What could be more American than dueling points of view?
President Trump marked independence day by talking about communists. The York's mayor gave his speech among naturalized citizens and spoke of immigrant contributions to America.
I am Michelle Martin, that's even steep and this is up first from NPR News.
Coming up Israel wants to know where it fits into a U.S. agreement with Iran. Our colleague in Tel Aviv reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been seeking a meeting with President Trump. Also the U.S. plays Belgium tonight in the world cup with all of their top players available.
Team USA's top score in the tournament received a red card which would have meant his suspension tonight and then FIFA the soccer authority suspended the suspension. Was there political interference? Stay with us.
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American celebrated the 4th of July in all kinds of ways. It was the 250th anniversary of the United States. New York had so many fireworks they set the Brooklyn Bridge on fire. Other cities dodged extreme heat or thunderstorms and celebrated anyway. In Washington, a white nationalist group marched through the city as did counter protestors.
While military jets flew over the city for much of the day, I think Michelle you were watching and listening to that as we went through the day. The DC fireworks began very late, delayed by a thunderstorm and by a speech by the president who started after 11 o'clock. A warrior's did not fight communism on battlefields across the world only to have that
menace, rear its ugly head right back here in America. The weekend offered contrasting views of America and NPR as Mar Eliason was watching and listening to much of it. Mara, good morning. Good morning, Steve.
“What was your impression of the president's speech?”
The president's speech was overtly political. Just like his speech on Friday at Mount Rushmore, he excoriated Democrats using his latest epithet for them communists. He's trying to use to his advantage the fact that a handful of members of the Democratic Socialists of America won some primaries, which in deep blue districts in places like New
York City may not matter that much since the districts are likely to elect a Democrat in the general election. But there are many Democrats who are worried that in some swing states and districts, they could be nominating candidates who are too far to the left to win. So the president and the Republicans are trying to take advantage of this and they're using
the communists label as well as some of the positions found on the Democratic Socialist for America website like Defund the police, abolish ICE, Freel and carcerated individuals and they're trying to paint the entire Democratic Party as too far to the left and as communists. Well, the highest profile person on the left in the United States right now is probably
Mayor Zohrann Mondani of New York City who is focused in his own public presentations on practical governance in New York and he certainly hasn't been shy about the spotlight,
“gave his own speech over this holiday weekend how different was his view of America?”
It was very different. Mam'Dani gave a speech on July 3rd at New York City's City Hall to a group of newly naturalized citizens and his speech really was the opposite of Donald Trump's.
He criticized the constant denigration of immigrants, here's what Mam'Dani said.
American exceptionalism, the conventional wisdom tells us, makes our freedom a little more free as how we dug the eerie canal and irrigated the west, is why children in faraway lands grew up dreaming of one day moving here. And yet the irony is that the story of America has so often been written by those who were told by others with power and influence and wealth that they were anything but exceptional.
Mam'Dani said that instead America should continue to be a place of asylum for the persecuted and he described a kind of patriotism that sees the nation's flaws and embraces dissent. Our listening to you, you noted that's the alternative view, the alternative view to the administration, but in many of the decades of politics that you've covered, I think that would have been the normal bipartisan view of America, that it's a nation of immigrants
that we work on our flaws. Right, absolutely. It's almost an nostalgic view, a kind of retro view of what makes America great. But in this case, standing up for immigrants and talking about how they are great contributions
To America and actually made America great, is now considered the opposition ...
Mar of the President moves on, of course, as I guess we all must. He's heading to NATO meeting this week. What do you expect? That's right.
“Since Trump came into office for a second term, he has continued to attack NATO allies.”
He's complained that NATO doesn't do enough to help the United States. He's reduced the number of U.S. troops stationed in Europe. He's threatened to take Greenland by force.
He's also threatened to make Canada the 50-first state.
And he has repeatedly called into question America's commitment to Article 5, which, of course, is the beating heart of NATO. It says in attack on one is an attack on all. So the Europeans are now pretty desperate trying to figure out how they can predict themselves against potential Russian aggression without the United States.
And the summit will tell us how far apart the U.S. and its European allies are on the war in Ukraine. Russian news outlets reported that Trump and Putin spoke for about 90 minutes this weekend, but the White House has not confirmed that. Of course, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have had many conversations over the years that
produce little or no movement on the Ukraine war.
“And here's Mar Elias and thanks so much.”
You're welcome. Huge crowds are following the funeral procession for Iran's former Supreme leader, Ali Haminay, through the streets of Toronto today.
Haminay was killed on the first day of the U.S. Israeli war on Iran, so we're four of
his family members, and their caskets are also in the procession. A shaky-truth remains in place between the U.S. and Iran, and Israel is still trying to find its place within a ceasefire. It did not negotiate and did not approve. And Pierre's carry-con is covering all this from Tel Aviv.
Hi, Kerry. Hi, good morning. We're watching it on state media, and we see these large crowds surrounding this huge semi-truck, and it's adorned in white paneling, and it's carrying the caskets of the former Supreme Leader and his family members.
Iranian officials say they had to wait months for the funeral because of the "war" conditions. They were afraid of attacks, possibly, on such a large public crowd. He mediators in the war sent officials there, Pakistan's prime ministers there, and cut their sent to delegation, as well as Saudi Arabia, a long-time rival of Iran.
Meanwhile, indirect talks in Doha to hash out the details to end the war between the U.S. and Iran are on hold. That's according to cutters foreign minister, and that's until the funeral ends in a few days. Well, as you know, very well.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government is not part of those talks that you mentioned. Now is Israel's prime minister trying to get back in the game here. A source familiar with the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly about the visit tells the MPard that Netanyahu has been asking Trump for a face-to-face meeting for some time, but was repeatedly turned down until now.
He wants to talk about Iran, and looking for U.S. approval for potential Israeli military action against Iran, if quote, "that becomes necessary." Netanyahu has been on the defensive here about that interim deal. It's very unpopular in Israel. It's seen as being too lenient to Iran, and the prime minister, who faces elections this
fall, has had to defend his relationship with Trump. Here he is on Fox News yesterday. Our alliance has been a terrific one, and it will continue to think that I have anything to do with it, and the people of Israel who are unabashedly pro-American. We're not sure exactly when Netanyahu will meet with Trump at the White House.
First, Trump will attend the NATO summit this week in Turkey.
“But remember, too, that that 60-day deadline to hash out the details of the preliminary”
peace plan and the war? It's about a month away now. You mentioned that Israelis do not like the terms of the Iran. They seem especially not to like the idea that they would be limited in their actions in Lebanon. How is the ceasefire there going?
We still see near daily strikes in Lebanon, which Israel insists are defensive tactics that they have to use to stop his militants there. Lebanon's president, though, yesterday, defended the U.S. brokerage ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon. He said, "Look, it has its flaws, but for now it's the best that will quote "get us out
of wars." His government is getting a lot of heat this week and two Steve, these bright electronic billboards, projecting huge American flags and saying, "Happy Fourth of July, lit up highways and roads around Beirut, many took to social media to condemn them," saying, "Remember, its U.S. weapons Israel uses to attack Hezbollah, that according to Lebanese authorities
have killed more than 4,000 people there and displaced more than a million."
The U.S. faces its toughest world cut match-up tonight, Belgium.
The winner goes to the quarterfinals.
The match is still hours away, but controversy off the pitch has already kicked off. "It's the news that President Trump spoke directly to FIFA's president about a red card given to an American player." This is a wild one, so this all started last week when the U.S. striker Foularne Balagan was shown a red card in the American's game against Bosnia Herzegovina.
Of course, the red card automatically comes with the one game's suspension in the following game that's supposed to be today, but now we've learned that after that game last week, President Trump called FIFA President Johnny and Fintino directly to ask about the red card desk why this suspension was necessary that's according to an official with knowledge of the conversation who spoke to NPR in addition to anonymity to discuss this private conversation.
Then yesterday, a FIFA disciplinary committee made this very bare bones announcement saying
that they were going to suspend Balagan's suspension by a year, basically allowing him to play
against Belgium. So, the fact of this phone call coupled with FIFA's highly unusual decision to allow Balagan to play has the soccer world just totally up in arms. "You say it's highly unusual, but what if FIFA say about why they're letting Balagan play?" I mean, I think that's the thing.
They said very little about why they are making this decision, which is adding to the controversy
“I think, especially because this was just a challenging red card from the very start.”
It wasn't a clear obvious foul with the contact looked very much unintentional, and in fact, the referee on the field didn't even give a foul initially. The red card came only after a video replay review of the play in slow motion. There's questions about whether slow-mo review was even appropriate on that kind of play, and then also similar contact between players and other games in this tournament have
gone unpunished. And yet, this got a red card, and so, you know, clearly there's questions, but FIFA has not been transparent about answering them, this whole process by which they have reached this result.
I think Grace is a lot of questions, and it's not the first time that FIFA has been criticized
for a lack of transparent explanation, for a red card decision even at this world cup, because FIFA allowed Portugal's star Cristiano Ronaldo to play in the first two games of the world cup despite having been given his own suspension for three games in a qualifying match last fall for elbowing a player. He should have set out those first two games with FIFA made the exception, and so it's just
been tremendously messy. What's the US team saying about this? You know, they said in a statement that they are pleased about the decision, the players themselves found out on the team bus yesterday morning, actually, as they were on their way to training, they arrived right before talking to the media, and so these guys came out and just immediately
gave us their fresh reactions, and so here's StarWinger Christian Policic reacting to the news. Yeah, it was extremely harsh.
“So, if you want to call it justice, you know, whatever, I mean, we were prepared to play”
without him. We've been granted this now opportunity to have him, which is great for us, and I'm mostly just happy for him. Seeing that smile on this face, he deserves to be playing in this game. And coach Mauricio Pochatino said, he thought that FIFA had made the fair decision, because
he thought it should have never been a red card at all.
Okay, what about other teams or other teams commenting on this? Yeah, I mean, well, certainly the Belgian football Federation is against it. They said in a statement that they were astonished by the decision. They said they were going to pursue all potential avenues for recourse, you know, in a press conference and just the routine pregame press conference, the Belgian coach Rudy Garcia said
that he felt like April Fool's Day and said that, you know, with its pursuit of recourse that the Belgian football Federation wasn't just defending the national team, but that they were defending all of football, the integrity, the ethics of the game. Some coaches of other teams that played on Sunday were asked about this whole situation and they had strong words.
“And one of the things that they asked was, you know, what happens with the next red card?”
What happens with the next yellow card? What happens then? Are those going to be reviewed a similar way, you know, Norway's coach just said, this was a bad decision that's going to hurt the World Cup? That's NPR's Becky Sullivan, Becky, thank you.
You're welcome. Although it's Monday, we would invite you to tune into the Sunday story here in the upperist podcast feed for decades, Chicago has dominated Illinois politics. And now rural residents say they've had enough. There comes a time of reckoning and we're getting very close.
On the Sunday story, Secession is brewing in the land of Lincoln, who had an opinion about Secession as I recall. You can listen to the Sunday story now right here in the upperist podcast from NPR News. And that's up first for this Monday, July 6th. I'm Steve Innski.
And I'm Michelle Martin. Today's episode of "Up First" was edited by Kelsey Snow, Tina Crya, Russell Lewis, Muhammad ville, where D.C. and Lindsay Toddie, it was produced by Ziya Butch and Ben Abrams, our director is Christopher Thomas, we get engineering support from Stacey Abbott and A.O.N. fame. Our technical director is Damian Harring, join us again tomorrow.
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