[MUSIC]
The State Department warns Americans across the Middle East to depart now. Israel is sending troops into Lebanon as the scope of the war grows. Israel and the U.S. say they are prepared for weeks of fighting. >> I mean, Martinez, that's Layla Fattel.
And this is a first from NPR News.
[MUSIC] Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters the U.S. attacked Iran because Israel was going to attack Iran and Iran would retaliate. >> We work proactively in a defensive way to prevent them from flicking hard damage. They gave a briefing to Congress before they prepared a vote on a measure to curb the president's
war powers. >> And it's primary day in Texas and North Carolina to closely watch Senate races could tell us where both parties are headed and November's midterms.
“Stay with us, we'll give you the news you need to start your day.”
[MUSIC] >> The war in the Middle East continues to expand. >> Israeli warplanes this morning are striking Iran and Lebanon. And the U.S. is calling on its citizens to evacuate more than a dozen countries across the region as Iran retaliates.
>> NPR's Daniel Estrin has been in Tel Aviv covering the war since it began this weekend. Daniel, are a few days in what stage is everything in right now? >> Well, yesterday Israel focused on targeting regime symbols in Iran. So it bombed the Iranian intelligence ministry headquarters, the State Broadcaster, the presidential office, the building of the National Security Council.
Today Israel's military says its focus is on Iran's missiles and missile launchers. And already Israel says it has destroyed hundreds of ballistic missiles and dozens of missile launchers in Iran. And you really see a huge drop in the number of missile attacks on Israel, which could be because of all that degraded infrastructure.
It also could be because Iran may be rationing its munitions gearing up for a long war. >> Now President Trump spoke yesterday about maybe this last thing, what four or five weeks
“or maybe even a little bit longer, what's it looking like there?”
I mean, what are people thinking about how long this might last? >> Well, the Israeli military today said is preparing for weeks of war. I spoke with an official in the region who spoke on condition of anonymity, who told me Israel thinks it can achieve its war goals in two weeks total. But the question of war goals is a key one, we are hearing a lot of mixed messages about
the goals. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was on Fox news yesterday saying regime change is the goal. >> We're going to create the conditions.
First for the Iranian people to get control of their destiny, to form their own democratically
elected government, which will make Iran a different Iran altogether. U.S. officials, however, are walking back the idea that this is a regime change war. They're saying only that that outcome would be nice. On the ground in Iran, we are not seeing Iranians under bombardment pouring into the streets, protesting against their government trying to take it over.
And Israel today said it's not planning to send ground troops to Iran. So there is a question of whether regime change or allowing the conditions for Iranians to overthrow their government, whether that's possible. >> And didn't President Trump just a few days ago tell people in Iran to stay sheltered
“to not go out quite yet, I do remember him saying that, right?”
>> That's right. Yeah, bombs will fall. And then afterwards, he called on Iranians to take over their government and now we're hearing a very different message from the U.S. >> Yeah, and then of course the war is also expanding all over the region.
>> Yeah, has Bala and Lebanon opened fire at Israel and Israel is striking back. Israel also says it's sending ground troops across the border into Lebanon just along the border to patrol that border to prevent his Bala infiltration. I should say this is very low-grade warfare so far between Israel and his Bala. We're not seeing Israel taking out major Lebanese infrastructure.
The U.S. supports the Lebanese government has Bala fire is not at its most intensive. What is happening in the Gulf, however, is huge. Iran is pounding U.S. positions in the Gulf several U.S. service members have been killed the U.S. embassy in Saudi Arabia was hit by Iranian drones and causing minor damage there. Qatar says it shot down Iranian war planes.
This is the first known instance of Iran's sending war planes toward Qatar and the first
instance we know of of a Gulf Arab country actually attacking Iranian aircraft. That is an expanded role for a Gulf Arab country, what Qatar did attacking Iranian war planes. And so now we're going to be watching for weather Arab countries being attacked by Iran now will actively join the war. S.N.B.R.'s Daniel Estrin in Tel Aviv, Daniel Thanks, you're welcome.
>> Trump administration officials briefed top lawmakers in Congress on Monday about the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran. >> That reaction is a split along partisan lines. Here's a House Speaker Mike Johnson.
They gave us operational details.
They gave us the rationale for what was done and I was very satisfied with the briefing.
“>> And here's Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, that briefing raised many more questions”
than it answered. Now, this comes as both chambers are expected to vote on measures to limit the President's ability to intervene further without congressional approval. >> Here to talk through this is NPR congressional correspondent Barbara Spratt, hey Barbara. Healyla.
>> Okay, so let's start with the briefing. What did we learn? Well, Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, told reporters the reason for the attacks was what he called an imminent threat to the United States. >> We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action.
We knew that that would precipitate an attack against the American forces. And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties. >> Now, we just heard from Senator Schumer that the briefing raised more questions than answers for him.
What else are a Democrat saying?
“Well, one thing that really stood out to me was hearing from Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat”
on Senate intelligence after the briefing. He came out and he said that he thinks the administration has kept shifting the reason as to why this happened now. >> A week ago, it was about the Iranian nuclear capacity. A few days later, it was about taking out the ballistic missiles.
It was then about regime change. And now we hear it's about sinking the Iranian sleek. >> Warner and other Democrats have made a point of acknowledging the human rights abuses and nuclear ambitions of the Iranian regime, but say the administration hasn't given sufficient justification for this military action or explained what their plan is going forward.
Now, the Constitution, that gives Congress the power to declare war, but in practice, presidents increasingly have very minimally consulted Congress on military operations. How is that dynamic playing out this week? >> Yeah, I mean, this is a bigger theme of the seeding of ground from the legislative branch to the executive branch.
And although President Trump is ramping that up, it's certainly not new.
“And this week, the House and Senate are expected to vote on measures to require congressional”
approval for more military operations in Iran. And it may feel a little like deja vu because back in January, there was a separate war power's resolution to pull back intervention in Venezuela. That failed the resolution this week faces similar challenges. We expect the votes will largely fall along partisan lines, despite broad disapproval from
Americans more generally about this war. But there are some outliers here on the Hill, a small number of Republicans who say they'll vote to curb the president's actions, and some Democrats who say that the resolution could actually restrict the flexibility that's needed to respond to threats in real time. And this is all happening as the Department of Homeland Security is still shut down.
What's the latest there? Well, negotiations are slow, not much progress seems to have been made since there was this shutdown in mid-February. We'll hear from DHS Secretary Christy Nome today, and tomorrow on the Hill, some Republicans are actually tying this to Iran, they say that, you know, because counterterrorism falls
under the broad mandate of DHS, Congress should fund the Department as soon as possible. But I haven't seen any movement from Democrats indicating that that is forthcoming. They are still pushing for changes to immigration enforcement. That's NPR's Barbara Sprunt. Thank you, Barbara.
Thank you.
Voters in Texas and North Carolina are weighing in on some of the first contests of this
year's midterm elections. Today is the last day of voting in those states, both have expensive and closely watched Senate primary races that can tell us a lot more about the direction of each party. Here to talk to us about all this is NPR's political correspondent Ashley Lopez, good morning, actually.
Good morning. I mean, I mean, a big reason why is that there aren't really that many competitive house races. That's true most years, but because both these states redistricted last year, there are even fewer competitive seats this time around.
So the Senate races are really where the fight is, and ultimately where you can maybe draw some insights into what voters need to party, maybe looking for it at the start of this midterm season. Okay, let's start with Texas, where both parties see the Senate contests as a kind of litmus test.
What should we know about the Democratic race? Sure, so the front runners in that race are Congresswoman Jasmine Croquette and James Talleriko, who is a state lawmaker from the Austin area. Going into this Croquette was perhaps the most well-known candidate of the two in her timing Congress.
She's been known for like verbally sparring with Republicans in the house. A common complaint about the Democratic Party from its base voters is that party leaders have been weak in their response to Trump since he took office again, and Croquette has positioned herself as a fighter. Okay, Croquette has positioned herself as a fighter in Talleriko.
Yeah, well, Talleriko has said he sees himself as a fighter too, but his style is definitely
different when he was first elected to the Texas House.
He flipped a traditionally Republican seat, and a big part of how he campaign...
not to alienate independent and even conservative voters in some cases.
He's a seminarians, so he invokes his Christian faiths a lot, which could appeal to some
“voters, Democrats don't typically speak to, so I think just in terms of personalities and”
way these two candidates talk are pretty different, but I don't think what they are actually saying is all that different because when it comes to most issues and policies, Croquette and Talleriko largely agree. Okay, let's turn to the Republican side to this incumbent Senator John Cornean is running for reelection.
What kind of argument are his opponents making? Yeah, so this primary is centered around the question of which Republican is the most Trump-aligned. Cornean was elected in 2002, which his opponents aim make him like a conservative from a different time, although Cornean often points out that he votes with Trump consistently.
In Pakistan, Texas is attorney general for the past decade as his most formidable opponent and he has been hired in legal troubles for years, but he has said that like Trump, most of that has been political.
The other Republican running is Congressman Wesley Hadd who has been polling third in the
race, but garnering enough support that, I mean, it is likely this race could head to a runoff.
“Okay, let's quickly talk about North Carolina, what should we watch out for there?”
So this is an open seat in the Senate being vacated by Tom Tillis. Tillis has been one of the few elected Republicans in Congress who has openly criticized Trump in response, Trump had threatened to get someone to primary tillis, but the Senator chose to retire instead, which, I mean, at this point has become a common story in the Trump era.
So this has presented Democrats with a decent shot of flipping a Republican seat. The front runner is former governor Roy Cooper. He's got a lot of name recognition and has proved he can win statewide multiple times. The front runner for Republicans is former RNC chairman Michael Watley.
“The last time a Democrat won a Senate seat in the state was in 2008.”
So it's been a while, but if Democrats want to win back power in the Senate, this is one of their better shots as well as a must win for them. That's NPR's political correspondent Ashley Lopez. Thank you, Ashley. Yeah, thank you.
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And that's up first for Tuesday, March 3rd.
I'm Leyla Faldon. And I'm a Martinez. Today's episode of a first was edited by Miguel Macias, Kelsey Snell, Padma Rama. We'll have it over D.C. and Alice Wolfios, produced by Zeya Butch. On a bettis and Nia Dumas, our director is Christopher Thomas.
We get engineering support from Nisha Heines, our technical director is currently strange and our supervising senior producer is Vince Pearson. Join us again tomorrow.
