President Trump went to war with Iran to stop it from enriching uranium.
Now he's sighted deal that could let Saudi Arabia do just that, while the deal spark a Middle East nuclear arms race.
I'm Michelle Martin, that's Amartina's, and this is up first from NPR News.
President Trump is threatening to bomb bridges and power plants in Iran and is telling his supporters the war is a win. He says military action in Iran will pay for itself. The way he claims it did in Venezuela, but with gas prices up again are mag of voters losing patience. And Republicans in Congress are working to get a lot done before a month-long summer break. The legislation that just passed, the House will need to be overhauled to get through the Senate.
Both chambers are led by Republicans so why aren't they in sync? Stay with us, who got news you need to start your day.
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“Oh, hey there, I'm Brittany Luce, and I don't know, maybe this is a little out of pocket to say, but I think you should listen to my podcast.”
It's called It's been a Minute, and I love it, and I think you will, too. Over the past couple months, over 100,000 new listeners started tuning in. Find out why. Listen to the It's been a Minute podcast from NPR today. The US has agreed to build and run nuclear energy plants in Saudi Arabia.
The Gulf state is rich in oil, but it's been trying to pivot to other energy sources. And while Saudi Arabia's crown prince has said the kingdom does not want nuclear weapons. He has also said, "Read, we'll pursue one if Iran develops a nuclear weapon first." Well, this now is MPR's Emily Feng in Tel Aviv, Emily.
“So this is agreement, first of all, so what's in it, and actually, too, what's not?”
So it would allow American companies to run commercial nuclear power plants and Saudi soil for decades to come. And under the agreement Saudi Arabia is not permitted to re-process American nuclear material for weapons. But there is nothing in this agreement and a security protocol attached that stops the kingdom from using these plants to say, in rich uranium or other nuclear fuel that's provided by other countries. Something that the US made, the United Arab Emirates, another Gulf country promise not to do in a previous energy deal back in 2009.
So this agreement is sending shock waves through the Middle East, and especially in Israel, where I am right now, because Saudi Arabia has been angling for nuclear cooperation with the US for at least a decade. And there have been questions about the kingdoms human rights abuses, including from then Senator and now Secretary of State Marker, Rubio, and also Saudi Arabia's possible aspirations for a nuclear weapon, and all that's stalled energy cooperation until now. Now, the US Energy Department argues this deal expands American technology exports,
and the agreement does tie the US and Saudi Arabia closer together at a time when Gulf states, including the kingdom of South, have really paid a price for aligning with the US, because they are still getting hit hard by Iranian drone and artillery strikes, and a war with Iran that the US started, and they're also dealing with the resulting economic shock, because Saudi Arabia has seen its ability to export oil curtailed.
Although Israel has never confirmed this, it's widely believed Israel has nuclear weapons already,
considering that you are there, and you said that it is in shock waves through Israel. What's up in the reaction there? Israel is a learn to say the least. Former Defense Minister and Foreign Minister, Avid Raleigh Rimming here criticized the secret event on the public broadcaster yesterday. This nuclear energy agreement is also deepening wars here in Israel,
which is a major American ally that Trump and therefore the US are increasing the divergent from Israel. A who Barack a former Prime Minister of Israel told the Army Run radio station this. He says it's a sign of the loss of trust between Netanyahu and Trump. The implication being that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu somehow messed up Israel's relationship with Trump.
“Okay, now one more thing Emily, considering that you're nearby, Iran, what's happening there?”
U.S. Central Command said it began strikes on Iranian military logistics sites for what has been almost two weeks running now. Iran says it targeted three U.S. bases in Kuwait, plus American military infrastructure in Jordan and Qatar. And President Trump is now saying he's aware of reports that Iran moved uranium enrichment centrifuges deep under a mountain,
Which he is warning the U.
And the U.S. Empire's Emily Fang, Emily, thank you very much. Thank you, A.
“President Trump is, once again, ramping up aggression toward Iran, threatening to bomb Iranian bridges and power plants,”
including ones near the capital city to Iran, and he's rejecting the idea of making another deal with Iran. Trump is selling the war as a success. He was in Marion, a Georgia yesterday. As well as Iran, America is back, it's stronger than ever before, and I'm telling you it's only going one way is going up. But support for Trump's actions abroad is going down even among his own supporters. And PR's Deepa Shiver, I'm joins us now, so let's start with a new polling out from political that shows up President Trump's own bases that are getting tired of the war.
Yeah, I mean, these polling numbers from July show some bad news for the president. Trump's MAGA base, whether the U.S. should continue the war, even if it increases costs, and just 37% said yes. And that number is down from two months before when the base was split on this 50/50. So there's a pretty significant decline here among the supporters who keep in mind back Trump staunchly. And of course, this is happening as costs continue to rise, right?
Gas prices are going up again. The inflation is up, and at the same time that Americans are struggling with these higher prices.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegsev said this week that the Iran war so far has cost 37.5 billion.
“That's what they'd be, which is pretty big for a price tag for a war that Trump said would end months ago.”
And, you know, not to mention American troops who have been killed and injured and action as well. How is the president addressing economic issues? Yeah, so Trump and his speech yesterday made one argument that I thought was kind of interesting. He was trying to set up almost a side by side comparison of the US's operations in Venezuela to Iran. So after US forces captured Venezuela and leader Nicholas Maduro earlier this year,
the US started to control Venezuela and oil exports. And the Trump administration says that the US is benefiting from this economically. Though I will say there isn't much transparency around that. So Trump is saying that operations in Venezuela basically have paid for themselves. And he's sort of trying to convince Americans that Iran will be something like that.
But it'll be worth it in the end. At the same time, though, he's also continuing to mock the idea that affordability is important. He's saying that he just inherited inflation and a bad economy from former president Biden. At the same time, he also did kind of ask for a bit of patience from voters and some time to try to lower costs. Oil will be coming.
It's going to be tumbling down. It was three weeks ago. He thought we had a deal. I said, I don't think we have a deal with these guys. They break every deal they make. But I said, you know, but people thought the geniuses on Wall Street came down really down and goes back up a little bit. But it's going to come down maybe lower than when we even started.
But just give me a little time. And that's something that President Trump has been asking Americans to give him time for a while now. It's just a party that was starting to run out of time before the midterm. So it's a president factoring that in at all. You know, it seems like no earlier this week, the president himself said that the midterm elections weren't a part of his decision making process on Iran. And it's putting members of his own party in a complicated position when addressing the president's economic agenda.
And it's not just with Iran. For example, Trump has recently announced more tariffs on Canada. And that's left Republicans in states like Maine trying to distance themselves from the president's plans. All right. That's NPR's Deepa Shiveram Deepa. Thank you very much. Thank you.
The house is on its way out the door for a month long break. Right after sending a few big pieces of legislation to the Senate, including some President Trump's priorities. The Senate is in Washington for one more week. And even though both chambers are controlled by Republicans,
they've been struggling to coordinate recently. NPR congressional reporter Eric McDaniel is in the studio to tell us more about this. So Eric, House Republicans just passed up a bunch of things as they prepared to go home. What did they take up? Yeah. It's been a week. They were a handful of things.
One, one trillion, one hundred billion dollars for the Pentagon.
A lot of money to an extension of government funding through the midterms to December 4th. Hopefully avoiding another shutdown. They were, of course, two record shutdowns so far at this congressional term. And three new congressional stock trading rules tied also to an unrelated voter ID measure.
“All right. So that's what the House did.”
What is the Senate going to vote on all of that? I guess the short answer is they're not really going to take up these things as written. They'll all need to be rewritten before they can pass the Senate. So because of a procedural quirk known as the filibuster, legislation in the Senate requires 60 votes to pass the chamber.
That means Democratic support is needed to. So as Trump escalates the war in Iran, all without congressional authorization,
As more American troops die and things keep getting more expensive at home,
Democrats oppose that annual Pentagon budget.
“This $1.1 trillion that's usually bipartisan.”
For the government funding extension, Democrats want to see concessions on the president's immigration enforcement operations like they have before on stock trading. Democrats say it isn't enough just to prohibit lawmakers from buying new stocks, which this bill does. In fact, lawmakers should be forced to divest holdings they have when they're elected.
They say that this bill has a loophole big enough to fly a Cotari jet through. Many Democrats also oppose the voter ID rules, but House Republicans also a passed a fourth thing this week. A budget framework, which is in theory,
has set up for an eventual reconciliation bill in a few months.
That would contain more money for the president's war in Iran,
for farmers, for his election overhaul bill, and it's actually exempt from that 60 vote threshold. Republicans don't need Democrats at all to pass that, but Senate Majority Leader John Thunes is holding off on passing it anyway. Okay, why?
Well, Thunes wants a government funding backup plan, if he can't strike a deal with Senate Democrats on keeping the government open past the midterm elections. And so he might decide that he wants to transform this party line reconciliation framework already passed by the House into a government funding bill.
Not to mention the bill has Trump's election overhaul wishlist tacked on the Save America Act, which, among other things, would ban mail invoting across the country and require proof of citizenship before you can register to vote. I should say that probably doesn't qualify under the rules to pass with just a simple majority and has already failed in the Senate several times.
So this is something I don't understand here, because Republicans control both chambers, the House and the Senate.
“So why are they on the same page when it comes to passing these bills?”
Yeah, they might be in the same building, but they're also kind of in totally different worlds. Speaker Mike Johnson has percentage wise a considerably smaller margin for error, maybe just a two vote majority at any given time, depending on absences.
He's got a large hard right flank to deal with and a closer relationship than John Thune with President Trump. Senate leader John Thune has to keep more Democrats on board for legislation and deal with generally more free agent free spirited set of legislators that kind that become U.S. senators.
So they're juggling a pretty different set of circumstances as they try and keep the plates spinning. So does that mean none of the bills become law? I guess not any time soon. The Senate will at least consider some of this before they leave town for recess next week,
“make their changes and send whatever they can pass back to the House.”
Speaker Mike Johnson, for his part, we'll see if his members can stomach those changes after the long August recess and they'll try again in the fall when you have me back. All right, perfect, make it a date. That's an MPR congressional reporter, Eric McDaniel, Eric Thanks.
Thank you.
And that's a first for Thursday, July 23rd of me Martinez.
And I'm Michelle Martin. Today's episode of First was edited by Tina Kraya, Rebecca Metzler, Jason Brustlow, Mohammed Elberg D.C. and Adriana Guerrilla. It was produced by Zayat Bunch and Nia Dumas.
Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Nisha Heines, our technical director of Stacey Abbott, and our deputy executive producer is Kelly Dickens. We hope you'll join us again tomorrow.
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