How an “iron river” of guns flows from the U.S. to Mexico

Summary

Apple News Today: Episode Summary – "How an 'Iron River' of Guns Flows from the U.S. to Mexico"

Release Date: February 13, 2025
Host: Shemitah Basu
Description: Join Shemitah Basu every weekday morning as she guides you through some of the most fascinating stories in the news — and how the world’s best journalists are covering them.

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1. The Battle Over the U.S. Department of Education

Overview:
The episode opens with a deep dive into the ongoing political struggle surrounding the U.S. Department of Education. President Trump's administration has been actively seeking to dismantle the department, a move that has significant implications for education policy in the United States.

Key Points:

• Linda McMahon’s Nomination:
  Linda McMahon, a billionaire known for leading WWE World Wrestling Entertainment, is the Trump nominee for Education Secretary. Her confirmation hearing took place on the day of the episode's release. McMahon, who has limited background in education, is expected to face scrutiny regarding her qualifications and the administration's plans to reduce the department's size.

  Quote:
  President Trump, responding to inquiries about closing the Department of Education immediately:
  “[00:01:45] “I’d like it to be closed immediately. Look, the Department of Education's a big con job.””

• Republican Efforts to Abolish the Department:
  The idea of eliminating the Department of Education has been a long-standing Republican objective, arguing that education should be managed at the state level. However, recent legislative efforts have stalled, with a notable vote last year where 60 Republicans joined all Democrats in opposing the abolition.

• Impact of Contract Cancellations:
  Education reporter Janaki Mehta highlights the cancellation of millions of dollars in contracts for ongoing projects, including those at the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). This has led to a loss of valuable research data crucial for parents, educators, and policymakers.

  Quote:
  Janaki Mehta:
  “[00:02:06] “It’s one of the country’s biggest funders of education research. And slashing this research could mean that the public... don’t have access to key data.””

• Potential Consequences:
  Programs assisting students in recovering math skills post-pandemic have been disrupted, raising concerns about the long-term effects on education quality.

  Quote:
  Meta Sources:
  “[00:02:27] “They have wasted millions of millions of dollars.””

2. The "Iron River" of Guns: U.S. Firearms Flowing into Mexico

Overview:
A significant focus of the episode is the alarming trend of American guns being smuggled into Mexico, a phenomenon described by the Wall Street Journal as the "Iron River."

Key Points:

• Magnitude of Gun Smuggling:
  Approximately 250,000 American firearms are estimated to cross into Mexico annually. This surge exacerbates the ongoing battle against drug cartels fueled by accessible weaponry.

  Quote:
  Zusha Ellenson, Wall Street Journal Reporter:
  “[00:04:46] “As we all know, Americans love their guns.””

• Mechanisms of Trafficking:
  The process involves "straw purchasers" who legally buy guns and then illegally transfer them to traffickers. These individuals often have clean criminal records but are financially vulnerable.

  Quote:
  Zusha Ellenson:
  “[00:06:07] “They say, can you go into this gun store and buy me a couple guns... These people are called straw purchasers.””

• Challenges in Enforcement:
  Despite a 2005 law shielding gun manufacturers from liability, Mexican authorities are taking unprecedented steps by suing American gun manufacturers and dealers, accusing them of turning a blind eye to illegal trafficking.

  Quote:
  Zusha Ellenson:
  “[00:05:42] “Gun makers argue they're shielded from responsibility by a 2005 law.””

• Border Security Issues:
  The ease with which guns are smuggled is partly due to inadequate screening at border crossings, compounded by fears of cartel retaliation against officials.

• Potential Solutions:
  Experts suggest increased vigilance at gun dealerships, improved criminal justice systems in Mexico to support investigations, and enhanced cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico to curb trafficking.

  Quote:
  Zusha Ellenson:
  “[00:07:08] “More needs to be done to pay attention to gun dealers along the border.””

3. President Trump's Attempt to Rename the Gulf of Mexico

Overview:
In a controversial move, President Trump issued an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, igniting debates over sovereignty and international naming conventions.

Key Points:

• Legal Authority and Pushback:
  While Trump can mandate the change on U.S. official maps, other nations are not obliged to adopt the new nomenclature. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum strongly opposed the change, labeling it slanderous and inappropriate.

  Quote:
  Claudia Sheinbaum:
  “[00:09:34] “Honestly, it’s wrong because the Gulf of Mexico will always be the Gulf of Mexico.””

• Public Reaction:
  Reactions in Mexico were largely negative, whereas some in the U.S. welcomed the change, highlighting a divide in public opinion.

  Quotes:
  Mexican Local Resident:
  “[00:09:34] “Honestly, it’s wrong because the Gulf of Mexico will always be the Gulf of Mexico.””
  U.S. Local Resident:
  “[00:09:52] “I’ve been spending every Fourth of July... it would be great to spend 4th of July on the Gulf of America.””

• Media and Technology Response:
  Major map services like Google Maps and Apple Maps have begun implementing the name change in certain regions, while others like MapQuest have not. The Associated Press faced repercussions, with Trump barring its reporters from the Oval Office for adhering to the traditional name.

• Historical Context:
  The episode contextualizes the naming dispute by referencing historical and ongoing global disagreements over geographical names, such as the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf.

4. Additional Washington D.C. News

Overview:
Besides the main stories, the episode covers several other noteworthy developments in Washington D.C.

Key Points:

• Federal Employees' Deferred Resignation Program:
  A federal judge lifted the pause on Trump's deferred resignation program amidst legal challenges from government employee unions. The administration swiftly closed the program after 65,000 workers had accepted offers.

• Cash Patel’s FBI Nomination Under Scrutiny:
  Senator Dick Durbin accused Cash Patel, Trump’s nominee for FBI Director, of possible perjury regarding his role in purging employees linked to Trump investigations. Patel's spokesperson dismissed the claims as "secondhand gossip," while Durbin has called for a Department of Justice investigation.

  Quote:
  Janaki Mehta:
  “[00:12:12] “Are you aware of any plans or discussions to punish in any way...””
  Unnamed Local Resident (Responding to Durbin):
  “[00:12:22] “I am not aware of that, Senator.””

  Additional Insight:
  Lying under oath is a federal crime, but prosecutions are rare. The Senate was set to vote on Patel’s nomination during the episode.

• Trump’s Takeover of the Kennedy Center:
  President Trump was installed as the new chairman of the Kennedy Center, leading to significant changes including the firing of President Deborah Rutter and the appointment of Richard Grinnell as interim president. This move has sparked controversy and led to the resignation of notable figures like Ben Folds, Shonda Rhimes, and Renee Fleming.

  Quote:
  Shemitah Basu:
  “[00:10:02] “Trump had a contentious relationship with the Kennedy center... it's not going to be woke.””

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Conclusion

Shemitah Basu effectively navigates through a multitude of pressing issues, from the intricacies of gun trafficking affecting U.S.-Mexico relations to high-stakes political maneuvers within the Trump administration. The episode highlights the complexity of policy changes and their far-reaching impacts on society, education, international relations, and governance.

For more detailed coverage and ongoing updates, listeners are encouraged to follow the Apple News app and subscribe to the Apple News Today podcast.

Transcript

[Shemitah Basu]

Good morning. It's Thursday, February 13th. I'm Shemitah Basu. This is Apple News Today. On today's show, as America battles the flow of fentanyl from across the border, Mexico is fighting the flow of American guns. Some maps have officially adopted the name the Gulf of America. And Trump assumes a new title as chair of the Kennedy Center. But first, President Trump's nominee for education secretary might end up leading a department that's on the administration's cutting block. Linda McMahon's confirmation hearing is today. She'll field questions from senators in the Health, Education, labor and Pensions Committee. At the same time, Trump and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency are working to shrink the Department of Ed. Here's Trump yesterday answering a reporter who asked, how soon do you want the Department of Education to be closed? Oh, I'd like it to be closed immediately. Look, the Department of Education's a big con job. Shutting down the department altogether would require congressional approval. It's an idea that's been floated by Republicans for decades. As long as the Department of Education has existed, many have argued education policy should be handled entirely at the state level. But recent efforts have failed. And in a vote last year, 60 Republicans joined every single Democrat in voting against abolishing the department. Janaki Mehta is an education reporter at npr, and she told us millions of dollars worth of contracts for projects that were already underway have been canceled, including at the Institute of Education Sciences, or ies.

[Janaki Mehta]

It's one of the country's biggest funders of education research. And slashing this research could mean that the public so parents, educators, students, policymakers, district officials, they don't have access to key data about things like student achievement, enrollment, school safety, teaching strategies that help students, you name it.

[Shemitah Basu]

According to META sources who have insight into these canceled contracts, at least one program was already being used in classrooms to help students make up lost ground in math, which schools have struggled to make progress on since the pandemic. An employee of IES told Meta they don't understand how Musk can defend the cancellations as being efficient.

[Janaki Mehta]

The way one of them put it is that by canceling these contracts, they have, in the words of this employee, have wasted millions of millions of dollars.

[Shemitah Basu]

McMahon could face questions about this from senators today, along with questions about her limited background in education. She is a billionaire best known for leading WWE World Wrestling Entertainment, but she served on Connecticut's state Board of for about a year before joining the first Trump administration. As the head of the Small Business Administration, Mehta spoke with some of McMahon's former colleagues from the SBA who praised her work.

[Janaki Mehta]

They told me that she was a really sharp leader who had an eye for bringing efficiency to the public sector. So if she's confirmed, we'll wait and see how those skills might translate to what she's stepping into.

[Shemitah Basu]

McMahon has recently voiced support for expanding school choice at the K through 12 level and providing more transparency in curricula in higher education. She supports alternatives to college degrees like apprenticeships, which has bipartisan support. And according to the Washington Post, in her previous role on the Connecticut Board of Education, she supported diversity and equity initiatives, which marks a significant divergence from the president's education policy. So far, all of Trump's nominees to cabinet positions have been confirmed by the Senate, including Tulsi Gabbard to lead national intelligence. It was confirmed yesterday when President Trump pulled back from his threat of 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico. He said Mexico must beef up security along the border to stop the flow of illegal drugs like fentanyl into the U.S. trump even suggested the Mexican government is allied with drug cartels, a claim Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum rejected as slander. She also brought up an issue that often goes overlooked in the battle against drug traffickers. And it's not what flows from Mexico to the US but the other way around. The Wall Street Journal reports a quarter million American guns are estimated to be smuggled into Mexico every year. It happens so reliably and so quickly. In fact, it's been dubbed the Iron River.

[Zusha Ellenson]

As we all know, Americans love their guns.

[Shemitah Basu]

Zusha Ellenson is a national reporter who covers guns and crime for the Wall Street Journal.

[Zusha Ellenson]

Gunmakers sold about 87 million firearms on the US commercial market over the past five years. That's a lot of guns, but the problem is not all of them stay here. Quite a few get smuggled out to other countries where it's hard to buy guns. We talked to one former ATF official who described the US as the biggest gun supermarket in the Western Hemisphere.

[Shemitah Basu]

Mexican officials say this is a long standing problem. The journal reports about 70% of guns traced from crime scenes in Mexico between 2014 and 2018 came from the US that's led Mexico to take a new.

[Zusha Ellenson]

Approach, and that's suing gun manufacturers in America and gun dealers. And they allege that these gun dealers and gun manufacturers are turning a blind eye to smugglers because they make so much money off the guns.

[Shemitah Basu]

Ellenson says US gun makers argue they're shielded from responsibility by a 2005 law that says they can't be held liable if their guns are used in a crime. And since they manufacture and sell guns legally in the US they're not responsible for how cartels get them or what they do with them. Ellenson told us smuggling weapons from the US Into Mexico is a very easy, very straightforward crime.

[Zusha Ellenson]

The gun traffickers or cartels, they find someone who can pass a background check. In the US that means someone who has no criminal record, sometimes like a single mom who needs some cash, someone with some medical bills who needs some cash. They say, can you go into this gun store and buy me a couple guns and we'll pay you like 1000 bucks? These people are called straw purchasers. They at some point give it to the trafficker. The trafficker drives it across the border into Mexico. And you may think that would be a hard thing to do. It is not hard to do.

[Shemitah Basu]

The Journal reports cars headed into Mexico are rarely screened by border officials, partly because of fears that cartels will retaliate against those officials if the flow of weapons stops. In 2022, Congress passed a law enhancing penalties for so called straw purchasers, people who buy guns to be trafficked. But Ellenson reports prosecutors are reluctant to go after people in difficult financial situations who don't have criminal records. But Ellenson also says a lot can be done to prevent trafficking on both sides of the border.

[Zusha Ellenson]

People who study this issue, they say that more needs to be done to pay attention to gun dealers along the border to make sure they're keeping a good eye out for people who might be buying guns for traffickers. These folks who study the issue also say it would be good for Mexico to strengthen its criminal justice system so that they could really assist in investigations into gun trafficking. We spoke to former federal agents who said it's quite difficult to pursue investigations down in Mexico because of the corruption in the ranks of police there.

[Shemitah Basu]

When President Trump issued an executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico, which has been called that for more than 400 years, to the Gulf of America, it raised a bunch of questions like, is he allowed to unilaterally decide something like that? And do other governments have to follow Trump's lead? Trump has the power to order changes to geographical names as they're used on official US Maps. But he can't force other governments to adopt those changes. There's really no official agreed upon system used to name boundaries and geographical features on our planet. In fact, there's a long history of government disputes over how bodies of water in particular are named. NPR cites a few famous examples. There's the sea south of China, which is known to much of the world as the South China Sea. In Vietnam, it's the Eastern Sea. The Philippines has designated parts of it as the West Philippine Sea. Another example is the water that separates the Arabian Peninsula from Iran, which much of the world calls the Persian Gulf, while Arab nations in the region call it the Arabian Gulf. But back to the gulf in question. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum rejected the name change and encouraged other countries to join her. She said it's not up to one country to decide what to call an international body of water. And she jokingly shot back at the president that she might start calling North America Mexican America. As she stood before a map from the early 1600s that shows North America was once labeled that way. Some Mexican citizens expressed similar takes. Reuters spoke to one man on the coast shortly after Trump made his announcement.

[Unnamed Local Resident]

Honestly, it's wrong because the Gulf of Mexico will always be the Gulf of Mexico. That's the way it is and it doesn't need to change.

[Shemitah Basu]

The AP also went to the gulf to speak to some locals on the US Side. One man said his family had a long history of being out on boats in the area, and he welcomes the change.

[Unnamed Local Resident]

I've been spending every Fourth of July, just about of my whole life on the Gulf of Mexico, and it would be great to spend 4th of July on the Gulf of America. Sounds sounds like fun.

[Shemitah Basu]

Wired has been reporting on how digital maps are handling Trump's order on Google Maps. Users in the United States now see this body of water labeled as the Gulf of America. Google users in Mexico see the Gulf of Mexico and users outside of those countries see both names listed. Apple Maps renamed it to Gulf of America for all users worldwide, and Bing took a similar position. But MapQuest and a number of map services run by other countries have not made the change. Media companies are in a similar gray area, and the Trump administration has already taken action against those unwilling to comply. The president barred reporters with the Associated Press from the Oval Office this week after the organization decided to officially continue using the Gulf of Mexico. While also acknowledging Trump's preferred name, Gulf of America, the AP called it a plain violation of their First Amendment rights. Before we let you go, a few other stories out of Washington that we're following. A federal judge lifted the pause on President Trump's deferred resignation program for federal employees, and the Trump administration quickly closed the offer to any more workers who might have been considering it. The program had been halted since last Thursday after unions representing government employees sued, saying Trump didn't have the authority to offer such buyouts. Yesterday, the judge decided the unions lacked the legal standing to bring the suit. According to the White House, at the time when the program was frozen last week, 65,000 workers had accepted the deal. In other D.C. news, a top Democrat in the Senate says Cash Patel, Trump's nominee to lead the FBI, may have perjured himself during his confirmation hearing. Illinois Senator Dick Durbin is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He says he's received credible evidence that Patel has been personally directing a purge of employees at the bureau before being confirmed by the Senate in his hearing. When New Jersey Senator Cory Booker brought up the topic, here's how it went.

[Janaki Mehta]

Are you aware of any plans or discussions to punish in any way, including termination FBI agents or personnel associated with Trump investigations?

[Unnamed Local Resident]

I am not aware of that, Senator.

[Shemitah Basu]

Cnbc notes lying to Congress under oath or not, is a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison, but charges are rarely filed. In response to Durbin's accusation, a Patel spokesperson dismissed it as, quote, secondhand gossip. Durbin has asked the DOJ to investigate. The Senate votes today on whether to move Patel's nomination forward. And finally, the board of the Kennedy center installed President Trump as its new chairman, carrying out a plan that Trump announced last week to take over the historic arts institution. The board also fired President Deborah Rutter and appointed Richard Grinnell, former acting director of national intelligence, as its interim president. Trump had a contentious relationship with the Kennedy center, bucking the tradition of attending the institution's honors ceremony during his first term. Trump said he was remaking the center because we didn't like what they were showing and said it's not going to be woke. CNN reports Trump replaced all board members appointed by Democratic presidents with his own appointees. The move also prompted musician Ben Folds to step away as an artistic advisor. Television producer Shonda Rhimes and opera singer Renee Fleming also resigned Their the Kennedy center is funded by a mix of government dollars, ticket sales and private donations. You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And if you're already listening in the News app right now, we've got a narrated article coming up next. More and more people are expected to travel further into space in the coming years. The New Yorker asks, is deep space something the human body can handle? If you're listening in the podcast app, follow Apple News plus narrated to find that story. And I'll be back with the news tomorrow.