Israel And Iran Pull Back, Primaries In Four States, Trump's Election Fraud Claims

Both sides are setting conditions that could send them right back to war, but the President is saying again, that a deal with Iran is close at hand. Is it?

I'm Leila Faldil, that's Michelle Martin, and this is up first from NPR News.

Voters head to the polls today in four states, in main Democrats are picking a candidate to take on Senator Susan Collins in a midterm race that could decide control of the Senate. While South Carolina's primary will be another test of how much weight Trump's endorsement carries. And California election officials are still counting ballots a week after election day. President Trump is calling the delay evidence of fraud without providing any evidence. The election experts predict Trump will repeat that claim in November if Republicans lose.

“Same with us, we'll give you news you need to start your day.”

This message comes from CBC. The expert witness from Uncover is a story about a mysterious AI tool called cybercheck. What happens when AI enters the courtroom? And who's accountable when AI gets hit wrong? Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. Israel and Iran both say they will stop attacking each other at least for now.

In a major escalation, they exchange missile fire for several hours, and then called it off as abruptly as it began. And P.S. Rick Murray is covering this story in Tel Aviv. Hello, Greg. Hi, Michelle.

First, let me ask about another development, a US military helicopter went down in the region.

What do we know about this? Yeah, President Trump said Monday night that two crew members of an army Apache helicopter had been rescued and are safe after their aircraft went down.

“He said, "The pilots are fine. Nobody injured."”

Now, the New York Times reported that this took place near the straight-of-home moves. No exact location. No word on what caused the helicopter to go down. Whether it was the mechanical problem or possibly an attack. U.S. forces as we know are operating near the straight, but not necessarily inside it. And they are enforcing this U.S. blockade of ships going to and from Iranian ports.

And Iran, of course, is enforcing its own blockade.

So let's go to this missile exchange between Israel and Iran.

It escalated very quickly and then ended the same way. What should we take away from this? Yeah, so Michelle, it came after days of shooting exchanges that were increasing on two separate fronts. The U.S. and Iran in and around the Gulf and Israel and his Bala in Lebanon. And this all boiled over on Sunday. Israel and his Bala were trading fire.

And then Iran intervened and fired missiles at Israel. Israel then launched missiles at Iran. As you noted, this ended very quickly as Israel and Iran agreed to stop attacking each other. But nothing was resolved. And both sides set conditions that could lead to another round at any time. Israel says its forces will keep operating in Lebanon. And just this morning, it ordered the evacuation of remaining residents in the Lebanese coastal city of Tyre.

And Iran says further attacks in Lebanon could lead to another and larger Iranian response. You know, Greg, we've been focusing so much on the U.S. Iran confrontation. But the Israel has blocked conflict is now getting more attention.

“Does this make it harder to end the fighting across the region?”

Yet, it certainly seems so. Iran sees Lebanon as a way to pressure Trump and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu and to divide them. Remember, just last week, Iran said it would stop negotiations with the U.S. If Israel went ahead with a threat to bomb his Bala in Beirut. Trump then had an angry phone call with Netanyahu and told him don't do it.

And then when Israel and Iran were trading missiles on Monday, Trump intervened again and told both sides to stop. So we're seeing a public rift between Trump and Netanyahu over Lebanon. Netanyahu says he won't tolerate attacks on northern Israel. Trump is telling him not to escalate in Lebanon because that's making it harder for Trump to get a deal with Iran. Greg, before we let you know, President Trump continues to say that an agreement with Iran could come soon.

Is there evidence to support this? Well, not really. The Trump said again last night he thinks there's a good chance of a deal in two or three days, but it's not clear why. Iran's decision to fire on Israel was a bold move. It could have spiraled out of control very quickly.

So this episode demonstrates Iran is fields. It's in a strong position and combined with the aggressive statements we see every day from Iranian officials. Iran just doesn't seem to be in the mood or the position for the kind of compromises Trump is demanding. That is, NPR's Greg Myri and Tel Aviv Greg, thank you. Sure thing, Michelle.

Today, voters in Maine, Nevada, North Dakota and South Carolina will be casting ballots for the candidates they want to see advance to the general election.

Nevada and South Carolina voters are picking their nominees for governor.

NPR's Sage Miller is following those races and she's with us now. Good morning. Good morning. So let's start with that Maine Senate race.

“How important is the seat for Democrats?”

Yeah, this is really important. It's quite a big deal. If Democrats have any chance at winning the Senate majority in November, picking up Maine is all but necessary. That requires flipping the seat away from Republican Senator Susan Collins. She's held the position for 30 years, largely because of her more moderate stance on the Hill.

She isn't a Trump loyalist, but she is still a Republican, which means the president's unpopularity nationally and in the state could hurt her. But she's been here before.

She's won many competitive elections.

And like I said, Democrats want this seat. They need this seat. So they are trying to pick a candidate that can win it. And it looks like that candidate will be Graham Platner. As he's still expected to win, even with all these controversies around his personal behavior that he emerged in the past few weeks.

It would be very surprising if he didn't win. That's because no other Democrat is really going against him. Platner is a combat veteran turned oyster farmer. He's a political newcomer. And he's had to answer a lot about his past since launching his campaign less than a year ago.

Most recently, the New York Times published a story where Platner's previous romantic partners described him as toxic. And as a person who does not respect women.

Platner spoke to her colleagues at Main Public, saying he believes these stories serve as a distraction away from the political movement he is building.

He also told Main Public, he doesn't think his past will haunt him at the primary ballot box. Because voters know he's not the same man. Okay, so let's move to South Carolina now. Republicans are picking their nominee for governor. Is there a front runner?

There isn't. And there are five Republican candidates on the ballot. But there is only one Trump endorsed candidate. The president is backing Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evan. She's a longtime Trump supporter.

And on the other hand, Congresswoman Nancy Mace is also vying for the nomination. She's a member of the Freedom Caucus in Washington, which just translates to she is also very conservative. But Mace gained the eyeer of Trump after she pushed to release the Epstein files. And this is another test of how much weight the president's endorsement carries. And there is also a chance voters won't know who the nominee is by the end of the night.

The race will head to a runoff as no candidate can secure 50% plus one of the vote. Okay, now to Nevada, where Democrats are going to pick their nominee to challenge the Republican governor. Voters will be picking between a more established man candidate attorney general Aaron Ford, or a more left-leaning progressive candidate county commissioner Alexis Hill. And here is why that is important.

Nevada is a case study of where Democrats and swing states are.

“That signals to the national party, what kind of democratic leadership can win in these tough, high-stake races and places?”

Democrats believe they have a shot at winning the office. That's because Trump is pretty unpopular in Nevada at the moment. Tourism is down in a state that really relies on it. Gas is expensive. The war in Iran is unpopular.

His immigration and tariff policies aren't voting well. And all of that is making it harder for Republican Nevada governor Joe Lombardo to keep his job in November. That's, and Pierre Sage Miller, saves thank you. Thank you. The LA mayor's ballot in the fall is set between two Democrats.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nithia Romain will face incumbent mayor Karen Bass, that according to the Associated Press. The results are coming in almost a week after election day in California. President Trump claims taking that long to call races is evidence of fraud. He stormed out of an NBC interview over the weekend.

When hosts Kristen Welker pushed back, local election officials say they are doing their best in a state that prioritizes making it easy to cast about. And Pierre voting correspondent Miles Parks is here to talk us through a situation that could be a preview of November's midterms. Good morning, Miles. So as we just said, President Trump says there is fraud. He didn't present any evidence of that.

“So let me just ask, why is it taking so long to count in California?”

So there are a couple reasons, but the biggest one comes back to the timing of when voters return to vote by mail bail. It takes a bit more time for official process vote by mail bail. It's compared to in person votes if a deal with scanning bar codes, removing the ballots from envelopes, getting them ready to check the signatures, for instance, verify identity. That is the case everywhere all over the country.

But in California, we see this rush of voters roughly a quarter of the electorate that return their mail ballots on election day. So all that work can't even begin until after voting is completed. California election expert Kim Alexander coined that sort of log jam the pig in the Python effect,

So that seems pretty straightforward, but President Trump's response plays into one of his preferred narratives, which is that elections where he doesn't get what he wants are still not. Yes, and part of that is because we saw a similar dynamic play out in this LA mayor's race as what happened to Trump in 2020,

where Trump's preferred candidate looked like he was going to advance to the general election as the first votes were counted,

but then ended up falling behind as more mail ballots were counted. Trump posted about this a lot, and we saw a number of other Republicans and influencers jump in as well. Elon Musk, Ron DeSantis, here's Speaker of the House Mike Johnson talking to CNN's Manu Raju. Some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream it is impossible to prove,

“but I think everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here.”

Even for Republicans who have not gone full bore into Trump's stolen election narratives, they've been bashing California. It's just a pretty low risk way to score political points. What are you taking away from all this as you look ahead to the midterms? I mean, every single election expert I talked to expects Trump to follow this exact same playbook in November.

If he does not like the way results are coming in. You can sort of imagine a scenario where control the U.S. House rests on a few competitive districts in California. We're waiting on those results for up to a week, just like we are right now.

“That could be a potentially dangerous time.”

I was talking to Tammy Patrick though. She's the Chief Programs Officer for the National Association of Election Officials. And she said voters should look at this another way as extra motivation to tune out the noise and just show up. If this meant nothing, no one would be doing all the things they're doing to try and make it more difficult, it would be ignored. But it's not being ignored.

Every election will leave some people sat at the Resolve Patrick said, but the U.S. needs to get back to a place where that doesn't automatically mean questioning the elections legitimacy. That is NPR's Miles Park's Moss. Thank you. Thank you.

“And that's up for Tuesday, June 9th. I'm Michelle Martin.”

And I'm Leila Faldel. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Tina Crya, Megan Pratz.

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