker 1: military facilities across the region. He a lone soldier said,
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Speaker 1: we're getting beat up across the board again. The soldier said. Supposedly,
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Speaker 1: the fatal attack Friday in Jordan was at least the
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Speaker 1: second time in a week that iron had luckily targeted
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Speaker 1: the installation, striking about a day earlier, injured about twenty
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Speaker 1: service members, and some of them suffered shrapnel owns. The
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Speaker 1: US official set. In addition to the total of seventeen
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Speaker 1: and possibly eighteen US service members killed in the military
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Speaker 1: operation against Iran, more than four hundred and thirty even injured.
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Speaker 1: The past week, Jordan has been a repeat target. At
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Speaker 1: least two other significant attacks occurred there, one targeting King
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Speaker 1: Fasile Air Base and another striking Prince Hasan airbase. The
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Speaker 1: first injured several service members, while the latter damaged black
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Speaker 1: Hawk helicopters. The official set. Spokespeople at Pentagon and Sincom
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Speaker 1: declined to comment on the earlier attacks. The Pentagon is
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Speaker 1: not held in news briefing about the operations against Iran
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Speaker 1: since May fifth. Next, Ukraine is teaching Russia a lesson
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Speaker 1: and the US should take note. Ukraine is ratcheting up
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Speaker 1: the tempo of drone strikes pummeling Crimea, the peninsula illegally
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Speaker 1: annexed by Russian President Putin in twenty fourteen. Rausjia has
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Speaker 1: tried to shield its most valuable military assets by hardening
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Speaker 1: aircraft shelters and beefing up air defense systems, but it
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Speaker 1: has already paid a steep price. Kiev's drones continued to
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Speaker 1: punish cical infrastructure, and the fear of losing more expensive
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Speaker 1: assets has pushed Russian ships and planes further away from
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Speaker 1: the front Thanks to Ukraine's innovative campaign. US military leaders
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Speaker 1: have a rare chance to absorb battlefield lessons without taking
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Speaker 1: casualties or losing pricey hardware. They should seize the opportunity
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Speaker 1: to learn from observation instead of bloody experience. In August
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Speaker 1: of twenty twenty two, Ukrainian rockets slammed into Saki air
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Speaker 1: Base and Russia occupied Crimea, damaging at least nine aircraft.
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Speaker 1: The attack succeeded because Russia had far fewer fortified aircraft
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Speaker 1: shelters and it had planes, leaving much of its air
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Speaker 1: force exposed. As Russia struggled for three years to adapt,
14:51
Speaker 1: Ukraine repeatedly destroyed aircraft with drone of tracts. Russia didn't
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Speaker 1: begin to seriously overhaul airbase's new shelter and hangars until
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Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. Ukraine is still targeting these structures, along
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Speaker 1: with lower hanging fruit like bridges, oil refineries, and railroads,
15:10
Speaker 1: but it's more difficult to damage dozens of aircraft when
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Speaker 1: they are dispersed and protected. Kiev's campaign against Russia's Black
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Speaker 1: Sea Fleet has taught the Kremlin a similar lesson about
15:24
Speaker 1: leaving valuable military hardware exposed. Much of the fleet has
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Speaker 1: been driven from the Crimean peninsula, and Russia must now
15:32
Speaker 1: dedicate resources to coastal helicopter patrols to hunt for Ukrainian drones.
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Speaker 1: These helicopters are hunting themselves threatened by naval drones armed
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Speaker 1: with air defense missiles. Ukraine is also pioneering on manned
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Speaker 1: systems that travel completely submerged technology the g that the
15:53
Speaker 1: United States, China, and other countries are still developing. The
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Speaker 1: US can avoid enduring Russia's learning curve by more aggressively
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Speaker 1: protecting air and sea assets before they get pummeled. Advanced
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Speaker 1: American planes and ships can cost billions of dollars. Defense
16:11
Speaker 1: planners should make significant investment in protecting these assets from
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Speaker 1: attack and observation. China has already taken steps to fortify
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Speaker 1: its airfields, using huge quantities of concrete enough to pave
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Speaker 1: a four lane highway from Washington, d C. To Chicago
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Speaker 1: or Any. Attacks on US aircraft housed at bases in
16:32
Speaker 1: the Middle East have further demonstrated the damage that a
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Speaker 1: resource limited enemy can do when the aircraft are left
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Speaker 1: exposed on the ground. US naval vessels, both import and
16:44
Speaker 1: on patrol should be prepared to detect and confront threats
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Speaker 1: under the water, on the surface, from the air at scale.
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Speaker 1: That's what's countering modern drone threat requires personnel working to
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Speaker 1: support a Maria. Naval vessels should also be trained to
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Speaker 1: recognize and respond to innovative new threats like small naval
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Speaker 1: drones armed with missiles or swarms of airborne drones saturating defenses.
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Speaker 1: Ukraine's strikes on Russian energy sites and transportation routes in
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Speaker 1: Crimea also offer lessons on protecting resilient supply chains and
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Speaker 1: ample stocks of communications. As technology improves, militaries will have
17:28
Speaker 1: to contend with larger and smarter waves of drones of
17:31
Speaker 1: targeting sites. Having the right munitions and enough of them
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Speaker 1: to confront these threats is essential. Even more vital is
17:40
Speaker 1: the speed with which a country can repair damaged site.
17:44
Speaker 1: Ukraine knows this, which is why it's targets the most
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Speaker 1: complex and expensive components and Russian oil facilities to maximize
17:53
Speaker 1: the time they are offline. The US lacks the deep
17:57
Speaker 1: manufacturing bases in country life China that can turn out
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Speaker 1: replacement parts quickly. Even peacetime crisis like the pandemic showed
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Speaker 1: Americans house supply chains can seize up, especially those relying
18:12
Speaker 1: on overseas shipments, and a potential conflict such as one
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Speaker 1: with China, many of the supply chains could grind to
18:21
Speaker 1: a halt. For Russia, these lessons are being learned late.
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Speaker 1: Swaths of Crimea or without power, gas stations have long lines,
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Speaker 1: and ferry crossings used by the Russian military are under attack.
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Speaker 1: Even if Ukraine does not take back Crimea anytime soon,
18:42
Speaker 1: Kiva is drawing Russian resources and focused to the peninsula.
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Speaker 1: The US military has already adopted and deployed successful Ukrainian
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Speaker 1: offensive tactics and innovations, including new models of aerial and
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Speaker 1: naval drones, but American operations in Iran have offered a
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Speaker 1: disturbing preview of what can happen when air and naval
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Speaker 1: facilities are insufficiently protected. Ukraine's innovation and modern warfare has
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Speaker 1: allowed the US to see the future of the battlefield
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Speaker 1: without suffering the same terrible cost. Next, Andy Burnham prepares
19:22
Speaker 1: to lead Britain and face Trump. Andy Burnham until lately,
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Speaker 1: the Mayor of Greater Manchester, takes office as British AND's
19:31
Speaker 1: British Prime Minister Monday, The Little Foreign policy experience beyond
19:36
Speaker 1: trade missions to China and a soft spot for music
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Speaker 1: festivals in Texas. Yet he faces downing international challenges, a
19:45
Speaker 1: risk managment lisk management list that includes the Middle East, China,
19:49
Speaker 1: Russia and President Trump. Burnham, who will replace Keir Starmer
19:54
Speaker 1: as Britain's top job as the ruling Labor secretary scrabbles
19:59
Speaker 1: to shore up its aging popularity, has for weeks been
20:03
Speaker 1: considering his foreign policy team and his briefing up on
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Speaker 1: the most explosive hotspots, and while bracing for dealing with
20:12
Speaker 1: Trump might not be akin to prepping for the next pandemic,
20:16
Speaker 1: the mercurical oval officeholder does require planning and strategy and
20:20
Speaker 1: contingencies that would have been unthinkable for previous administrations. Trump
20:27
Speaker 1: is obviously an ally and not a security threat, said
20:30
Speaker 1: a Labor Party official who spoke on the condition of
20:33
Speaker 1: anonymity to discuss sensitive details. But the combination of his
20:37
Speaker 1: unpredictability and his power means he's absolutely an issue that
20:42
Speaker 1: has to be prepared for in a way that not
20:44
Speaker 1: other presidents are. These are certainly thinking about it already,
20:49
Speaker 1: the official set this is an area where he may
20:53
Speaker 1: see some differences from care nearly every US allied government
20:58
Speaker 1: has had to wrestle with the same question, how much
21:01
Speaker 1: of your leader's dignity does the White House relationship demand
21:06
Speaker 1: cross countries? The foreign policy establishments answers tends to toward pride,
21:11
Speaker 1: swallowing pragmatism, compliments over confrontation, manage the presidential ego rather
21:18
Speaker 1: than provoke it. Starmer, who'd been in office for six
21:22
Speaker 1: months when Trump was inaugurated for the second time, bet
21:25
Speaker 1: on flattery, an on camera invitations, a state visit, fixed
21:30
Speaker 1: smile and all criticism, commuted and couched in comments to
21:34
Speaker 1: the special relationship. For a while, it paid off, with
21:38
Speaker 1: Britain securing relatively favorable treatment from Trump on trade and
21:42
Speaker 1: tariffs compared with its European neighbors. But in March that
21:47
Speaker 1: blew up but Starmer's refusal to fully join the US
21:51
Speaker 1: Israel War and Iran wrote a shower of disdain from Trump,
21:55
Speaker 1: who dismissed the Prime Minister as no Winston Churchill nor
21:59
Speaker 1: did the as you go over very well with the
22:01
Speaker 1: British public that quailed at the what critics said was
22:05
Speaker 1: bending to the knee of Trump. And January is Post
22:10
Speaker 1: poll found that forty seven percent of British responds thought
22:14
Speaker 1: Starman was doing a bad job managing the relationship in
22:17
Speaker 1: the United States. Didn't help that the president remains so
22:21
Speaker 1: deeply unpopular in Britain and has only sunk in public
22:25
Speaker 1: approval during a second term. Fully sixty nine percent of
22:29
Speaker 1: Britain's view Trump unfavorably in the latest IPSOS poll, exactly
22:34
Speaker 1: the same proportion who disposed of taking your shoes off
22:38
Speaker 1: on public transport. He's never been popular and he's getting
22:42
Speaker 1: less so, said Gideon Skinner, ahead of US Political Research
22:46
Speaker 1: at IPSOS. But there is also a recognition that prime
22:50
Speaker 1: ministers will sometimes have to take a wider set of
22:53
Speaker 1: issues into account in these relationships. Trump is just one
22:58
Speaker 1: tricky item foreign affairs portfolio that is not expected to
23:02
Speaker 1: be high on Burnham's list of priorities, at least until
23:06
Speaker 1: events inevitably force the way into the agenda. Is made
23:10
Speaker 1: clear that his instincts and his mandate are relentlessly domestic,
23:16
Speaker 1: and announced he plans to govern the party from Manchester,
23:20
Speaker 1: a signal that the new Number ten will have its
23:23
Speaker 1: eyes fixed inward rather than across the Atlantic, for it
23:28
Speaker 1: was largely expected in the early months at least to
23:30
Speaker 1: carry on Starmer's general approach, According to a British official
23:34
Speaker 1: familiar with internal discussions who spoke on the condition of
23:38
Speaker 1: anonymity to share sensitive details, seeking to champion Ukraine, contain Russia,
23:45
Speaker 1: and ease militarily and economically kosher to the European countries
23:50
Speaker 1: without formally bidding to rejoin the European Union. The foreign
23:54
Speaker 1: policy inbox Trump included is expected to be substantially subcontrycted
24:00
Speaker 1: to a heavyweight foreign secretary. Some of the names he
24:04
Speaker 1: has reported to be mulling are the current Foreign Secretary
24:07
Speaker 1: At Cooper, former foreign secretaries David Milliband and David Yami,
24:13
Speaker 1: and John Healy, the Defense minister who resigned last month
24:17
Speaker 1: to protest what he characterized as Starmar's inadequate military spending.
24:23
Speaker 1: Whoever gets the job is expected to play an outsized
24:25
Speaker 1: role in international affairs, while Burnham focuses on the economy
24:30
Speaker 1: and government reforms. I would really be surprised if Burnham
24:35
Speaker 1: ends up caring a lot about his foreign policy. It's
24:38
Speaker 1: not really his thing, said Joe she Herman, who's covered
24:42
Speaker 1: Burnham closely for six years at the mill Manchester News outlet.
24:47
Speaker 1: I think the most foreign policy. He's done is going
24:49
Speaker 1: to south By Southwest Festival in Austin. Those who've worked
24:55
Speaker 1: with and covered Burnham said he is likely to approach
24:58
Speaker 1: the Trump part of the job differently than Stormer did,
25:01
Speaker 1: partly because of Burnham's personality and partly because of changing circumstances. Stormer,
25:08
Speaker 1: a former prosecutor, is seen as a cool headed technocrat,
25:12
Speaker 1: unruffled by the insults as long as he was making
25:15
Speaker 1: his case. Burnham, and Liverpool native has honed a warmer,
25:20
Speaker 1: plain spoken touch. A longtime member of Parliament from Northern
25:24
Speaker 1: England and former Labor Cabinet minister, He's frequently compared to
25:28
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton as a poll who feeds off the affirmation
25:31
Speaker 1: of others. That sociability could be an asset in any
25:37
Speaker 1: encounter with the President, who responds to personal chemistry in
25:40
Speaker 1: a way that doesn't respond to formal diplomacy, but it
25:44
Speaker 1: could also make the incoming Prime Minister vulnerable when the
25:47
Speaker 1: truth social attacks start flying from the White House residence
25:51
Speaker 1: at three am. Hermann finds the Prime Minister in waiting
25:56
Speaker 1: to be more emotionally exposed than Stormer other predecessors. A
26:02
Speaker 1: concern with Burnham is that he's not like the former
26:04
Speaker 1: Prime Minister Tony Blair, who had cold ice in his veins.
26:08
Speaker 1: Hermann said, Burnham's not like that. Trump says stuff about Burnham,
26:14
Speaker 1: will do you feel the need to try and make
26:16
Speaker 1: up with him or respond to something. Mark Malick Brown
26:20
Speaker 1: served alongside Burnham when they were ministers and former Labor
26:23
Speaker 1: Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government. His political talents were robbyous
26:28
Speaker 1: even then, he said, but he was so was an
26:32
Speaker 1: underlying neediness. The Burnham, I remember, for ten years ago,
26:36
Speaker 1: didn't have that politician's weakness of wanting to be loved,
26:39
Speaker 1: said Melick Brown, who now sits in the House of Lords.
26:43
Speaker 1: Remain to be seen where the Burnham's decade of governing
26:46
Speaker 1: much greater Manchester population of some three million has tempered
26:50
Speaker 1: his glad handing instincts with a layer of emotional resilience.
26:55
Speaker 1: I expect it's ten years in which he's been toughened
26:58
Speaker 1: by the trenches of an executive job, and all those
27:01
Speaker 1: times he's had to say no to people, he said,
27:03
Speaker 1: Let's see if he's toughened him up a bit. Burnham
27:07
Speaker 1: may benefit from a changing political climate. When Trump returned
27:11
Speaker 1: to the White House, the consensus in britain ruling circles
27:14
Speaker 1: was that Starmer's safest course was to flatten and cajole
27:18
Speaker 1: and flatter and playcate. The leaders of the Conservative and
27:22
Speaker 1: Reform UK parties were quick to jump on any perceived
27:25
Speaker 1: threat to the special relationship following Trump's attacks on Iran.
27:30
Speaker 1: Even Starmer's opponents are quieted, including Reform UK founder Nigel Farage,
27:35
Speaker 1: a long time Trump ally. I think the whole British
27:39
Speaker 1: political class, along with the British public opinion is reassessed
27:43
Speaker 1: and that has realized that Trump is Trump. That you
27:47
Speaker 1: have to separate between Trump and the US. Malick Brown
27:50
Speaker 1: said that will give Bunham a chance to stand talla
27:54
Speaker 1: in his dealings with the Trump administration than Stama did.
27:58
Speaker 1: So far, there's been no beef, and neither Trump nor
28:01
Speaker 1: Burnham seems to hurry to meet. Burnham has said a
28:05
Speaker 1: little about Trump, Unlike his Labor Mayor colleague Sadika Khan,
28:09
Speaker 1: the Mayor of London seemed to delight in his running
28:12
Speaker 1: feud with the President. Burnham did tweet after the January
28:17
Speaker 1: sixth attack on the US Capitol, any US politician who
28:22
Speaker 1: gave Trump the time of day should be ashamed right now.
28:27
Speaker 1: But in a twenty twenty fourth book, he also expressed
28:30
Speaker 1: sympathy for Trump voters, saying that both Trump and Farage
28:34
Speaker 1: have been effective in connecting with people feel politicians have
28:38
Speaker 1: neglected the place where they live. Trump, when asked last
28:44
Speaker 1: month what he knew of Britain's likely new leader, was dismissing,
28:49
Speaker 1: I don't know anything. He said from the Oval office.
28:52
Speaker 1: I see that he was a I guess the mayor
28:55
Speaker 1: of a town. He did not expect to host Burnham
28:59
Speaker 1: at the House anytime soon, he said, I think we're
29:03
Speaker 1: probably of a different persuasion. He's very liberal, Trump said.
29:11
Speaker 1: Many commoners express hopes that Andy Burnham, the British political
29:15
Speaker 1: figure and soon to be Prime Minister, will stand up
29:19
Speaker 1: to Trump and focus on the internal needs of the UK.
29:26
Speaker 1: There is skepticism about Trump's influence and desire for Burnham
29:29
Speaker 1: to avoid aligning with him. Some comments also highlight Burnham's
29:33
Speaker 1: past achievements as potentially a new leader for the United
29:39
Speaker 1: Kingdom and our next story, The biggest winners of the
29:43
Speaker 1: American economy fear they're sinking fast. Throughout a nearly two
29:49
Speaker 1: decade career, Susan Smith considered her a winner in the
29:54
Speaker 1: American economic lottery. She moved easily between tech jobs salary
30:00
Speaker 1: of more than five hundred thousand dollars. In her most
30:03
Speaker 1: recent position as a mid tier executive at Meta, a
30:08
Speaker 1: single mom, Smith could afford two nannies and support her
30:12
Speaker 1: disabled son without financial worry. Bud a Silicon valley has
30:17
Speaker 1: pushed headlong into artificial intelligence and heavy job cuts. That
30:23
Speaker 1: security is evaporated. Smith once readily put in seventy hour
30:27
Speaker 1: work weeks believing the texts giants' apps benefited humanity, and
30:33
Speaker 1: then her contributions were highly valued. That feeling eroded in
30:38
Speaker 1: her last role, helping executives train new AI employees, part
30:42
Speaker 1: of an internal mandate that managers treat AI systems as
30:46
Speaker 1: real team members. She survived four rounds of layoffs in Meta,
30:52
Speaker 1: but in May the company let her go. Now Smith
30:57
Speaker 1: is confronting a job market that looks nothing like that
31:00
Speaker 1: era of plenty. Few positions are available in her field,
31:04
Speaker 1: and several places where she's applied haven't called her back.
31:08
Speaker 1: Her ex husband, a designer at Meta, was laid off
31:12
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty eventually gave up looking for jobs in
31:15
Speaker 1: his profession. He now lifts boxes at a warehouse. Since
31:21
Speaker 1: the Great Recession nearly twenty years ago, political and corporate
31:25
Speaker 1: leaders have hailed Silicon Valley this bright spot of American dynamism,
31:30
Speaker 1: and the industry sped away economically from the rest of
31:33
Speaker 1: the United States. Young Americans, particularly those elite universities, flocked
31:39
Speaker 1: to tech over Wall Street and made computer science by
31:43
Speaker 1: far the fastest growing major at the US colleges since
31:46
Speaker 1: twenty oh eight. Breaking into the ranks of Meta, Google
31:51
Speaker 1: or SpaceX offered a trapping of cushy excess, an entrance
31:56
Speaker 1: to Silicon Valley corporate religion that a random software woodget
32:01
Speaker 1: could change the world. By most projective measures, America's tech
32:06
Speaker 1: capitals remain superstar winners of the economy. Only the workers
32:11
Speaker 1: say they don't feel that way. Their ingrained optimism is
32:15
Speaker 1: given way to a feeling that a Hunger Games level
32:18
Speaker 1: scarcity is now on the normal and it's new. Smith
32:23
Speaker 1: counts herself among the ranks of the disillusion so she
32:27
Speaker 1: said she's not pessimistic about the technology itself. I just
32:32
Speaker 1: don't personally see the point of doing it just to
32:34
Speaker 1: make a couple of people quadruple trillionaires. She said, The
32:40
Speaker 1: sense of precariousness among America's professional elite could be a
32:45
Speaker 1: preview of what's ahead for the rest of the country
32:47
Speaker 1: as AI spreads, Silicon Valley techies are the guinea pigs
32:53
Speaker 1: for what the tech dudes want to do to everyone,
32:56
Speaker 1: said Nyodash, a technology entrepreneur. At tech companies, leaders obsessed
33:03
Speaker 1: with winning the AI race have tasked their workforce coders, lawyers,
33:09
Speaker 1: and HR professionals with becoming the frontline of that transformation.
33:14
Speaker 1: They're being measured by how quickly they can automate their
33:18
Speaker 1: own jobs while watching their colleagues get pushed out successive
33:22
Speaker 1: waves of layoff layoffs. Dot Fyi, which tracks announced job cuts,
33:30
Speaker 1: counts more than eight hundred thousand tech workers laid off
33:34
Speaker 1: since twenty twenty two, including large staff reductions in recent
33:38
Speaker 1: months at Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, and Amazon. And Amazon executive
33:45
Speaker 1: chairman Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post. There's a whole
33:51
Speaker 1: tranch of people who've been quite used to being among
33:54
Speaker 1: the most upwardly mobile in society. We're all of a
33:57
Speaker 1: sudden saying, now I'm the guy on this street, said
34:01
Speaker 1: Oliver Raskin, a founded Silicon Valley market research consultancy Signal
34:07
Speaker 1: Craft insights in the surveyed attitudes in the tech labor force.
34:13
Speaker 1: In the early days of chat GPT, Raskin surveys show
34:16
Speaker 1: brought optimism, he said. Now, he says, he believes the
34:20
Speaker 1: cinnamon has changed. All these people with some of the
34:25
Speaker 1: most coveted secure jobs in the upper middle class. These
34:29
Speaker 1: are the people who have done the thing that everyone
34:32
Speaker 1: has told them to do. Study hard, get these jobs,
34:36
Speaker 1: and then you'll be rewarded, Raskin said, And all of
34:40
Speaker 1: a sudden they find themselves on the front lines of
34:44
Speaker 1: this transition. This existential panic is occurring during what should
34:49
Speaker 1: be a euphoric moment, as tech stocks continue their fifteen
34:54
Speaker 1: year growth tear and a set of AI companies, including
35:00
Speaker 1: open Ai and Anthropic, are prepared to go public with
35:03
Speaker 1: stratospheric valuations. The Post has a content partnership with open Ai,
35:09
Speaker 1: the creator of chad GPT. But unlike in previous waves
35:14
Speaker 1: of initial public offerings, the financial payoffs to the new
35:18
Speaker 1: IPOs will lift a smaller group of people to staggering wealth.
35:24
Speaker 1: Industry veterans say that's leaving there are already affluent peers
35:29
Speaker 1: worried about their futures, exacerbating feelings of inequality and insecurity.
35:35
Speaker 1: The professional unease of Silicon Valley's elite gives them something
35:40
Speaker 1: in common with American workers have endured decades of eroding
35:44
Speaker 1: workplace security. According to labor market historians, auto workers in
35:50
Speaker 1: the mid to late twentieth century, for that eras technology workers.
35:54
Speaker 1: So Georgetown University historian Joseph mccarton, manufacturing was considered core
36:00
Speaker 1: to the country's identity and economic vitality, and auto jobs
36:04
Speaker 1: were considered stable, well paying, and high status in many communities.
36:10
Speaker 1: He said. It took about two generations, beginning in the
36:15
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies for auto workers to really lose ground as
36:18
Speaker 1: assembly lines automated, said maccartin, who predicted that AI would
36:23
Speaker 1: hit white collar work faster than that. The rise of
36:27
Speaker 1: AI especially is bound to change the workplace radically, mc
36:31
Speaker 1: carty said, but the way it's going to happen is
36:35
Speaker 1: similar to how technology transformed the auto industry. Ruth Milkman,
36:41
Speaker 1: a labor sociologist at the City University of New York,
36:45
Speaker 1: said the technology workers are getting a dose of what
36:48
Speaker 1: the workers in other industries have long complained about jobs
36:52
Speaker 1: that feel unsteady, rob them of autonomy. Low wage workers
36:57
Speaker 1: are used to it, she said. Me While AI has
37:01
Speaker 1: transformed techwork into a cutthroat environment where once lauded skills
37:07
Speaker 1: are devalued, companies are now factoring AI use and to
37:11
Speaker 1: performance reuse. Tech giants such as Meta, Amazon and the
37:17
Speaker 1: computer chip upstarts Set or Brass have used visual displays
37:21
Speaker 1: rank workers by how much AI they use compared to
37:25
Speaker 1: their peers. This practice of using AI as much as
37:29
Speaker 1: possible as now being dialed back as the costly tech
37:32
Speaker 1: blows through company budgets. People skilled at complex software programming
37:38
Speaker 1: have status and pride in their hard earned craft h set,
37:43
Speaker 1: but increasingly coders, some of the most highly paid workers
37:48
Speaker 1: in the tech industry express fear and automated coding is
37:52
Speaker 1: making some of their expertise irrelevant. They have a self
37:56
Speaker 1: awareness that their coding skills will never matter in the world,
37:59
Speaker 1: again said. Many layoffs at technology companies are probably a
38:05
Speaker 1: hangover effect from the over hiring and prior years, the
38:08
Speaker 1: experts said, and they don't account for spotty recent increases
38:13
Speaker 1: in hiring in the information industry, which includes employment of
38:17
Speaker 1: software developers and jobs in media and entertainment digging deeper,
38:23
Speaker 1: though some economists say there are signs that Silicon Valley
38:27
Speaker 1: and other technology related parts of the American economy have
38:31
Speaker 1: reached turning point where they're growing without needing as many people.
38:36
Speaker 1: The nocean was encapsulated in a recent talk that ricocheted
38:40
Speaker 1: through the group chats across the tech industry. In it,
38:44
Speaker 1: a partner at the startup incubator y Combinator heralded a
38:50
Speaker 1: new generation of AI first companies that will only need
38:54
Speaker 1: human labor of novel situations, ethical considerations, and high stakes moments.
39:01
Speaker 1: Gad Lebanon, chief economist at the labor research nonprofit Burning
39:06
Speaker 1: Glass Institute, said that the number of hours worked in
39:09
Speaker 1: the information sector has dipped since twenty twenty two, while
39:13
Speaker 1: the sector's economic output has increased by about eight percent
39:16
Speaker 1: a year, more than three times the overall greath of
39:21
Speaker 1: the US growth rate of the US economy. He says
39:25
Speaker 1: the data reveals a seed change in industries, including technology
39:29
Speaker 1: and finance, toward doing more work with the same or
39:33
Speaker 1: fewer people. One that is spreading to other professional classes.
39:38
Speaker 1: That's the new reality of white collar and tech exposed
39:41
Speaker 1: work out put up head count flat or down. Levinson
39:46
Speaker 1: said that de Baffoone, a psychology PhD, has been recruited
39:51
Speaker 1: to Meta to work on well being and safety issues
39:54
Speaker 1: before leaving in December, said that programmers aren't the only
39:58
Speaker 1: ones feeling squeezed. There's just a lot of uncertainty, a
40:03
Speaker 1: lot of fear, a lot of people feeling like if
40:06
Speaker 1: they get let it go from this job, they might
40:09
Speaker 1: not find another one, she said. She described getting pushed
40:13
Speaker 1: back from managers when she tried to explain that a
40:16
Speaker 1: particular AI tool was a waste of time. The system
40:21
Speaker 1: had so many errors that she needed to redo its work,
40:25
Speaker 1: but her bosses were like, no, no, we keep using
40:27
Speaker 1: it more. It'll just get better, she said, And there
40:30
Speaker 1: was a feeling among management that when you voice that
40:34
Speaker 1: AI has all these problems, they don't want to hear
40:36
Speaker 1: about it. AI, she said, makes everything go so much faster.
40:42
Speaker 1: It creates the illusion that you can get all this
40:45
Speaker 1: stuff done, and much of the time you're just babysitting
40:48
Speaker 1: the AI. A thirty one year old tech startup worker
40:53
Speaker 1: living in San Francisco who spoke on the condition of
40:56
Speaker 1: anonymity for fear of professional repercussions, said that her engineering
41:01
Speaker 1: manager husband told her a few months ago that he
41:06
Speaker 1: needed to focus all his energy on becoming an AI native,
41:11
Speaker 1: and requested that she take on almost all parenting responsibilities
41:15
Speaker 1: for the couple's preschool teenage daughter. She complained. She described
41:20
Speaker 1: the experience as surreal, as he spent days, nights, and
41:24
Speaker 1: weekends locked in his office toiling away on AI projects,
41:30
Speaker 1: but her husband eventually thanked her he was now the
41:33
Speaker 1: top user of AI in the company. Still, a couple
41:37
Speaker 1: who are in a combine income of five hundred and
41:39
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars, said they feel woefully behind their friends,
41:44
Speaker 1: many of whom work at Open AI and Anthropic and
41:48
Speaker 1: are experiencing big payouts when their companies go public. I
41:54
Speaker 1: have this dream house that I see on redfin but
41:57
Speaker 1: I know I won't get it because anthropic people will
42:00
Speaker 1: get to it first, she said. A longtime venture capitalist
42:04
Speaker 1: who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly
42:07
Speaker 1: about her financial circumstances since she and her husband were
42:11
Speaker 1: priced out when looking for a home in San Francisco
42:14
Speaker 1: in the three million dollar price range. Many of the
42:18
Speaker 1: homes in her price range bid up to seven to
42:21
Speaker 1: eight million dollars, leading locals here to refer to a
42:26
Speaker 1: mansion shortage. What's happening in Silicon Valley is a turbocharged
42:32
Speaker 1: version of the division in the American economy between superstars
42:36
Speaker 1: and everybody else. Superstar companies such as Google, Amazon, and
42:42
Speaker 1: Meta want a concentrated share of their markets, and tech
42:47
Speaker 1: stocks have accounted for nearly half of the surge and
42:50
Speaker 1: the S and P five hundred since the end of
42:52
Speaker 1: twenty ten. According to the S and P Global Indices,
42:57
Speaker 1: superstar cities, including in the Bay, generate far more economic
43:03
Speaker 1: out poor worker and thrive relatively to low product relative
43:08
Speaker 1: to low productivity ones. About one third of the total
43:12
Speaker 1: personnel worth in the United States is held by the
43:14
Speaker 1: top one percent of households. Will Americans in the bottom
43:18
Speaker 1: half hold less than three percent, according to the Federal
43:21
Speaker 1: Reserve Data. Raskin, who has worked in the tech world
43:26
Speaker 1: since the late nineteen nineties, said that even though the
43:29
Speaker 1: current moment feels unsettling to many, he's hopeful that it's
43:33
Speaker 1: an early chapter in an evolving story. It's happened many
43:37
Speaker 1: times before, he said, that something implodes and all these
43:42
Speaker 1: people lose jobs, but then that talent gets cycled in
43:46
Speaker 1: whatever the next thing is, into a new wave of prosperity.
43:51
Speaker 1: While still job hunting, Smith is now volunteering at her church,
43:55
Speaker 1: where she has helped church leaders revamp their use of
43:58
Speaker 1: tech with a She's not sure if she wants back
44:03
Speaker 1: to go back to Silicon Valley or if that's even possible.
44:08
Speaker 1: The Emperor has no clothes, she said. And next JD
44:14
Speaker 1: and Usha Vance announced the birth of a fourth child.
44:18
Speaker 1: Vice President JD. Vance and second Lady Usha Vance on
44:22
Speaker 1: Sunday announced the birth of their fourth child, alec Neil.
44:26
Speaker 1: The baby boy, was born on Sunday morning. The couple
44:29
Speaker 1: announced on social media. His birth marks the first time
44:33
Speaker 1: in more than one hundred and fifty years that is
44:37
Speaker 1: sitting vice president has had a baby while in office,
44:40
Speaker 1: after Schyler Colfax in eighteen seventy. Usha and the baby
44:45
Speaker 1: are happy and healthy, and our kids are overjoyed to
44:48
Speaker 1: meet their little brother, the Vances said in the announcement. JD. Vance,
44:52
Speaker 1: who's now forty one, was the third youngest person to
44:56
Speaker 1: be sworn in as vice president. He and Usha, who
45:00
Speaker 1: was forty, had two sons and a daughter before entering office,
45:04
Speaker 1: Ewan Blake nine, VVEK six and Marrabelle Rose four. The
45:12
Speaker 1: couple thanked their doctors and staff at wal to Read
45:14
Speaker 1: National Military Medical Center and the White House Medical Unit.
45:20
Speaker 1: The Van's family plans to make a second home in Middleburg, Virginia,
45:24
Speaker 1: has caused a stir in the old money town outside Washington.
45:28
Speaker 1: Residents are concerned about the helicopters, secret service, and motorcades
45:33
Speaker 1: that the couple will bring to the area known for
45:36
Speaker 1: horses and antiques. Jd Vance said that the killing of
45:41
Speaker 1: conservative influencer Charlie Kirk convinced him and Usha to try
45:45
Speaker 1: for another child. They made the decision after Kirk's widow,
45:49
Speaker 1: Erica Kirk, told them she regretted only having two children
45:53
Speaker 1: with her late husband. While they were helping her escort
45:57
Speaker 1: her husband's body back to Arizona, Dvance recall the conversion
46:02
Speaker 1: conversation and an op ed with Wall Street Journal adapted
46:05
Speaker 1: from his new book. Vance is widely expected to run
46:09
Speaker 1: for president in twenty twenty eight, but he has told
46:12
Speaker 1: reporters that he will not make a decision until after
46:15
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty six midterm elections. Secretary of State Marco
46:19
Speaker 1: ruby prominence within the Trump administration has prompted some Republicans
46:25
Speaker 1: to discuss the possibility that Rubio may also seek the
46:30
Speaker 1: party's nomination and next. The World Cup offered war weary
46:37
Speaker 1: Middle East a welcome diversion. Under the shadow of war
46:42
Speaker 1: that hangs over the Middle East. This summer's World Cup
46:45
Speaker 1: has provided flashes of diversion, pride and solidarity. On the
46:49
Speaker 1: banks of the Tigris River in Baghdad, dozens of people
46:53
Speaker 1: gathered last month amid the ongoing US and Israeli war
46:56
Speaker 1: with neighboring Iran at the Babylon Rotana Hotel hell to
47:01
Speaker 1: watch Iraq make its World Cup return for the first
47:03
Speaker 1: time in forty years, to the sound of cheering and
47:07
Speaker 1: bubbling hookahs. We have lived through wars, sanctions, occupation, terrorism
47:14
Speaker 1: and endless conflicts, said Hussein Mohammad, forty five at Dentist
47:19
Speaker 1: was a child when Rock made its last World Cup
47:21
Speaker 1: appearance in nineteen eighty six. That's why the Rocks returned
47:25
Speaker 1: to the World Cup. Is just not about football. It
47:28
Speaker 1: is a message that the country still exists, it is
47:31
Speaker 1: capable of rising again. A record eight Arab teams from Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, Cutter,
47:44
Speaker 1: Saudi Arabia and Tunisia qualified for this year's World Cup
47:49
Speaker 1: in North America, alongside those of other Muslim majority nations,
47:54
Speaker 1: including Iran, Senegal and Who's Beekistan. Despite none of these
48:00
Speaker 1: and he's making it to the semifinals. For many in
48:03
Speaker 1: the Middle East that was hardly the point, and the
48:06
Speaker 1: competition has served as an antidote to everyday suffering. Because
48:11
Speaker 1: of the time difference, watching parties have been nighttime affairs,
48:15
Speaker 1: with many gathering and hookah cafes and warn torn Gaza
48:21
Speaker 1: Israel attacks destroyed entire neighborhoods. Final edified it was fifty
48:26
Speaker 1: two managed to rebuild the Time Cafe in southern Gaza City,
48:31
Speaker 1: which he owns, after it took severe damage in the
48:34
Speaker 1: conflict in twenty twenty four, using what he could salvage
48:38
Speaker 1: from furniture, metal sheets to hookah pipes. I collected anything
48:42
Speaker 1: I could from the rubble and reused it to open
48:44
Speaker 1: the cafe. Cafe has become a community hub where people
48:49
Speaker 1: gather to watch the games. Make sure the watch party
48:53
Speaker 1: runs smoothly. Matterfat reflies on a government private generator connection
48:59
Speaker 1: to the power a large screen TV, but outages sometimes
49:03
Speaker 1: in rup matches. Before the war, broadcasting football was simple,
49:08
Speaker 1: he said. Now Arafat says he worris power cuts will
49:11
Speaker 1: break the TV and the refrigerator, and every day is
49:15
Speaker 1: about finding new ways to keep the business running. The
49:18
Speaker 1: Israeli Gaza War has impoverished most of Gaza's population, and
49:23
Speaker 1: cafes like airfots are a splurge for those who can
49:26
Speaker 1: still afford them. Watching football helps me forget the difficult
49:31
Speaker 1: reality here in Gaza, even for just a while, said
49:35
Speaker 1: Mohammed Salman seventy six, tell how Hawa in Gaza city.
49:41
Speaker 1: Tarik al Jadba twenty six says he wished he could
49:46
Speaker 1: watch the matches from home, but is unable to because
49:48
Speaker 1: of the electricity shortage. He ventures out to cafes when
49:53
Speaker 1: he can, weary of the risks of nearby strikes for
49:56
Speaker 1: sudden danger. Although a Palestinian team has yet to qualify
50:01
Speaker 1: for the World Cup, Mini and Gaza initially rooted for
50:04
Speaker 1: Arabs teams such as Egypt and Morocco, although their support
50:09
Speaker 1: has shifted to Spain ahead of the Spain versus Argentina final.
50:14
Speaker 1: In Israel, support for Argentina is widespread heading into the final,
50:20
Speaker 1: and there's a political element. Argentine President Javier Millie is
50:24
Speaker 1: a strong supporter of Israel, while Spanish Prime Minister Pegdro
50:28
Speaker 1: Sanchez is an outspoken critic. International politics also crept into
50:35
Speaker 1: the Games in other ways. This year, Iranians gathered at
50:39
Speaker 1: screenings to watch their national team compete in the World Cup,
50:43
Speaker 1: first in a host country which was at war with
50:47
Speaker 1: the participant. Ron Soccer Federation complained about the team's treatment
50:52
Speaker 1: after it was made to stay in Mexico even after
50:55
Speaker 1: scheduled games in the United States. Algeria's team, on the hand,
51:00
Speaker 1: received a warm welcome in Lawrence, Kansas that was praised
51:05
Speaker 1: by fans in the Algerian media. Lebanon, which has been
51:10
Speaker 1: reeling for months of war between Israel and Hezbalah that
51:13
Speaker 1: has left thousands of people dead and hundreds of thousand displaced,
51:17
Speaker 1: driving a civil strife, people leave their political differences at
51:22
Speaker 1: the door while the game's are on. Cheers can be
51:26
Speaker 1: heard across Bay Route. A major team scored, followed by
51:30
Speaker 1: small victory motorcades in the streets. In one Hookah cafe,
51:36
Speaker 1: Grecie La Care, who's twenty five wrapped in a Brazilian flag,
51:41
Speaker 1: said she threw her support behind the country owing to
51:44
Speaker 1: her Lebanese Venezuelan heritage. Since Venezuela and Brazil are neighbors,
51:50
Speaker 1: I have to be loyal in back to Brazilian team,
51:52
Speaker 1: she said. William Dobson, a British pub owner in Beirut,
51:58
Speaker 1: said there's been less fervor or around the World Cup
52:00
Speaker 1: compared to last sight past cycles. I think the disruption
52:05
Speaker 1: from the wall the last three years in general, has
52:08
Speaker 1: left an exhausted population, he said. Soccer recedes into the
52:13
Speaker 1: background in the face of sheer exhaustion. The hostilities, FLEC,
52:20
Speaker 1: inflation crept up, an unemployment, sword government and the United
52:25
Speaker 1: Nations figures show forcing many to spend less on nights out.
52:30
Speaker 1: But when Egypt took the field against Argentina earlier this month,
52:34
Speaker 1: for patrons of Dobson's Black Sheep Pub, all that faded away.
52:40
Speaker 1: At the same time, in Gaza, hundreds of fans who
52:42
Speaker 1: could not afford cafes watched the match outdoors between mountains
52:47
Speaker 1: of wreckage, hoisting Egyptian flags, between buildings and piles of rubble.
52:53
Speaker 1: A football match concerning our brothers, the Egyptians concerns us
52:57
Speaker 1: more than any other country, Arafat said. And even though
53:01
Speaker 1: no Arab team made it to the quarter semi finals.
53:04
Speaker 1: For many fans, like said abdulah Meir, in Iraq, making
53:08
Speaker 1: it to the Games is a victory in itself. We
53:12
Speaker 1: are looking for a collection moment of pride, a moment
53:16
Speaker 1: that makes Iraqis feel that they are part of the
53:19
Speaker 1: normal world again, he said. And next, what Trump gained
53:26
Speaker 1: from two Supreme Court losses. The first reaction to the
53:30
Speaker 1: Supreme Court's blockbustered June decisions was that President Trump overplayed
53:35
Speaker 1: his hand. He tried to fire a member of the
53:37
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve Board of Governors, prompting the Court to declare
53:41
Speaker 1: and Trump versus Cook, that the Fed is independent of
53:44
Speaker 1: presidential control. He tried to revoke citizenship for the children
53:48
Speaker 1: of certain immigrants, prompting the Court to declare and Trump
53:51
Speaker 1: versus Barbara, that birthright citizenship is enthrined in the Constitution.
53:58
Speaker 1: Perhaps if the President had been more rest an incremental,
54:01
Speaker 1: you could have avoided such categorical defeats. But look beyond
54:06
Speaker 1: the top line of each ruling, and there's reason to
54:08
Speaker 1: thank Trump and his populous agenda are in better position
54:12
Speaker 1: than they were before. In both cases, Trump unilaterally took
54:17
Speaker 1: aim at a long settled practice no president had fired
54:21
Speaker 1: a FED governor before, and no meaningful political challenge to
54:25
Speaker 1: birthright citizenship existed. While neither of his shots landed, they
54:31
Speaker 1: came surprisingly close. Only four justices joined Chief Justice John G.
54:37
Speaker 1: Roberts majority opinion, rebuking the President in each case. The
54:42
Speaker 1: rulings were sweeping, but the coalition behind them is narrow populous.
54:47
Speaker 1: Now have an opening, it may be more determination to
54:51
Speaker 1: keep the fight up on both fronts. Start with Cook.
54:55
Speaker 1: As part of his campaign to pressure the FED to
54:57
Speaker 1: lower interest rates, Trump said last year that he was
55:00
Speaker 1: firing Lisa Cook, a member of the Fed's board appointed
55:03
Speaker 1: to a fourteen year term in twenty twenty three by
55:06
Speaker 1: President Biden. Trump's pretext was an allegation of mortgage fraud,
55:12
Speaker 1: which Cook denies and the government never proved, posted on
55:16
Speaker 1: social media by Bill Poulti, a political attack dog, Trump
55:20
Speaker 1: made housing regulator my all appearances, the White House's move
55:25
Speaker 1: was never going to fly. At the Supreme Court, the
55:28
Speaker 1: word courts blocked Cook's firing, and then when the Trump
55:31
Speaker 1: administration asked the justices last September to set those rulings
55:35
Speaker 1: aside while the case played out, the Justice has declined
55:39
Speaker 1: with no noted descents. The oral argument in January went
55:43
Speaker 1: well for Cook, but the Wall Street Journal observing that
55:46
Speaker 1: not a single justice voiced sympathy for the arguments to
55:49
Speaker 1: remove the FED governor. Yet the ruling when it came
55:52
Speaker 1: down in June was five to four. Majority opinion said
55:57
Speaker 1: Trump needed to give Cook notice and some opportunity to
56:00
Speaker 1: respond before firing her, but offered only general guidance about
56:04
Speaker 1: what that might look like after what showing he would
56:07
Speaker 1: need to make. Trump said after the post was announced
56:11
Speaker 1: he would try again with a perfect process. If the
56:15
Speaker 1: ruling had been unanimous or near unanimous, the administrators might
56:18
Speaker 1: have been deterred from going in another round to court Cook,
56:22
Speaker 1: But the five and four split means the Trump administration
56:26
Speaker 1: needs to peel off just one member of the majority,
56:29
Speaker 1: most likely Roberts or Brett Kavanaugh if the case gets
56:32
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court again. Robert's Cook opinion also tried
56:37
Speaker 1: to distinguish FED governors from other officials whom the Chief
56:41
Speaker 1: Justice maintains the president can fire for any reason, but
56:45
Speaker 1: the reasoning Roberts musters strikingly cursory. He cites the existence
56:51
Speaker 1: of national banks early in US history, but the FED
56:53
Speaker 1: is a very different institution. The escapable impression is that
56:58
Speaker 1: the Justice has spared the FED from residential control because
57:01
Speaker 1: of concerns about policy and economics more than constitutional law.
57:07
Speaker 1: What might be why the dissenters were more numerous than
57:10
Speaker 1: expected wecreasoning decisions upheld by a single vote or more
57:15
Speaker 1: vulnerable to political attack. The durability if FED independence might
57:20
Speaker 1: depend on presidential forbearance. We creed the twenty first century
57:26
Speaker 1: American politics in the birthright citizen case, though Trump has
57:30
Speaker 1: less prospect of a do over. Five justices said the
57:33
Speaker 1: Constitution requires birthright citizen, with a sixth cavanlaugh saying the
57:38
Speaker 1: current immigration laws require birthright citizenship, but Congress could change them.
57:42
Speaker 1: That means even Republican majorities in Congress couldn't restrict the
57:46
Speaker 1: citizenship of immigrants children unless one or more justices on
57:50
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court is replaced. Roe versus Weight was overturned
57:54
Speaker 1: after decades of activism by the conservative base and disciplined
57:58
Speaker 1: by its legal elite. Barbara is different. It's a conservative
58:02
Speaker 1: decision of the sense that it entrenches an established understanding
58:06
Speaker 1: rather than devising a new novel one. And this concludes
58:10
Speaker 1: the reading of the Washington Post for Today, Monday, June
58:13
Speaker 1: July twentieth. Your reader for today's been Rod Brotherton. If
58:17
Speaker 1: you have any question, comments, or suggestions, please feel free
58:19
Speaker 1: to call us eight five nine four two two sixty
58:22
Speaker 1: three ninety. Thank you, as always for listening now, please
58:27
Speaker 1: stay tuned for continued programming right here on Radio I