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- [00:05]
Cecilia Ley
Good morning. Trump claims this is why talks with Iran are frozen.
- [00:10]
Donald Trump
They want to make a deal. We have been speaking to them, but they don't even know who's leading the country. They're in turmoil.
- [00:17]
Cecilia Ley
The Associated Press looks at who's really running the country right now. The Pope concludes his marathon tour of Africa. His biographer, NPR's Scott Detrow, explains how the pontiffs juggled his visit with attacks from the White House. And a soldier involved in the capture of Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro is charged after betting big sums on the former president's Fate. It's Friday, April 24th. I'm Cecilia Ley and this is Apple News. Today, Shoot to kill was President Trump's order yesterday against any Iranian vessel laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz. Both the US And Iran have competing blockades in place, cutting off the world from a vital waterway for oil supplies. Their operations also appear to be stalling negotiations for now, as each side seize and intercept cargoes in displays of force. Yesterday, when asked for a timeline on ending the war with Iran, Trump said, don't rush me. And he blamed faltering talks on the state of the Iranian leadership.
- [01:22]
Donald Trump
Their leaders are gone. You know, the leaders are all gone. Part of the problem is that that's why I can't really answer your question. They have all new leadership and they're fighting like cats and dogs for who's going to control because we've created a real mess for them.
- [01:38]
Cecilia Ley
As AP's Middle East Enterprise editor Lee Keith told us, it's notoriously difficult to work out what's really going on inside the regime's elite.
- [01:47]
Lee Keith
It's always been a very factional system. You have a lot of moving parts in the way just the Islamic Republic works in terms of rule and governance and decision making.
- [01:58]
Cecilia Ley
It's become even more unpredictable following the killing of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His son has not been seen or heard since being named successor, and he's believed to be seriously injured. Keith described a kind of group decision making process in Iran, including civilian and military officials in the Supreme National Security Council. Even as new figures have emerged there, he says there's been more continuity than Trump suggests.
- [02:25]
Lee Keith
One thing to point out is that in a lot of ways, the system has retained a lot of cohesion and a lot of unity. I mean, I think in a lot of ways, the system has held together. There are hopes in the US And Israel that if Khamenei and the others were killed, it would fall apart. That hasn't happened.
- [02:43]
Cecilia Ley
Still, as negotiations have stopped and started, that cohesion has become a bit trickier, Keith says. This weekend there were signs of confusion. Iran's foreign minister initially announced on social media that the Strait of Hormuz was opening to commercial traffic as part of the ceasefire agreement with the US Only for it to close again the next day in retaliation for a U.S. blockade. Keith said the foreign minister's post drew criticism from hardliners, with some viewing it as offering a unilateral concession. The moment highlighted a challenge for Iranian leadership going forward.
- [03:16]
Lee Keith
The council is quite unified in this stance of, first of all, we're not opening the strait as long as the blockade is going on, but in the bigger terms of what they're looking for in negotiations is they want a deal that will sort of end this conflict with the US from their perception. They've been negotiating with the US Several times over the nuclear program, and they came under attack twice from the US that's their sort of view of what happened. They want to guarantee it won't happen again.
- [03:43]
Cecilia Ley
The United States appears to be negotiating directly with Mohamed Bahr Halibaf, the speaker of Iran's parliament. The New York Times reports that recently he said that the U.S. proposal for a peace deal, as well as Iran's response, had been shared with the supreme leader.
- [03:58]
Lee Keith
He's led the negotiating team that Iran sent to Islamabad that met with the Americans several weeks ago, and presumably if the negotiations resume, he would also head that team again. But I think it's important to say that right now this council sort of has to work by consensus. No one is going to break ranks with anyone else on negotiating positions or anything like that.
- [04:22]
Cecilia Ley
Halibaf, the AP writes, has relationships with the Khamenei family and is close to senior military figures who have stepped in to replace top leaders killed by Israeli strikes. He's well positioned to shore up support within Iran for a deal and defend himself against criticism from those who don't want to compromise.
- [04:39]
Lee Keith
There are hardliners who don't want to give up anything. There are hardliners who realize the need to make some concessions. There's a strong feeling as well that Iran has the upper hand in this conflict and they shouldn't make concessions easily. They feel that they can outlast the US in terms of economic damage to either side. So you have these very various opinions within the leadership. So that makes the negotiating process very delicate.
- [05:06]
Cecilia Ley
While negotiations with Iran seem to be on ice, Lebanon and Israel extended their ceasefire yesterday after talks at the Oval Office. Pope Leo XIV wrapped up his tour of Africa yesterday with a Mass and plenty of celebrations to a crowd of 100,000 in Equatorial Guinea. And in his last press conference before returning home, he ended it as he began speaking frankly about the war with Iran. The Pope said as head of the Catholic Church and as a pastor, he couldn't support the war and urged the US And Iran to resume negotiations. It was actually a wide ranging and revealing press conference. The Pope condemned capital punishment and said the church's teachings on morality shouldn't revolve around issues like same sex marriage. He also revealed he carries a photo of a Muslim Lebanese boy killed during Israel's recent conflict with Hezbollah. Trump's attacks on the pope have pitted the two against each other in media coverage, but he has made it clear he's not seeking confrontation.
- [06:25]
Scott Detrow
In his mind, he's not fighting with Donald Trump. He was like, look, you're presenting this as me versus the president. I've got other stuff to do.
- [06:31]
Cecilia Ley
That's Scott Detrow, a host of NPR's All Things Considered and the author of an upcoming biography on the pope. He's the guest on this week's episode of Apple News and Conversation. The pope appears to be popular among his fellow American citizens. Guest host Sam Sanders asked Detrow why he thought his words were resonating.
- [06:51]
Scott Detrow
So far, Pope Leo has really tried to be right down the middle and to bring conservatives along and to bring liberals along, and he succeeded at doing that. You know, he has a lot of the same kind of policy goals as Pope Francis before Iran. He was really outspoken on immigration and saying that the Trump administration policy was wrong and immoral. But at the same time, he knows a lot of conservatives, a lot of traditionalist Catholics and care about the traditions, care about the ceremonies, care about like the pomp and circumstances of the Mass. And you see him kind of wear the more formal vestments and take part in the more kind of high Mass type ceremonies. He's got really high approval ratings from all aspects of the church.
- [07:32]
Cecilia Ley
Some of the country's top institutions have many prominent Catholic members among their senior ranks. Six of the nine Supreme Court justices are Catholic. So are Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And Vice President J.D. vance, who's a convert. Leo's rising popularity also comes as President Trump's is currently slumping. A new Reuters Ipsos poll this week shows that while 36% of Americans approve of Trump's job performance, 60% approve of the Pope's. Detrow says Leo, unlike other popes, has a unique perspective on American politics.
- [08:08]
Scott Detrow
Pope Leo has voted in presidential elections. He has written letters to governors. He's somebody who gets the system, and I think that's different. And I think the fact that he will go to a microphone and a camera and speak in English because he's fluent in multiple languages, I think he's doing that knowing that that's going to register when he wants to speak out. He knows how to say it in a way that people in America are going to pay attention.
- [08:29]
Cecilia Ley
If you're in the Apple News app, our full episode of In Conversation with Scott Detrow is queued up to play for you next. The race for California governor has been an unpredictable and unwieldy contest. It was further upended after a Democratic frontrunner, Eric Swalwell, was forced to withdraw over allegations of sexual assault.
- [08:57]
Melanie Mason
I kind of think of it as almost like jumbling a box of blocks and then just like throwing them all outside. It is so unbelievable how much it's reshaped it.
- [09:05]
Cecilia Ley
Melanie Mason is POLITICO's California Bureau Chief. She says the state's Democrats are still grappling with the scandal's fallout. There are still a lot of candidates in the running, and that's made it hard for voters to engage with the race. But Swalwell's departure has garnered a lot of attention.
- [09:21]
Melanie Mason
What the Swalwell controversy did is it actually reminded people that there's a governor's race going on. And I think that this was maybe the precipitating event that is going to get people to tune in.
- [09:30]
Cecilia Ley
Voters had a chance to do just that. This week. Candidates participated in the first televised debate since Swalwell dropped out. Two Republicans and four Democrats shared the stage on Wednesday in what some observers called a fairly tame faceoff. Javier Becerra is arguably the candidate most steeped in current state politics. He was a California congressman for 14 years and a state attorney general.
- [09:54]
Melanie Mason
So that is quite a lot of experience. And he is also Latino. I mean, this is a state where Latinos are a very important voting bloc. And he has the potential to make history as the first Latino governor in modern California history.
- [10:06]
Cecilia Ley
There's some anecdotal evidence that he might have picked up some support with Swalwell gone. But his former role as chair of the Democratic caucus also led to questions about what he knew about the behavior of the disgraced former congressman.
- [10:19]
Javier Becerra
You hear rumors all the time about all sorts of things. Rumors are not facts. And the Democratic caucus is not a place that adjudicates those things. It's law enforcement that does. If someone had come forward, we could then have investigations. I say that as the former attorney general for the state of California, the
- [10:35]
Cecilia Ley
debate failed to land any major blows, and Becerra still has three candidates very much in the fight. Tom Steyer, the billionaire backed by some prominent progressive groups, has led the Democratic pack in some polls. He faced some criticism from his competitors during the debate over his business interests and hedge fund investments. And Matt Mahan, the mayor of San Jose and a former Silicon Valley entrepreneur, defended his ties to tech as he looks to stand apart as a moderate in a field dominated by progressives. Katie Porter, meanwhile, said she stood out from the rest as, quote, a mom fighting for a better future. The former congresswoman rose to fame with combative performances on Capitol Hill over inequality. But her campaign stumbled a bit after she was seen shouting at a staffer in a viral an issue that the moderator raised in the debate. What would you tell your own kids
- [11:24]
Scott Detrow
if they ever faced a boss like that?
- [11:26]
Cecilia Ley
You have 60 seconds. I apologized that day to that staffer four years ago. And I took responsibility then and I have taken responsibility since, acknowledging that it was not the right way to treat someone. California's primary system advances the top two candidates, regardless of the party. So if people don't start dropping out of the race soon, the blue vote could split multiple ways. That means there's a small chance a Republican could end up on the ballot for November. Two were on the debate stage this week, Sheriff Chad Bianco and Fox News presenter Steve Hilton. The latter has Trump's endorsement, something Hilton argued was a virtue.
- [12:05]
Lee Keith
And here's the thing that's going to
- [12:07]
Cecilia Ley
help every Californian when I'm governor is
- [12:11]
Lee Keith
that we will have a constructive relationship
- [12:14]
Cecilia Ley
and partnership with the federal government so that we can make things better in California. Ultimately, the debate spotlighted how hard it's been for any candidate to separate themselves from the pack.
- [12:26]
Melanie Mason
What I would like to see, both as a political journalist and as a resident of California, is to move beyond the introduction stage and into the what will you do as governor of California? Stage. I think that because this race has been so sluggish and because it's been so weird, I think that we haven't necessarily seen a real robust conversation about the vision of the next governor.
- [12:56]
Cecilia Ley
And to a few other stories we're following. A U.S. special Forces soldier involved in the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has been charged with using inside information to bet on his future. According to the indictment, Gannon Ken Van dyke turned about $34,000 in wagers into more than $400,000 in profit after U.S. forces entered Venezuel January. He now faces charges including commodities fraud, wire fraud, theft and using confidential government information for personal gain. Reuters reports that it's believed to be the first Justice Department insider trading case tied to prediction market betting. The case comes as lawmakers raise concerns about government employees using sensitive information to profit from event betting platforms. The Department of Justice's watchdog says it will audit the department's compliance with a law passed by Congress that required the release of the Epstein files. The investigation will examine how the DOJ reviewed and redacted the documents. The Washington Post notes that the department struggled to release the files by the deadline imposed by the law and that it faced criticism for questionable redactions, including mistakes which revealed private information about some of the victims. There have also been questions about whether the names of Epstein's powerful friends were withheld. The department has always maintained that it has been in compliance and did not conceal any information. The acting DOJ inspector general said a full report on his office's findings will be released after the audit and the high costs of things like groceries and gas have led some people to get pretty creative about saving money. For some Americans, when it comes to having a night out on the town, it's that means resorting to a tried and true budgeting hack, pre gaming. That strategy, often employed by college students trying to pinch pennies, means downing a few drinks at home or a friend's house before going out. According to the Wall Street Journal, nearly a third of a thousand people in one survey said they now pre drink to avoid paying higher prices for drinks. Currently, the average price of a cocktail in America is $13.61, but in cities like New York, that's much higher. Big drink brands are also getting in on the pre gaming trend. They're selling smaller bottles to lower prices and make it easier to drink on the go. There's an art to pre gaming, though. One person interviewed by the Journal gave one valuable tip. Drink just enough to have a buzz but not be intoxicated. After all, you still have to make it past security. And just before we let you go, our interview show Apple News and Conversation is working on an episode about men in America today and how commonly held ideas about masculinity conflict with lived experiences. We want to hear from you. Tell us about a moment when you might have felt that conflict in life. Record a message with your name, where you're from and your story. Send it to us@inconversationpl.com and we might include your voice on the show. Enjoy the weekend, and I'll be back with the news on Monday.