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Alaska, Florida, and Wyoming held primaries last night. In Florida, the tug of war between democratic progressives and moderates continued. Progressives took a surprise win in the U.S. Senate primary, but moderates prevailed in several key house races.
I'm Sasha Feiffer, that's Michelle Martin, and this is up first from NPR News.
[MUSIC] President Trump pushed back a new tariff on Canada at the last minute, but only by three days. He says the two countries may restart the keystone pipeline, but the broader trade relationship is still up in the air. And a group of states is suing Mehta, they accuse the tech giant of designing apps to be addictive and hiding the risks. Just like a generation ago with Big Tobacco, Mehta has engaged in behavior.
To maximize its profits while harming the public health. We hear how the states made their case on the first day of trial.
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[MUSIC] This week on Charlotte Wave, you are what you eat, may not be afraid you associate with your mental health. But one in three people have insulin resistance in our country. And if you have insulin resistance, you are double the likelihood of developing major depression. We explore the link between your body and your brain.
Listen on Charlotte Wave, the science podcast from NPR. Tanya, I think you did the best interview that I've done seriously. Oh, that's a great question. I'm thinking I want to think about that question for the rest of my life. Oh, good question.
This is Tanya Mosley, co-host of fresh air, and the questions are only the half of it. Listen to fresh air on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Three states held primarys last night, Alaska, Florida, and Wyoming. And Alaska results are still being counted in a U.S. Senate race. In combat, Republican Dan Sullivan, and former Democratic Congresswoman Mary Peltola,
each has about 45% of the vote, according to the AP. Two more candidates will move on, but which ones remain undetermined. The next closest candidate is the other Dan Sullivan in the race with less than 3%. In Florida, there's a mixed picture in the contest between progressives and moderates across races for house seats and the Senate here to fill us in on those races, as NPR political correspondent
Ashley Lopez, actually good morning. Good morning. Let's start with a Democratic U.S. Senate primary where there was a win for a progressive candidate.
“There and I take it, that that win was seen as a surprise?”
Yeah, it was. So, state representative Angie Nixon beat Alexander Vennin in that race. Vennin became a national figure after he was a witness and president Trump's first impeachment trial. Nixon, in comparison, did not have a national profile, but you know, I was a local
reporter in Florida over a decade ago, and I often came across Nixon because she has been very active in state politics for quite a long time. Not only is she a member of the Florida legislature, but she's fought some high profile labor and voting rights battles as an activist in the state. And that was apparently quite an asset in a race where she was drastically outraged.
Vennin raised more than $16 million in this race and Nixon barely raised $1 million and yet
she won decisively. During her victory speech last night, she said her win was an example of what organized people can accomplish. And what about in the general bit, like what are the odds for a candidate like Nixon in Florida these days?
I mean, she faces long odds, obviously.
“Florida has become a pretty solidly conservative state in recent years.”
I should say this seat isn't one that national Democrats have been optimistic about flipping unlike Alaska, which also had its primary last night, the top four vote getters, and that race will move on to the general later this year. But in Florida, Nixon will be running against Republican Senator Ashley Moody, an incumbent who was endorsed by President Trump, and moving forward a big question is how Nixon positions
herself as she tries to get votes from, you know, broader electorate in a red state. And she ran on a lot of progressive ideas like Medicare for all universal child care and raising taxes on billionaires.
She also joined the Democratic Socialist of America, but was never endorsed by the group.
And I take it through other progressives and house races with platforms similar to Nixon's, but they did not win. Tell us about that. Yeah, they lost. Now, this wasn't in across the board win for the progressive candidates.
Oliver Larkin, who was backed by the DSA in Florida's 25th Congressional District, lost his challenge to Congressman Jared Moscowitz. I mean, this is a fairly moderate district, though. It's one of the very few actual toss-up races in the country this year. GOP lawmakers in Florida redrew this district this year to make it harder for Democrats to
win that seat. So it would have been a tough race for whoever wins. And speaking of redistricting Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was drawn out of her district by Republicans earlier this year, and she decided to run for one of the few safe Democratic seats Florida's 20th Congressional District, and she won last night.
However, she ran against a slate of black candidates in that race. This is a seat that had been held by a black representative for years. So this outcome is pretty complicated for Democrats, especially in the wake of the Supreme Court all bookcutting the voting rights act this summer.
What about the people running to replace Governor Ron DeSantis?
So it's two members of Congress running to replace DeSantis, who is term-limited, biring
“Donald's when the Republican nomination, and former Republican representative now Democrat”
David Jolly won the Democratic nomination. A Democrat hasn't been elected governor in Florida since the 90s. So this is also a long shot for the party. DeSantis's departure will be a big change in the state. He pushed a very conservative agenda, and since he took office, Florida has become a reliable
state for his party. That is, and political correspondent Ashley Locke has actually thank you. Yeah, thank you.
President Trump says the U.S. will delay an additional 50% tariff on about $20 billion
worth of imports from Canada. He wrote on his social media site truth social that Canada and the U.S. had reached a deal to potentially restart construction on a controversial oil pipeline project. This last-minute agreement extends the tariff deadline by three days. But still uncertain is the fate of a broader trade agreement for all of North America.
That is currently under review. We have NPR's Emily Frank today to explain why a morning Emily. Hey, good morning Michelle. Is Emily walk us through this what of the tariffs that Trump has been threatening to impose and why has he delayed them?
So the tariff sort of covered a real hodgepodge of goods. Why in the hockey sticks to cement from Canada? Overall, it covered about $20 billion worth of goods, which sounds like a lot. It is, but it's actually only about 5% of annual Canadian exports to the U.S. And these tariffs were part of a flurry of back and forth duties that were kicked off
by the U.S. last year that has really strained relations with Canada. Now, the deadline for these tariffs was supposed to kick in midnight last night. But with less than two hours to go before that deadline, Trump announced he was temporarily calling them off. And he wrote on true social what was key behind this deal was the potential to restart the
“keystone pipeline. Remember that it was a joint project between U.S. and Canadian companies”
to deliver oil from Canada to the U.S. but it got mirrored in an environmental controversy.
And its permit was ultimately revoked by President Biden through an executive order.
Trump rolled back that executive order last year as part of his push to expand the U.S. oil and gas sector. And now Canada's prime minister has put out a statement acknowledging the post-poment of the tariffs. But only until this Friday, neither country, neither the U.S.
or Canada has spelled out any details about the pipeline. And it's also unclear whether this post-poment is enough to cool down real animosity in Canada against the U.S. And the same more about that, if you were to describe that tension, the source of that tension.
So Canada is a historic partner of the U.S. It's a military ally. But President Trump has longed round rhetoric many Canadians find defensive. For example, comments like making Canada the 51st state of the U.S. or this month calling Canadian leaders quote "nasty."
That's put pressure on Canadian leaders to stand up to the U.S. and pulls this month's show Canadians are overwhelmingly against appeasing the U.S. And as you mentioned, hanging in the balance is the sweeping free trade agreement between the U.S. and its two largest trading partners. That's Canada and Mexico.
And that's up for renewal. And tell more about the trade agreement. It's called the U.S. M.C.A. the United States Mexico Canada Agreement. Very literal.
It was signed during Trump's first term.
But Trump has said he quote "doesn't care" about renewing this free trade agreement even though it allows hundreds of billions of dollars of goods to trade pretty much duty free through North America. For Canada, it's already seen the U.S. put tariffs on goods that were supposed to be duty free under this agreement.
I talked about the U.S. M.C.A.'s uncertain future with Philip Lack. He's the director of economic programs at the Think Tank Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. If we are showing ourselves to not be very interested in upholding the tenets of the U.S. M.C.A. it really raises the question of what's it worth to take on this sort of political
pain of entering another agreement or making concessions if you don't get anything tangible out of it. Trump has flip-flop before and trade insecurity matters, but on economic matters, that uncertainty might also discourage businesses from investing in North America. That is.
In PR's Emily Fang, Emily, thank you. Thanks, Michelle. A trial is underway in Oakland, California that could end with huge consequences for social media. A group of states is suing Mehta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.
Those states say the social media platforms were designed in ways that are addictive to young users and that the company knew it, but misrepresented the risks to the public. And PR's John Roach was in the courtroom, and he's with us now to tell us more about a community. Good morning.
Social media companies like Mehta have been in court a lot, but they have some legal immunity from being held accountable for what people post on their sites.
“So what is the argument that the states are taking here?”
Yeah.
The states leading this case are California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jers...
they are indeed steering clear of accusations about specific problematic content, instead
“they're going after Mehta on two different grounds.”
The first is that Mehta violated consumer protection laws.
California's Deputy Attorney General Megan O'Neill gave opening statements for the states, and she argued that Mehta's business model is the problem. And she's summed it up in four words, hook, hold, harvest, and hide. So the model was to hook teens to hold their attention, to harvest their data, and then to hide the truth from the public about the risks that they face while being on the platforms.
The second accusation from the states is that Mehta violated federal law by gathering personal data about users under 13 without getting their parents consent. And the state's got to call their first witness yesterday, a man named Arturo Bayhart. He used to work on product safety at Mehta, he's been a whistleblower, and he pointed to internal studies that he says showed that young people had much higher risks of coming
into contact with harmful content than Mehta publicly admitted.
“So have we heard from Mehta yet, and what did they say?”
Yes, Meta denies the accusations in court, Meta's lawyer Paul Schmidt said the company was very sensitive to the risks to young people. It studies those risks, it takes them seriously, it has implemented policies to try to mitigate the risks. He noted features like time management tools and parental supervision controls.
He also said Meta did not misrepresent those risks to the public, and in fact, as talked about them openly. And he accused the states of focusing on a tiny number of extreme examples from the billions of user experiences on Meta's platforms. This case is one of thousands against social media companies, and Meta even lost a couple
of cases earlier this year. Have the state said something about this wave of litigation? Yeah, they have the states appear to feel like there's some momentum building, the attorney general from Colorado, Phil Wiser spoke to the press after court yesterday, and he made
“it comparison that some legal experts I've talked to have also made, and I think it speaks”
to the kind of sweeping impact that the states hope to have. Like a generation ago with Big Tobacco, Meta, like other social media platforms, has engaged in behavior to maximize its profits while harming the public health. With this trial, we're sending an important message.
Powerful technology companies must follow the law, and if they don't, we will hold them
to account. So he's referring to court cases in the 1990s against cigarette companies that resulted in historic financial penalties, changes to how those companies operate, and a real shift in the public perception of smoking in America. So John, what's next?
What we can expect to hear more from our tour of Behrer, that whistleblower today, and we may eventually see Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg called to testify. The attorneys general say they haven't decided if they're going to do that yet. The states are certainly high for Meta, though, the agencies are seeking changes to the way it's platform works to make them safer for teens, and financial penalties that could
be in the hundreds of billions of dollars. That is, and Pierre's John Ruach, John, thank you. You bet. And let me know here. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a charity founded by Mark Zuckerberg, and his wife, Dr.
Pistola Chan, is a financial supporter of NPR. And that's up first for Wednesday, August 19th, on Michelle Martin, and I'm Sasha Feifer. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Pad Marama, Cara Plotoni, Rebecca Metzler, Tina Kray, Muhammad Elbar D.C. and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Ziyad Buccine, Nia Dumas.
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