Kushner Netanyahu Gaza Meeting, Iran War Depleting US Military, FL, AK, WY Primaries

After a meeting between Jared Kushner and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli government says the U.S. believes Hamas will disarm, but Israel said, "Deep down we don't."

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

America doesn't have an aircraft carrier in the Pacific and President Trump is pulling back a military cooperation with South Korea. How is the world around affecting the U.S. strategic posture toward Asia? And it's primary day in Alaska, Florida, and Wyoming. Alaska Senate Race could tip the balance of the whole chamber and it's drawing money from thousands

“of miles away. Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.”

Are what you eat may not be a phrase 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 shortwave, the science podcast from NPR.

Tonya, 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 Tonya 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. Jared Kushner said he's optimistic about the U.S. plan for Gaza. President Trump's

envoy and son-in-law was in Israel Monday meeting a pessimistic Israeli Prime Minister

“Benjamin Netanyahu, Kushner spoke to Fox News. Progress could come quite soon, but we”

do need cooperation from both sides. And we're going to hopefully get through it, but

we've made a lot of progress to get here. Kushner was in Israel after a rare meeting

with Hamas leaders in Egypt. NPR's Daniel Estrin is on the line from Tel Aviv, hi Daniel. Hi Sasha. So what did Kushner say about his back-to-back meetings with Hamas leaders in Netanyahu? Well, he started in Egypt with Hamas leaders, and he said that that meeting was cordial. He said it's called hard to trust a terrorist organization that committed what he called terrible atrocities, but he said the Hamas officials said all the right

things. Then Kushner went to Israel and met Netanyahu. He said the meeting lasted nearly four hours. They poured over the details of a new U.S. backed road map for how to move forward in Gaza. Netanyahu initially rejected that road map for Israeli withdrawal from Gaza alongside Hamas disarmament. But Kushner said he sat with Netanyahu and his team and talked through what he called misunderstandings and misinformation about the plan.

So they have differed in their approach in the past. What do we know about whether they're on the same page now when it comes to Gaza? Kushner's team announced some new agreements together with Israel and these agreements are different than the original plan for Gaza. One announcement is that Hamas is being asked to give up their weapons and hand them over to a U.S. general to be destroyed, not the original plan to give them over to a new Palestinian committee

for storage. And then there's another announcement that there would be no Israeli withdrawal from Gaza or no reconstruction of Gaza until full disarmament of Hamas. Kushner told Fox News that he wants Hamas to start disarming within 30, 60, or 90 days. And if they don't, he made this veiled threat about war. If they don't fall through now on their commitment, everyone will see that that they're not genuine about peace and then Israel will have a lot more support from the U.S.

and others to go and finish the job and you appropriate way. So you hear Kushner there trying to show this United strong front with Israel. The Israeli government put out two differing messages. They put out three lines in English for an international audience talking about deep and constructive discussions with Kushner. They put out another message in Hebrew attributed to an anonymous Israeli official and they emphasized the disagreements. This message said deep down we, Israel,

don't believe Hamas will disarm and the Americans do. They also put it out another message saying Israel intends to keep killing people in Gaza who took part in the October 7 attack and that message said Kushner opposes that. So giving what seems like some mixed messaging depending on the audience what's likely to happen next in Gaza? Well, there was one announcement that came out that Israel is going to agree to sanitation projects in Gaza for public health.

So perhaps that could be a way for Israel to justify if we see any bulldozers or heavy equipment entering Gaza to start clearing away rubble from the last few years of war there.

“I think real progress is hard to expect in the next 10 weeks before Israeli elections take place.”

We are likely to keep seeing what we've been seeing. Hamas and Israel going in circles with mediators

You're welcome.

“The U.S. and Iran have blown past a deadline this week to start peace talks.”

The conflict which has gone on for months has sent gas prices soaring in the U.S. and now military

resources like warships and interceptor missiles are running short. That has hurt the U.S. military capabilities in other regions notably in Asia. And we have Empire's Emily Feng with us to explain why. Good morning, Emily. It morning to the both of you. So we heard this week that Trump said the U.S. would reduce joint military exercises with South Korea. He said that with an hours of those exercises actually beginning. Is this related to the Iran war? According to Trump, yes,

he spoke to reporters yesterday and said he had unsuccessfully asked South Korea's President to help the U.S. with its war against Iran. And I said, when we have 39,000 soldiers out there guarding you from Kim Jong-un, your next door neighbor, and you're not going to help us on a very easy military operation in a red. As you mentioned, these drills have already kicked off. These exercises go back at least until 1976 and they were designed to largely counter North

Korea and its nuclear program. And he spoke to Hal Brands, a global affairs professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He says North Korea is actually a bigger

threat in Trump's second term than in his first. The nuclear program has expanded over the past decade

and the missile arsenal has become larger and more sophisticated. You can add to that the fact that North Korea is now getting increasingly advanced technological help from Russia. But Trump has been upset with Seoul from even his first term. For not paying the U.S. more for the security assistance it provides to South Korea. Emily, speaking of security, it correct me if I'm wrong,

“but is this one of the few times there will be no U.S. aircraft carriers in the Pacific region?”

Right. And when I went back into this, I found that you can count on one hand the number of times. There has not been a U.S. carrier group of the Pacific since the 1970s. Now the U.S. has stored Washington a carrier was in the Pacific, but it's been sent to relieve the U.S. Abraham Lincoln, which is already in the Middle East and has had its deployment extended. Like the Washington, it was also in the Pacific when it was diverted to the Middle East.

I've been speaking to naval experts about this and they say it could be weeks if not months until a replacement carrier formation is ready and arrives in the Pacific to replace the Washington. One of these experts is Mike Dom. He is a formal naval intelligence officer with the Mitchell Institute, which is an aerospace research group. Aircraft carriers move and they move quickly, but they have to be ready to go. The question really is who's ready to go? Who's not in the

“maintenance period? Who's airwing is qualified to get underway and go on a long deployment?”

And while they have not been as publicly concerned as Ukraine, countries in Asia are noticing and they're also really worried about the depletion of American interceptor missiles. Yes, we're doing a lot of reporting on that and give us a sum of just how depleted is the missile stockpile. They're very depleted. One thing tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies here in Washington found US interceptor stockpiles shrunk by about two-thirds during the Iran War

and then even before the Iran War, the thing tanked the Heritage Foundation determined this month that the US already only had a fraction of the interceptors it needed to push back say against a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That is and Paris Emily Fang. Emily, thank you. Thanks, Sasha. The primary schedule leading us to November is winding down but there are three more states holding nominating contest today, Alaska, Florida and Wyoming. The race for US Senate seat in Alaska is drawing

a lot of money from thousands of miles away from the lower 48 as they say. That's because it's one of the seats that could determine which party controls the US Senate after the midterms. Joining us now is Alaska Public Media correspondent, Liz Ruskin Hi-Liz. Hello. Liz this Alaska US Senate race is considered a toss-up. It's a non-partisan race. That means the top four candidates of any party are going ahead to November. Who's running in this one? So the two big candidates are the

incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan and his main challenger is a Democrat Mary Pultola. She's a former

house member, first Alaska native person elected to Congress. There's a wild card in this. We've got

a second Dan Sullivan. Two Dan Sullivan's. His full name is Daniel J Sullivan Jr. He's a retired teacher from Petersburg, Alaska. Republicans tried to keep him off the ballot saying this was a trick,

representation that he doesn't like and he wants to provide an alternative. He is on the ballot with

“no party affiliation. Liz, you have also been reporting on how much money is being poured into”

this key race. Sounds like quite a lot. What stands out to you? There are millions going to the major candidates, of course. And the weird thing when I look at the FEC filings, I found another three

million dollars combined coming from pop-up superpacks to elevate very minor candidates who are

running zero dollar campaigns of their own. And what is your report and tell you about what's the strategy behind that? Well, I reached out to these superpacks. I didn't get concrete answers, but political experts here say these operations are aimed at trying to pick the third and fourth place candidates who will advance to the November ballot. The idea is to draw votes away from

“one of the major candidates. And how effective would that be? That drawing away votes strategy?”

Well, not very. It only works for the minority of voters who choose not to rank their ballots.

Political consultant Jim Lotzfield tells me it's a sign. There's so much money in this race. It can't all be spent on things that make sense. Liz, we mentioned that in addition to Alaska, there are also primers today in Florida and Wyoming. I want to ask you a Florida question, moving way down for yourself. Tell us about the races to watch there. Well, Florida, like Alaska, has no incumbent governor running. Ron DeSantis is at his term limit.

Congressman Byron Donalds looks favored to win the Republican nomination and will likely face Democrat David Jolly. He's a former Congressman and a former Republican. Another race my NPR network colleagues in Florida are watching is where Republican Congressman Corey Mills is trying to get reelected. He's under investigation by the House Ethics Committee. He denies allegations. He assaulted a woman last year in DC. Trump endorsed him earlier this year, but he faces Republican

challengers. That is Alaska Public Media's Liz Ruskin and Anchorage. Liz, we look forward to talking with you again and hearing the results of the primary in Alaska today. Thanks for coming on.

Thank you. And that's up first for Tuesday August 18th. I'm Sasha Feifer.

And I'm a show martin. Today's episode of First was edited by Tina Croya, Rebecca Metzler, Padma Rama, Mohamed Elbre DC, and Ellis Wolfly. It was produced by Zayette Bunch and Ben Abrams. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Nisha Heines and our technical director is A.o. in fame. Our supervising senior producer is Vince Pearson. We hope you'll join us again tomorrow.

[Music] A lot of us are short on time, but is our time really going where we want it to? They say when your schedule begins to align with your values, this is when we begin to feel that in our peace. How to take a time audit and other timely advice on the life kit podcast. Listen to life kit on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

At NPR, there's a little something for everyone. If you need advice for that big life change,

“try listening to life kit. If you want to know more about that new TV show,”

check out Pop Culture Happy Hour. And if you want to dive deeper into your favorite podcasts and enjoy perks like bonus episodes, archive access and more, check out NPR+. Find out more and support the shows you love at plus.npr.org.