Full Transcript for 12.2.25

percent steak plus the 65 00:04:22.360 --> 00:04:26.240 right to an additional seven point five percent steak. Vulcan 66 00:04:26.319 --> 00:04:31.720 Elements fifty million dollars. Fifty million dollar equity Vulcan elements 67 00:04:31.720 --> 00:04:35.079 again six hundred and twenty six hundred and twenty million dollars. 68 00:04:35.639 --> 00:04:40.120 Write to future stock purchase at a set price Westinghouse 69 00:04:40.439 --> 00:04:43.800 not available. What America gets is an option to take 70 00:04:43.839 --> 00:04:48.199 eight percent steak and US steel the cost also not available, 71 00:04:48.680 --> 00:04:52.439 and they get US gets a golden chair. The effort 72 00:04:52.439 --> 00:04:56.279 appears mostly driven by national security concerns, particularly a desire 73 00:04:56.279 --> 00:04:59.680 for the government to prop up strategic injuries industries, and 74 00:04:59.800 --> 00:05:03.120 let in America's reliance on foreign countries like China for 75 00:05:03.199 --> 00:05:06.800 key resources. Some officials are hopeful the equity stakes will 76 00:05:06.839 --> 00:05:10.040 generate a windfall for taxpayers, but the likelihood of that 77 00:05:10.120 --> 00:05:13.879 is unclear. Many of the companies are facing financial headwinds, 78 00:05:13.920 --> 00:05:17.800 and some could take years to become profitable. The unusual 79 00:05:17.839 --> 00:05:21.399 government intervention into the private market is fueling some concerns, 80 00:05:21.600 --> 00:05:25.519 including the opacity or opacity of the process, the potential 81 00:05:25.560 --> 00:05:29.920 for favoritism, corruption, and market distortions, along with the possible 82 00:05:29.959 --> 00:05:34.199 loss of taxpayer funds should the investments fail. Aaron Bartnik, 83 00:05:34.240 --> 00:05:37.040 a fellow at Columbia University and a former Biden White 84 00:05:37.040 --> 00:05:40.120 House official, said there were serious questions about whether the 85 00:05:40.160 --> 00:05:44.439 government role in private industry would address national security vulnerabilities 86 00:05:44.480 --> 00:05:48.879 and deliver a return on taxpayer dollars. In the abbtence 87 00:05:48.920 --> 00:05:52.360 of a clearly articulated strategy, he said, the concern was 88 00:05:52.399 --> 00:05:55.800 that this could just devolve to arbitrary deals that favor 89 00:05:55.839 --> 00:06:00.720 friends or disfavor foes. Cush De Sigh, a White House spokesman, 90 00:06:01.120 --> 00:06:06.439 defended the administration's approach. If business as usual policies worked, 91 00:06:06.519 --> 00:06:11.439 America would not be reliant on foreign countries for critical minerals, semiconductors, 92 00:06:11.480 --> 00:06:13.560 and other products that are key for our national and 93 00:06:13.639 --> 00:06:17.879 economic security, he said in a statement. The administration's targeted 94 00:06:17.920 --> 00:06:21.160 equity stakes ensure that taxpayers get a good bargain and 95 00:06:21.240 -->

00:06:25.480 that the ball meaningfully moves forward to encourage further investment 96 00:06:25.519 --> 00:06:29.480 by the private sector. Prior administrations have tried to spend 97 00:06:29.480 --> 00:06:34.279 the development of sectors like semiconductors in clean energy with grants, loans, tariffs, 98 00:06:34.319 --> 00:06:37.879 and other policies, but taking equity stakes in companies is 99 00:06:37.920 --> 00:06:41.759 incredibly rare. During the two thousand and eight financial crisis, 100 00:06:41.759 --> 00:06:44.639 the government took over shares and companies that were faltering 101 00:06:44.680 --> 00:06:48.480 or whose collapse posed broader financial risks, including General Motors 102 00:06:48.480 --> 00:06:53.199 and Chrysler, along with the giant insurer AIG. The Trump 103 00:06:53.240 --> 00:06:57.240 administration has taken a more aggressive and opportunistic tag. Trump 104 00:06:57.240 --> 00:07:00.399 officials have proposed establishing new price floors form mens minerals 105 00:07:00.399 --> 00:07:03.800 to help America American firms remain competitive in the face 106 00:07:03.839 --> 00:07:07.680 of cheap Chinese air imports. They have also discussed taking 107 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:11.079 a cut of certain export revenues. In addition to building 108 00:07:11.120 --> 00:07:16.600 a growing portfolio of equity ownership, The approach contradicts traditional 109 00:07:16.639 --> 00:07:19.160 Republican thinking about the power of the free market to 110 00:07:19.240 --> 00:07:22.720 identify winners and losers, but officials in both parties have 111 00:07:22.800 --> 00:07:26.639 become more supportive of industrial policy and government intervention in 112 00:07:26.720 --> 00:07:30.639 recent years. That shift has been brought by China's dominance 113 00:07:30.680 --> 00:07:33.879 of strategic industries and accelerated by its move to clamp 114 00:07:33.920 --> 00:07:37.879 down on exports of minerals needed to make planes, semiconductors, 115 00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:40.720 robots and cars this year as part of a trade 116 00:07:40.720 --> 00:07:45.920 clash with Washington. Daniel Kishi, a policy adviser and American Compass, 117 00:07:45.959 --> 00:07:49.680 a conservative think tank that supports industrial policy, said that 118 00:07:49.720 --> 00:07:53.279 concerns about intervening in markets rested on a flawed premise. 119 00:07:54.040 --> 00:07:57.519 Markets have already been significantly distorted by Chinese subsidies and 120 00:07:57.560 --> 00:08:02.040 Beijing's efforts to monopolize global industries, he said, necessitating US 121 00:08:02.120 --> 00:08:06.360 government intervention. We need an industrial policy of our own 122 00:08:06.399 --> 00:08:11.199 to combat the predation of our trading partners. Mister Kishi said, 123 00:08:11.800 --> 00:08:15.240 like past administrations, TRUMP officials have continued taking stakes and 124 00:08:15.279 --> 00:08:20.279 companies through the US International Development Finance Corporation, which finances 125 00:08:20.319 --> 00:08:24.040 private sector projects around the world. Over the past five years, 126 00:08:24.040 --> 00:08:27.480 the Development Corporation has invested in dozens of international funds 127 00:08:27.480 --> 00:08:31.439 and companies, but the Trump administration has begun using other 128 00:08:31.480 --> 00:08:34.840 agencies to take equity stakes as well. Many of the 129 00:08:34.879 --> 00:08:38.759 minerals investments are being made through the Defense Department, which 130 00:08:38.759 --> 00:08:41.600 has tried to develop sources of rare earths outside of China. 131 00:08:42.440 --> 00:08:46.000 Some deals involved the Defense Department's Office of Strategic Capital, 132 00:08:46.159 --> 00:08:48.799 which was set up in twenty twenty two and received 133 00:08:48.799 --> 00:08:52.159 additional funding through the Trump backed Tax and Spending Law 134 00:08:52.240 --> 00:08:56.279 passed this year, to invest in critical minerals, shipbold, shipbuilding, 135 00:08:56.360 --> 00:09:00.960 and other strategic sectors. The Energy Department has leveraged loan 136 00:09:01.000 --> 00:09:04.039 programs created in the Biden administration to take equity and 137 00:09:04.120 --> 00:09:07.600 mineral companies. The Commerce Department has also used its control 138 00:09:07.639 --> 00:09:11.039 of a Biden era semiconductor fund and investments from foreign 139 00:09:11.120 --> 00:09:16.200 countries to begin building a portfolio. The administration's first significant 140 00:09:16.200 --> 00:09:18.840 investment took place in June, when it acquired a golden 141 00:09:18.840 --> 00:09:22.440 share in U S Steel in exchange for allowing Japan's 142 00:09:22.519 --> 00:09:27.200 Niphon Steel to buy the iconic firm. Administration official officials 143 00:09:27.200 --> 00:09:30.399 demanded a non financial stake that would give them veto 144 00:09:30.519 --> 00:09:35.240 power over certain company decisions like moving factories offshore. When 145 00:09:35.360 --> 00:09:38.639 U S Steel planned to close a facility in Granite City, Illinois, 146 00:09:39.039 --> 00:09:43.200 earlier this year, the government used its influence to intervene. 147 00:09:43.399 --> 00:09:45.639 In July, the Defense Department agreed to take a four 148 00:09:45.720 --> 00:09:49.440 hundred million dollar stake in MP Materials, a mining company 149 00:09:49.440 --> 00:09:52.200 that has struggled to turn profits amid tough price pressures 150 00:09:52.399 --> 00:09:55.799 from China. A month later, the Commerce Department became the 151 00:09:55.879 --> 00:09:59.279 largest shareholder of Intel, the beleaguered U S Chip chiant. 152 00:10:00.039 --> 00:10:02.840 A public filing from the Office of Government Ethics shows 153 00:10:02.879 --> 00:10:06.559 that shortly after that agreement was made, President Trump personally 154 00:10:06.559 --> 00:10:10.039 purchased between one million and

five million dollars of Intel's 155 00:10:10.039 --> 00:10:14.480 corporate debt. The government's equity deals gained speed as China's 156 00:10:14.519 --> 00:10:18.600 export curves intensified, putting America's access to critical minerals and 157 00:10:18.639 --> 00:10:22.200 magnets at risk. In October and November, the government made 158 00:10:22.200 --> 00:10:26.200 a spate of investments with companies specializing in rare earths. 159 00:10:26.840 --> 00:10:29.679 In October, the Commerce Department also gained the option to 160 00:10:29.679 --> 00:10:33.440 take an eight percent stake in Westinghouse, the nuclear power company. 161 00:10:34.120 --> 00:10:37.200 The Commerce Department will help facilitate the construction of nuclear 162 00:10:37.240 --> 00:10:42.000 reactors across the United states, if Westinghouse's valuation reaches thirty 163 00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:44.759 billion dollars, the government can require it to carry out 164 00:10:45.039 --> 00:10:47.720 an initial public offering, with the right to purchase a 165 00:10:47.759 --> 00:10:52.000 fifth of the new public company. Trump officials have speculated 166 00:10:52.000 --> 00:10:55.039 about taking stakes in more firms in industries including mining, 167 00:10:55.440 --> 00:11:00.000 semi conductors, technology, and defense. Not all companies have welcome 168 00:11:00.200 --> 00:11:03.320 government investment. Some firms have been reluctant to meet with 169 00:11:03.320 --> 00:11:05.759 Trump officials out of fear the government would pressure them 170 00:11:05.799 --> 00:11:09.559 to hand over parts of their company. According to industry executives, 171 00:11:10.399 --> 00:11:12.600 Intel agreed to do its equity deal with the government 172 00:11:12.639 --> 00:11:15.639 after mister Trump called its chief executive to be fired 173 00:11:15.799 --> 00:11:20.039 over ties to China. Officials and analysts have also questioned 174 00:11:20.080 --> 00:11:23.759 how much due diligence the Trump administration is performing. While 175 00:11:23.759 --> 00:11:26.639 the Biden administration took many months to evaluate targets for 176 00:11:26.679 --> 00:11:29.480 grants and loans and was often criticized for moving slowly, 177 00:11:30.039 --> 00:11:32.480 the Trump administration appears to have arranged several of its 178 00:11:32.480 --> 00:11:36.360 equity stakes in a matter of weeks. William A. Rinch, 179 00:11:36.519 --> 00:11:39.919 a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 180 00:11:40.039 --> 00:11:43.799 a Washington think tank, said Biden officials had been slow 181 00:11:43.840 --> 00:11:47.039 and meticulous in selecting targets, while mister Trump seemed to 182 00:11:47.080 --> 00:11:50.360 be investing by whim. You know, he meets with somebody, 183 00:11:50.399 --> 00:11:52.559 he likes them, and so well, let's do a deal, 184 00:11:52.759 --> 00:11:56.519 said mister Rnch, a former Commerce Department official. You don't 185 00:11:56.519 --> 00:11:58.720 get the sense with Trump that there's a strategy to it. 186 00:11:58.960 --> 00:12:01.000 You get a sense that it's a series of tactics. 187 00:12:02.600 --> 00:12:05.399 Daryl M. West, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, 188 00:12:05.639 --> 00:12:08.759 a Washington think tank who has studied the deals creed 189 00:12:08.799 --> 00:12:10.600 that in a number of these cases, there seems to 190 00:12:10.639 --> 00:12:14.360 be almost no serious review. They don't seem well thought out, 191 00:12:14.440 --> 00:12:17.240 mister West said, adding that some of the investments involved 192 00:12:17.320 --> 00:12:20.399 high risk areas. There's no guarantee the government's going to 193 00:12:20.399 --> 00:12:23.279 make money, so they're really putting taxpayer money at risk. 194 00:12:24.360 --> 00:12:27.720 But some analysts have praised the Trump administration's sense of urgency, 195 00:12:28.000 --> 00:12:30.759 saying that the Biden administration had done extensive research on 196 00:12:30.799 --> 00:12:34.000 America's dependence on Chinese rare earths but done little to 197 00:12:34.080 --> 00:12:37.720 change it. After China respond to mister Trump's high terrifts 198 00:12:37.720 --> 00:12:40.440 by clamping down on its exports of those minerals, in April, 199 00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:43.759 US officials began calling companies to ask them about their 200 00:12:43.799 --> 00:12:48.480 capacities and searching for pots of money to deploy. Private companies, too, 201 00:12:48.639 --> 00:12:51.799 began pitching their services to the government, sometimes relying on 202 00:12:51.840 --> 00:12:56.120 old friends or former business associates to arrange meetings. At 203 00:12:56.159 --> 00:12:59.039 the Defense Department, a Critical Minerals Task Force was set 204 00:12:59.120 --> 00:13:01.519 up in the spring with ROA the forty officials at 205 00:13:01.559 --> 00:13:04.879 a ninety day deadline to identify new rare earth resources. 206 00:13:05.320 --> 00:13:09.159 One former official said officials had estimated it would take 207 00:13:09.200 --> 00:13:12.080 more than three billion dollars in investment to resource supply 208 00:13:12.200 --> 00:13:15.960 chains for rare earth magnets, a critical component for automakers 209 00:13:15.960 --> 00:13:20.279 and defense companies. The Defense Department turned to MP Materials, 210 00:13:20.320 --> 00:13:23.279 a company that makes those magnets and had bought a 211 00:13:23.360 --> 00:13:27.320 struggling rare earth's mine in California. In July, the company 212 00:13:27.360 --> 00:13:29.919 announced that the federal government would invest four hundred million 213 00:13:29.960 --> 00:13:33.559 dollars in exchange for a fifteen percent stake, including warrants 214 00:13:33.759 --> 00:13:36.480 which give the government the right to make feature stock purchases. 215 00:13:37.919 --> 00:13:41.840 Some Pentagon officials expect the deal to be to be

profitable, 216 00:13:42.320 --> 00:13:46.600 but analysts have expressed skepticism. Others have pointed out that 217 00:13:46.639 --> 00:13:49.240 the long time line for this plan and other minerals 218 00:13:49.240 --> 00:13:54.159 projects like a mine in Alaska being developed by Trilogy Medals, 219 00:13:54.159 --> 00:13:56.360 in which the Defense Department said last month it would 220 00:13:56.360 --> 00:13:59.679 take a ten percent steak. You have an entire subset 221 00:13:59.720 --> 00:14:02.519 of the US US economy that's almost running dry, and 222 00:14:02.600 --> 00:14:05.240 if the relief comes in ten years, that's not necessarily 223 00:14:05.279 --> 00:14:07.919 going to have any impact on short term short term 224 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:11.399 company needs, said Emily Benson, the head of the strategy 225 00:14:11.440 --> 00:14:16.919 at Minerva Technology Futures, a consultancy. In early November, the 226 00:14:16.919 --> 00:14:20.399 government announced its latest equity deal with Vulcan Elements, a 227 00:14:20.440 --> 00:14:24.320 North Carolina based startup making rare earth magnets. The company 228 00:14:24.360 --> 00:14:27.200 offered the government equity and warrants in return for fifty 229 00:14:27.240 --> 00:14:30.320 million dollars from the Commerce Department and six hundred and 230 00:14:30.360 --> 00:14:34.159 twenty two million dollars from the Defense Department. Vulcan Elements 231 00:14:34.159 --> 00:14:37.080 plans to expand its capacity to ten thousand metric tons 232 00:14:37.120 --> 00:14:40.120 in the next few years, up from ten tons currently. 233 00:14:40.919 --> 00:14:43.600 The company has received an investment from several venture funds, 234 00:14:43.639 --> 00:14:47.440 including seventeen eighty nine Capital, where the president's son, Donald 235 00:14:47.440 --> 00:14:51.240 Trump Junior, is a partner. In an interview, John Maslin, 236 00:14:51.320 --> 00:14:54.200 the chief executive of Vulcan Elements said the company had 237 00:14:54.200 --> 00:14:59.320 received no political favoritaetism, and that the partnership would help 238 00:14:59.679 --> 00:15:02.360 redoce use of dependency on China that can prevent the 239 00:15:02.440 --> 00:15:06.080 United States from making key goods like cars, phones, and robots. 240 00:15:07.279 --> 00:15:09.360 We're making sure that we don't have to ask China 241 00:15:09.600 --> 00:15:11.679 permission on whether or not we're allowed to build or 242 00:15:11.720 --> 00:15:14.799 buy defense applications or data centers for our AI race. 243 00:15:15.080 --> 00:15:18.399 Mister Mazin said, this truly is about making sure that 244 00:15:18.399 --> 00:15:21.120 we have the redundancy and the resiliency in the United 245 00:15:21.159 --> 00:15:25.240 States to control our destiny. This needs a whole of 246 00:15:25.279 --> 00:15:28.559 industry and a whole of government approach working together to 247 00:15:28.600 --> 00:15:32.639 solve this problem, he added. The next article from the 248 00:15:32.639 --> 00:15:36.039 front page of today's edition is entitled Appeals Court says 249 00:15:36.039 --> 00:15:40.279 Alina Habba is unlawful US Attorney by Jonah E. Bromwich 250 00:15:40.279 --> 00:15:44.320 and Tracy Tully. A federal appeals court set on Monday 251 00:15:44.360 --> 00:15:47.279 that Alina Habbah had been serving unlawfully as the US 252 00:15:47.279 --> 00:15:49.799 attorney in New Jersey, dealing a blow to the Trump 253 00:15:49.799 --> 00:15:52.440 administration and most likely setting up a showdown at the 254 00:15:52.440 --> 00:15:55.240 Supreme Court. Mess Aba is one of a number of 255 00:15:55.320 --> 00:15:57.919 US attorneys, whom the Trump administration has sought to keep 256 00:15:57.960 --> 00:16:00.919 in power through a series of unusual miss even though 257 00:16:01.000 --> 00:16:03.480 she was neither confirmed by the Senate nor appointed by 258 00:16:03.480 --> 00:16:08.720 district trial court judges. The two Traditional Pathways defendants in 259 00:16:08.759 --> 00:16:11.240 New Jersey had challenged her authority as U S Attorney, 260 00:16:11.480 --> 00:16:15.120 leading to Monday's decision. In its ruling, the three judge 261 00:16:15.159 --> 00:16:18.639 panel based in Philadelphia affirmed in earlier ruling by a 262 00:16:18.639 --> 00:16:21.600 federal district court judge. The court said that the government's 263 00:16:21.639 --> 00:16:25.279 tactics had violated the law as written, and concluded that overall, 264 00:16:25.399 --> 00:16:28.519 the Trump administration appeared to have become more frustrated by 265 00:16:28.600 --> 00:16:32.039 legal and political barriers to placing its favored US attorneys 266 00:16:32.039 --> 00:16:36.039 in charge. The maneuvers undertaken to keep Missabah in charge 267 00:16:36.240 --> 00:16:40.360 exemplified the difficulties the administration had faced, the judges wrote, 268 00:16:40.600 --> 00:16:42.679 and yet they said the citizens of New Jersey and 269 00:16:42.720 --> 00:16:46.240 the loyal employees in the U. S. Attorney's office deserved 270 00:16:46.240 --> 00:16:50.360 some clarity and stability. It was not immediately clear how 271 00:16:50.360 --> 00:16:52.879 the ruling would affect legal proceedings in the New Jersey 272 00:16:52.879 --> 00:16:55.519 federal courts, or whether Miss obab will continue to leave 273 00:16:55.559 --> 00:16:58.320 the office in the near future. The courts had already 274 00:16:58.320 --> 00:17:01.919 been operating in a kind of limbo given her uncertain status. 275 00:17:02.480 --> 00:17:05.039 Certain types of criminal cases were slowed in some grand 276 00:17:05.119 --> 00:17:09.039 jury proceedings were halted. The Justice Department and a spokesmurned 277 00:17:09.039 --> 00:17:12.400 for Miss Habbab did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 278 00:17:13.240 --> 00:17:16.799 The lawyers who challenged Miss Habaugh's authority Abbe D. Lowell, 279 00:17:17.279 -->

00:17:21.119 Gerald Crovaughton, and Norman Norham Iisen said in a statement 280 00:17:21.119 --> 00:17:23.920 that the ruling showed that President Trump cannot usurp long 281 00:17:23.920 --> 00:17:28.799 standing statutory in constitutional processes to insert whoever or whomever 282 00:17:28.920 --> 00:17:32.039 he wants in these positions. They vowed to continue their 283 00:17:32.119 --> 00:17:36.519 challenges to President Trump's unlawful appointments of purported U S attorneys. 284 00:17:37.480 --> 00:17:39.720 The case involving Missabab may be the first of its 285 00:17:39.799 --> 00:17:42.519 kind to reach the Supreme Court, though it is possible 286 00:17:42.519 --> 00:17:45.119 that a similar case involving the U. S attorney in Virginia, 287 00:17:45.319 --> 00:17:49.200 Lindsay Halligan, could be expediited by virtue of being entangled 288 00:17:49.200 --> 00:17:53.640 with criminal cases against President Trump's enemies. Last week, a 289 00:17:53.680 --> 00:17:56.400 federal judge found that Miss Halligan, too had been unlawfully 290 00:17:56.440 --> 00:17:59.799 appointed by the Trump administration. The Justice Department has vowed 291 00:17:59.839 --> 00:18:03.680 to appeal. Miss Habbah, forty one, had represented mister Trump 292 00:18:03.759 --> 00:18:05.920 in several civil cases and played a public role in 293 00:18:05.960 --> 00:18:09.160 his twenty twenty four presidential campaign, but she had no 294 00:18:09.240 --> 00:18:11.640 experience in criminal law before the President named her in 295 00:18:11.720 --> 00:18:14.599 March to a one hundred and twenty day interim term 296 00:18:14.640 --> 00:18:18.400 as New Jersey's top federal prosecutor. Mister Trump nominated her 297 00:18:18.440 --> 00:18:20.759 to take on the role permanently, but her appointment was 298 00:18:20.799 --> 00:18:24.319 doomed by opposition from the state's two Democratic senators, Cory 299 00:18:24.400 --> 00:18:28.319 Booker and Andy Kent. In July, judges in the District 300 00:18:28.319 --> 00:18:31.359 of New Jersey declined to extend Miss Habba's term and 301 00:18:31.440 --> 00:18:35.640 its denat instead tapped a veteran prosecutor, Desiree Lay Grace, 302 00:18:35.759 --> 00:18:39.200 to lead the office. That led Attorney General Pambody to 303 00:18:39.240 --> 00:18:42.519 disparage the judges, fire Miss Grace and elevate Miss Habbah 304 00:18:42.599 --> 00:18:44.680 to the role of acting u S Attorney through a 305 00:18:44.720 --> 00:18:47.839 complicated series of maneuvers that were at the heart of 306 00:18:47.880 --> 00:18:52.319 the appeal. But on Monday, the three judges Alfhelpe, restupro 307 00:18:52.759 --> 00:18:55.920 D Brooks Smith and D Michael Fisher said that each 308 00:18:55.960 --> 00:18:58.599 of those maneuvers had violated the complex set of laws 309 00:18:58.599 --> 00:19:03.319 that governs vacancies at the top of federal agencies. When 310 00:19:03.319 --> 00:19:06.200 Miss Grace was fired, the Trump administration had designated Miss 311 00:19:06.240 --> 00:19:09.000 Haba to fill her role as first Assistant, the highest 312 00:19:09.039 --> 00:19:11.599 ranking position in the office, given that there was no 313 00:19:11.759 --> 00:19:14.119 U S Attorney, and argued that doing so meant that 314 00:19:14.119 --> 00:19:17.880 Miss Abbab was effectively acting US attorney for good measure. 315 00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:21.160 The Attorney General, Pam Bondi, also appointed Miss Abbab a 316 00:19:21.200 --> 00:19:25.079 special attorney with jurisdiction over New Jersey, but the judges 317 00:19:25.119 --> 00:19:28.160 wrote that the automatic elevation of the first Assistant occurred 318 00:19:28.200 --> 00:19:30.920 only at the actual time of the vacancy, and that 319 00:19:31.039 --> 00:19:33.559 neither the President nor any one else could interfere with 320 00:19:33.599 --> 00:19:37.119 that process. As for the special attorney appointment, they said 321 00:19:37.240 --> 00:19:41.640 it was plainly prohibited by law. The Monday decision affirms 322 00:19:41.640 --> 00:19:44.160 a ruling by Matthew H. Brand, the Chief Judge for 323 00:19:44.240 --> 00:19:47.400 the Middle District of Pennsylvania, who concluded in August that 324 00:19:47.440 --> 00:19:50.960 Miss Abba had been serving as New Jersey's US attorney 325 00:19:51.039 --> 00:19:55.200 without legal authority since July First. Lawyers with the Department 326 00:19:55.200 --> 00:19:57.799 of Justice, which had appealed Judge Brand's decision to the 327 00:19:57.799 --> 00:20:00.480 Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit had argue that 328 00:20:00.519 --> 00:20:03.400 the president's power was broad and gave the executive branch 329 00:20:03.680 --> 00:20:06.839 substantial authority to decide who is executing the criminal laws 330 00:20:06.839 --> 00:20:12.000 of the United States. Lawyers for Caesar Humbertarpina, a defendant 331 00:20:12.079 --> 00:20:15.319 indicted in New Jersey on fraud charges on July tenth, 332 00:20:15.759 --> 00:20:19.519 had countered that Miss ABBA's installation at the States as 333 00:20:19.559 --> 00:20:22.519 the state's top prosecutor violated a law known as the 334 00:20:22.559 --> 00:20:27.119 Federal Vacancy's reformat. The lawyers mister Lowell, mister Kovatan, and 335 00:20:27.160 --> 00:20:30.240 mister Riison set in the court papers that mister Trump 336 00:20:30.319 --> 00:20:32.559 had pursued a shell game to keep her in power, 337 00:20:33.519 --> 00:20:36.640 relying on a chimera of at least seven different statutes. 338 00:20:36.759 --> 00:20:39.759 The government has at various times described Miss Habah as 339 00:20:40.079 --> 00:20:43.440 an interim U S Attorney, act as Acting US Attorney, 340 00:20:43.720 --> 00:20:47.599 first Assistant US Attorney, and Special Attorney, they wrote, but 341 00:20:47.720 --> 00:20:49.640 she does not have the authority to lead the U. S. 342 00:20:49.680 --> 00:20:52.160 Attorney's Office for the

District of New Jersey under any 343 00:20:52.200 --> 00:20:55.480 of those titles. Monday's ruling was the second time in 344 00:20:55.480 --> 00:20:57.759 a week that a federal appeals court panel has dealt 345 00:20:57.759 --> 00:21:01.079 a heavy blow to mister Trump and miss Habah. On Wednesday, 346 00:21:01.119 --> 00:21:03.839 the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Atlanta, upheld 347 00:21:03.920 --> 00:21:07.880 nearly one million dollars in penalties meeted out by a 348 00:21:07.920 --> 00:21:10.640 lower court judge against the President and the Sabah for 349 00:21:10.680 --> 00:21:13.920 filing frivolous lawsuits against more than two dozen of his enemies, 350 00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:18.160 including Hillary Clinton, James Comby, the former FBI director, and 351 00:21:18.200 --> 00:21:22.920 the Democratic National Committee. The next article from the front 352 00:21:22.920 --> 00:21:26.240 page of the day's edition is entitled Johnson and Trump 353 00:21:26.279 --> 00:21:30.359 try to avoid an upset house Loan's house loss in 354 00:21:30.440 --> 00:21:35.640 Tennessee by Emily Cockran. The crowd milling around the sleek, 355 00:21:35.720 --> 00:21:39.119 multimillion dollar barn full of gleaming vintage cars was already 356 00:21:39.119 --> 00:21:42.079 a snap shot of the Republican elite in Tennessee. There 357 00:21:42.119 --> 00:21:46.000 were donors and state representatives, five members of Congress, the governor, 358 00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:48.799 and the candidate for the state's House special election on Tuesday. 359 00:21:49.200 --> 00:21:52.720 Matt Van Epps, then Speaker Mike Johnson, who flew in 360 00:21:52.759 --> 00:21:56.000 from Washington early Monday, called President Trump and put his 361 00:21:56.079 --> 00:21:59.720 phone on speaker. The whole world is watching Tennessee right now, 362 00:21:59.759 --> 00:22:02.519 in their watching your district, mister Trump said, his voice 363 00:22:02.519 --> 00:22:05.559 crackling over the phone. The election, he added, has got 364 00:22:05.599 --> 00:22:07.839 to show that the Republican Party is stronger than it's 365 00:22:07.880 --> 00:22:11.480 ever been before. The phone call, coupled with the convergence 366 00:22:11.519 --> 00:22:15.480 of political heavyweights, underscored just how much Republicans appear rattled 367 00:22:15.480 --> 00:22:18.039 by the Tuesday election for what would normally be a 368 00:22:18.079 --> 00:22:21.920 safe conservative seat in Tennessee's seventh Congressional district. It is 369 00:22:21.920 --> 00:22:24.359 the final special election of twenty twenty five, and as 370 00:22:24.400 --> 00:22:27.359 mister Johnson told reporters, we think what will happen here 371 00:22:27.480 --> 00:22:29.640 will be a bell weather for the mid terms next year. 372 00:22:30.920 --> 00:22:34.680 Mister van Fs is running against State Representative Afton Ben, 373 00:22:34.799 --> 00:22:38.000 a Nashville Democrat who has energized many in her party 374 00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:40.799 despite a political record perceived by some as too liberal 375 00:22:40.839 --> 00:22:44.400 for Tennessee. I thought Tennessee was deep red. How did 376 00:22:44.400 --> 00:22:47.480 that happen, mister Johnson said of miss Ben, calling her 377 00:22:47.599 --> 00:22:50.200 a dangerous far leptist That would be a rubber stamp 378 00:22:50.200 --> 00:22:54.519 for Representative Hakeem Jeffreys, the minority leader, and a Representative 379 00:22:54.559 --> 00:22:58.480 Alexandria Ocassio Cortez of New York, a favorite progressive target 380 00:22:58.480 --> 00:23:02.359 for Republicans, among others. The district, which cuts through parts 381 00:23:02.359 --> 00:23:05.440 of Nashville and stretches between the borders with Alabama and 382 00:23:05.559 --> 00:23:09.279 Kentucky was left vacant after Representative Mark Green stepped down 383 00:23:09.319 --> 00:23:12.279 for a private sector job. This year. Much of the 384 00:23:12.359 --> 00:23:15.039 rally was not about mister Van Epps, an Army veteran 385 00:23:15.039 --> 00:23:17.720 and former state commissioner, but was instead focused on what 386 00:23:17.759 --> 00:23:20.359 a Republican victory on Tuesday would mean for the party's 387 00:23:20.640 --> 00:23:23.279 razor thin majority in the House and the country future. 388 00:23:24.519 --> 00:23:27.559 An Emerson College survey last week showed mister Van Epps 389 00:23:27.880 --> 00:23:31.759 beating Miss Baine by only two percentage points, an uncomfortable 390 00:23:31.799 --> 00:23:35.319 margin in a district carefully drawn to favor a Republican candidate. 391 00:23:35.559 --> 00:23:37.880 Mister Trump won the area by more than twenty points 392 00:23:37.960 --> 00:23:41.200 last year. We are out front right now, but we 393 00:23:41.240 --> 00:23:44.400 want to finish this fight, mister Van Epps, said. Mister 394 00:23:44.480 --> 00:23:48.319 Vanapps's former primary opponents, three congressional representatives and both U 395 00:23:48.359 --> 00:23:51.000 S senators from the state all lined up to cast 396 00:23:51.039 --> 00:23:53.359 the race as a chance to prove the state's Republican 397 00:23:53.440 --> 00:23:58.240 bonafides and reject the liberal attack of National Democrats. They 398 00:23:58.279 --> 00:24:01.359 pointed to Miss Ben's support for trans gender Tennesseans, her 399 00:24:01.480 --> 00:24:05.319 enthusiastic trailing of immigration agents in Nashville this year in 400 00:24:05.400 --> 00:24:08.240 protest of their presence and comments she made in twenty 401 00:24:08.279 --> 00:24:11.799 twenty that were critical of the police. Such a candidate, 402 00:24:11.880 --> 00:24:15.000 Senator Marsha Blackburn told the crowd is not the type 403 00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:17.559 of person who should be representing Tennesseans, and you are 404 00:24:17.640 --> 00:24:21.359 all not going to let that happen. Representative Tim Burchett, 405 00:24:21.359 --> 00:24:24.720 who drove

in from Knoxville, was more blunt, folks, We're 406 00:24:25.319 --> 00:24:28.119 one flew season away from losing the majority, he told 407 00:24:28.119 --> 00:24:30.799 the crowd, adding this is our chance to tell America 408 00:24:30.839 --> 00:24:33.400 we've had enough this far left craziness and everything that 409 00:24:33.440 --> 00:24:36.839 this woman represents. He was among those who pointed to 410 00:24:36.880 --> 00:24:39.599 one clip in which Miss Ben professed a hatred for 411 00:24:39.680 --> 00:24:43.839 Nashville and its downtown tourist scene of pedal taverns, country music, 412 00:24:43.880 --> 00:24:46.079 and bachelorettes as a sign that she is out of 413 00:24:46.079 --> 00:24:48.920 touch with the district. How the hell can you elect 414 00:24:48.960 --> 00:24:52.559 a person like that, mister Trump asked. Miss Benn, speaking 415 00:24:52.599 --> 00:24:56.839 to supporters on Monday, downplayed the criticism. Nashville Republicans are 416 00:24:56.880 --> 00:24:59.480 panicking because the story of the South is changing and 417 00:24:59.519 --> 00:25:02.960 they can see happening right here, she said. Miss ben 418 00:25:03.079 --> 00:25:05.920 for her part, spent the weekend canvassing with Democrats across 419 00:25:05.960 --> 00:25:09.079 the district and held a virtual rally with Miss Ocasio 420 00:25:09.240 --> 00:25:12.759 Cortes and former Vice President Al Gore, the last Tennessee 421 00:25:12.759 --> 00:25:15.559 Democrat to rise to the highest levels of national politics. 422 00:25:16.359 --> 00:25:18.720 Mister Gore told the hundreds of supporters gathered on the 423 00:25:18.799 --> 00:25:21.240 Zoom call, the Tennessee has proven again and again that 424 00:25:21.240 --> 00:25:24.079 we can answer the call of democracy, and that great 425 00:25:24.119 --> 00:25:27.759 cause of American democracy is calling us once again tomorrow. 426 00:25:28.400 --> 00:25:31.279 Miss Ocasio Cortez said that in a district so favored 427 00:25:31.279 --> 00:25:34.160 by Republicans, it takes a very special kind of person, 428 00:25:34.200 --> 00:25:36.440 with a very special kind of guts to run as 429 00:25:36.480 --> 00:25:41.279 a Democrat. The next article from the front page of 430 00:25:41.319 --> 00:25:45.759 today's edition is entitled Imperial Israel in the New Middle 431 00:25:45.759 --> 00:25:51.200 East by Roger Cohen. Beaufort Castle, atop a towering cliff 432 00:25:51.200 --> 00:25:54.440 that rises from the Littnani River in southern Lebanon is 433 00:25:54.480 --> 00:26:00.319 a nine hundred year old Crusader fortification, offering a magnificent panoramas. 434 00:26:00.319 --> 00:26:02.000 It may also be a place from which to view 435 00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:04.960 a killing. The sky was a cloudless blue on a 436 00:26:05.039 --> 00:26:07.839 late September afternoon as the hum of an Israeli drone 437 00:26:07.880 --> 00:26:11.720 disturbed the beguiling beauty of the surrounding olive groves and vineyards. 438 00:26:12.200 --> 00:26:15.480 Steadily it grew closer. Then, with a screeching whistle, the 439 00:26:15.559 --> 00:26:17.599 drone fired a missile that turned a white car on 440 00:26:17.640 --> 00:26:20.480 the highway hundreds of feet below the stone castle into 441 00:26:20.480 --> 00:26:23.680 a ball of fire. The explosion reverberated in the valley. 442 00:26:23.960 --> 00:26:27.960 Other cars koreen to a helter skelter halt. About a 443 00:26:27.960 --> 00:26:31.160 half hour later, a New York Times photographer David Guttenfelder 444 00:26:31.559 --> 00:26:34.720 and I reached the incinerated carcass of the car. The 445 00:26:34.799 --> 00:26:37.759 driver's seat was blown to oblivion. Two distraught young men 446 00:26:37.839 --> 00:26:40.480 dressed in black picked up small pieces of charred flesh. 447 00:26:40.559 --> 00:26:43.480 One by one. They dropped them into plastic bags to 448 00:26:43.480 --> 00:26:47.000 be buried the next day. So goes the ceasefire between 449 00:26:47.039 --> 00:26:50.880 Israel and Asblah reached a year ago on Thursday. Almost 450 00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:54.559 daily Israelia strikes against Hasblah, including the killing this week 451 00:26:54.880 --> 00:26:58.599 in Beyroot of one of the Milletant groups. Top commanders 452 00:26:58.759 --> 00:27:02.440 punctuate a fraying peace. Lebanon exists in a gray zone 453 00:27:02.480 --> 00:27:04.839 between war and peace, which could also be the fate 454 00:27:04.880 --> 00:27:10.680 of Gaza as Hamas resists disarming and Israel strikes selected targets. 455 00:27:10.720 --> 00:27:13.319 In effect, the war that's spilled into Lebanon after the 456 00:27:13.319 --> 00:27:16.599 October seventh, twenty twenty three Hamas attack on Israel has 457 00:27:16.599 --> 00:27:20.200 slowed but never stopped. The Israelis say they can't leave 458 00:27:20.279 --> 00:27:23.559 unless has Blad disarms, and ESBLA says, how can we 459 00:27:23.599 --> 00:27:27.119 disarm as long as the Israelis don't Nawaf Salaam, the 460 00:27:27.200 --> 00:27:31.079 Lebanese Prime Minister said in an interview, Hezblad knows things 461 00:27:31.079 --> 00:27:34.480 have changed in the region, but are still trying to resist. 462 00:27:34.680 --> 00:27:37.160 A moras of mistrust has now led to a dangerous 463 00:27:37.279 --> 00:27:40.799 escalation than the Trump Administration's target for HESBLA to disarm 464 00:27:40.880 --> 00:27:44.400 completely by the end of the year looks implausible across 465 00:27:44.480 --> 00:27:46.839 the region. The United States is pressing to transform the 466 00:27:46.880 --> 00:27:49.960 Middle East by new means. Democracy is not part of 467 00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:54.640 President Trump's lexicon. Prosperity not the ballot box is put 468 00:27:54.680 --> 00:27:58.000 forward as the new panacea, but a journey of several 469 00:27:58.000 --> 00:28:01.039 weeks to Lebanon, Israel, and Turkey se suggests that for now, 470 00:28:01.480 --> 00:28:05.920 renewed

war is likelier than spreading peace. The situation in Lebanon, 471 00:28:05.960 --> 00:28:08.559 if offers a compelling example of a new Middle East 472 00:28:08.599 --> 00:28:12.519 where Israel's reach is near ubiquitous. The Iran led axis 473 00:28:12.559 --> 00:28:15.680 of resistance, of which Asbalah has been a central part, 474 00:28:16.240 --> 00:28:19.240 is a shadow of its former self. Iran, battered by 475 00:28:19.319 --> 00:28:22.480 Israel in a brief June war, is a weaker Syria 476 00:28:22.559 --> 00:28:24.960 after the fall of the Asad regime last year, is 477 00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:27.400 no longer a friend of Tehran, nor is it the 478 00:28:27.400 --> 00:28:30.240 pipeline for Iranian arms to Asba that it once was. 479 00:28:31.640 --> 00:28:36.559 The region is adapting to what Abdul Leukh Hallek Abdullah, 480 00:28:36.680 --> 00:28:40.240 a prominent political scientist in the United Arab Emirates, calls 481 00:28:40.240 --> 00:28:43.480 an imperial Israel, a country that will kill enemies anywhere 482 00:28:43.599 --> 00:28:47.200 from Lebanon to Syria, Gaza to Iran, Yemen to Qatar. 483 00:28:47.839 --> 00:28:51.640 Preemptive Israeli strikes for a new norm. Given such dominance, 484 00:28:51.680 --> 00:28:54.200 the United States will have to decide what constraints, if any, 485 00:28:54.319 --> 00:28:57.039 it will impose on Israel in the interests of furthering 486 00:28:57.079 --> 00:28:59.759 peace in the region. One way to achieve this may 487 00:28:59.759 --> 00:29:03.319 be the may be strengthening the militaries of other regional 488 00:29:03.319 --> 00:29:06.720 players like Saudi Arabia or Turkey, which mister Trump seems 489 00:29:06.720 --> 00:29:11.680 intent on doing. For Hesbelad dimished but defiant, the adjustment 490 00:29:11.680 --> 00:29:15.599 has been severe. It has not responded militarily to Israel's 491 00:29:15.599 --> 00:29:18.759 attacks on Lebanon, even since they intensified after the Gaza 492 00:29:18.759 --> 00:29:23.359 ceasefire last month. Israel accuses Zblah, which has deep roots 493 00:29:23.400 --> 00:29:27.160 in Roos roots in Lebanon's large Shia community, of seeking 494 00:29:27.160 --> 00:29:32.079 to rebuild its combat capacities. Tom Barrick, the US Ambassador 495 00:29:32.119 --> 00:29:35.039 to Turkey and Special Envoy to leven And in Syria, 496 00:29:35.519 --> 00:29:38.119 told me that if Israel's sense is any threat, they're 497 00:29:38.160 --> 00:29:42.400 going to respond any time, anywhere. When the Israels find 498 00:29:42.400 --> 00:29:44.400 these guys, they just take them out. So you have 499 00:29:44.480 --> 00:29:46.880 two or three a week that are whacked, he said 500 00:29:46.880 --> 00:29:49.880 of the strikes against Hesbolah. That was the fate of 501 00:29:49.880 --> 00:29:54.759 Hassan abdel Karim Chahrur, later identified by Zblah, in his 502 00:29:54.799 --> 00:29:58.680 white car beneath Beaufort Castle. On September twentieth, the Israeli 503 00:29:58.720 --> 00:30:03.240 military said it had a limit a Hezblat terrorist ASBLA 504 00:30:03.319 --> 00:30:05.720 statement the next day read, you are invited to participate 505 00:30:05.759 --> 00:30:08.480 in the blessed funeral Possession of the Happy martyr on 506 00:30:08.519 --> 00:30:12.720 the road to Jerusalem. Schlummy Hatan, a rifle slung over 507 00:30:12.759 --> 00:30:16.680 his shoulder, sat in the on the Border cafe, gazing 508 00:30:16.680 --> 00:30:19.480 across its green AstroTurf flooring. At the Israeli side of 509 00:30:19.519 --> 00:30:23.039 the border wall, peace train at cat Stephen's number placed 510 00:30:23.279 --> 00:30:25.480 played on the sound system loud enough to be heard 511 00:30:25.519 --> 00:30:29.079 on the other side of the wall. In Lebanon, murals 512 00:30:29.079 --> 00:30:32.319 and inscriptions with an unlikely theme of reconciliation and peace 513 00:30:32.559 --> 00:30:35.759 ador in the barrier, including a woman watering an olive 514 00:30:35.799 --> 00:30:38.839 tree in words from the Book of Isaiah, they will 515 00:30:38.880 --> 00:30:42.880 beat swords into plowshares. Six years ago, in a moment 516 00:30:42.880 --> 00:30:46.440 of optimism, ten artists came for a month to Chatoula, 517 00:30:46.839 --> 00:30:50.119 a small Israeli farming community that abuts the Lebanese border. 518 00:30:50.640 --> 00:30:52.440 Each was to paint a symbol of peace on a 519 00:30:52.480 --> 00:30:55.400 thirty three foot stretch of wall. Now the images seem 520 00:30:55.480 --> 00:30:58.920 more of a portrait of human delusion Under Prime Minister 521 00:30:59.000 --> 00:31:02.480 Bettonment Ben Jim and yet Nahu, israel war in Gaza, 522 00:31:02.559 --> 00:31:06.400 which killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, has hurt Israel's image, 523 00:31:06.599 --> 00:31:11.640 deepened its globals isolation, and divided Israelis against this charge backdrop. 524 00:31:11.720 --> 00:31:15.200 It is unclear whether Israel has the political cohesion will 525 00:31:15.279 --> 00:31:18.759 to turn the dominant dominance of its armed forces into 526 00:31:18.839 --> 00:31:24.039 strategic security. Mister Hatan fifty five's an uninhibited voice for 527 00:31:24.119 --> 00:31:28.000 Israel's new strategy of aggressive preemption. He was born in 528 00:31:28.079 --> 00:31:31.359 Chittula and is the chief security officer of his small community. 529 00:31:32.480 --> 00:31:34.720 Most of the three hundred residents of the village were 530 00:31:35.519 --> 00:31:39.599 evacuated under Hasbela rocket fire after the October seventh Amost attack. 531 00:31:40.279 --> 00:31:42.880 They were among the sixty thousand Enraelis moved out of 532 00:31:42.920 --> 00:31:46.160 northern Israel two years ago, but he could not abandon 533 00:31:46.160 --> 00:31:48.599 the community that has been his life. Only a third 534 00:31:48.640 --> 00:31:52.799 of residents have returned. Stray cats slink along empty streets 535 00:31:53.920 -->

00:31:58.279 in the distance spinley Israeli communications towers on five hilltops 536 00:31:58.279 --> 00:32:03.039 inside Lebanon, clinted reddish in the sun. Israel, to Levinin's fury, 537 00:32:03.079 --> 00:32:06.079 has refused to remove the small encampments around them, despite 538 00:32:06.079 --> 00:32:08.720 the cease fire that called for a complete Israeli withdrawal. 539 00:32:09.319 --> 00:32:12.240 We're not going back to the situation before October seventh, 540 00:32:12.279 --> 00:32:15.039 with our enemy close to the fence, mister Huttan said, 541 00:32:15.359 --> 00:32:18.279 pointing to the ruin of hesbal Abzov pointing to the 542 00:32:18.359 --> 00:32:23.000 ruin of a Hesbah observation tower. Our definition of suspicious 543 00:32:23.079 --> 00:32:25.880 movement is now very low and will draw an immediate response. 544 00:32:27.640 --> 00:32:31.079 Before the October seventh attack, Israel was a nation lulled. 545 00:32:31.119 --> 00:32:34.599 He now believes tourism, peace and a thriving economy were 546 00:32:34.640 --> 00:32:37.839 hard to resist. The enemy, whether in Levinin or Yaza, 547 00:32:38.160 --> 00:32:40.920 appeared to tre before they took the masks off their faces. 548 00:32:40.920 --> 00:32:44.160 He said, we wandered along the wall. Now we will 549 00:32:44.200 --> 00:32:46.079 have to live by the sword for the next century. 550 00:32:46.119 --> 00:32:49.759 He said, I entered a concrete guard post facing Lebanon. 551 00:32:50.480 --> 00:32:53.640 Scratched on its wall, beside a narrow loophole were the words, man, 552 00:32:53.880 --> 00:32:58.160 father Jew ISRAELI, don't forget or forgive. Remember why you 553 00:32:58.200 --> 00:33:01.480 are here and what you are facing. The so called 554 00:33:01.519 --> 00:33:04.000 cessation of hostilities, as he put it, has been a 555 00:33:04.000 --> 00:33:08.000 frustration from mister Salam, the Lebanese Prime Minister. A lawyer 556 00:33:08.000 --> 00:33:10.680 from a prominent Beroot family, he took up his job 557 00:33:10.799 --> 00:33:13.400 early this year as a reformist, determined to establish the 558 00:33:13.480 --> 00:33:17.200 Lebanese state's exclusive right to bear arms. Our largely failed 559 00:33:17.200 --> 00:33:20.920 state has never achieved this. The goal means disarming Hesblah, 560 00:33:21.039 --> 00:33:24.000 and mister Solom's underpaid, ill equipped national Army is charged 561 00:33:24.000 --> 00:33:28.000 with doing that. The drumbeat of Israeli strikes complicates that task. 562 00:33:28.079 --> 00:33:31.279 On his side of the border. We have an unchecked 563 00:33:31.279 --> 00:33:34.400 player acting as a hegemon under a leader net Yahoo, 564 00:33:34.519 --> 00:33:37.559 growing stronger by the day, mister Salam told me. At 565 00:33:37.559 --> 00:33:40.279 the same time, there's a new generation across the world 566 00:33:40.400 --> 00:33:44.480 that can no longer tolerate Israeli behavior. Israel pledged in 567 00:33:44.480 --> 00:33:47.759 the Truth last year to withdraw from Lebanon within sixty days, 568 00:33:48.160 --> 00:33:51.400 but stayed in five points on hilltops. Mister Salam said 569 00:33:51.960 --> 00:33:55.799 he has raised this issue many times, including with Major 570 00:33:55.880 --> 00:33:59.079 General Jasper Jeffers the Third, the American officer who was 571 00:33:59.079 --> 00:34:01.960 a leader of the Monoch during mechanism of the ceasefire 572 00:34:02.000 --> 00:34:05.240 for several months, but to no avail I told him, 573 00:34:05.240 --> 00:34:07.880 we are not in nineteen fourteen or nineteen fifteen, mister 574 00:34:07.920 --> 00:34:11.800 Salam said, with exasperation. To monitor what goes on around you, 575 00:34:11.800 --> 00:34:13.239 you don't need to be on top of a seven 576 00:34:13.320 --> 00:34:17.800 hundred meters hill with binoculars or a Galileo telescope. Israel 577 00:34:17.840 --> 00:34:20.519 has satellite imagery and drones and balloons with the most 578 00:34:20.519 --> 00:34:25.760 sophisticated cameras on Earth. Franch with over France, which oversees 579 00:34:25.800 --> 00:34:29.400 the ceasefire alongside the United States, formally demanded this month 580 00:34:29.440 --> 00:34:32.480 that Israel withdrawal from the five positions, but the United 581 00:34:32.480 --> 00:34:37.119 States has not publicly pressed the issue. Morgan Artegas, a 582 00:34:37.199 --> 00:34:40.559 senior US envoy to the Middle East, insisted in Beyroute 583 00:34:40.599 --> 00:34:43.679 recently that the Lebanese Army complete the total disarmament of 584 00:34:43.719 --> 00:34:46.119 Asbalah by the end of the year. There was no 585 00:34:46.159 --> 00:34:50.960 suggestion of any quid pro quo yacin Javar, the Lebanese 586 00:34:51.039 --> 00:34:54.360 Finance minister questioned the army's ability to achieve that goal. 587 00:34:55.000 --> 00:34:57.000 You cannot ask the army to do wonders when they 588 00:34:57.079 --> 00:34:59.360 lack the means, and the behavior of the Israeli side 589 00:34:59.400 --> 00:35:02.880 is under my mind, he said. Mister Barak acknowledged that 590 00:35:02.920 --> 00:35:06.760 the obstacles to Hesbala disarmament are formidable. The group is 591 00:35:06.760 --> 00:35:10.599 at once an established political party in Lebanon with considerable 592 00:35:10.960 --> 00:35:16.519 Shia support, and the US designated terrorist group. If you're 593 00:35:16.559 --> 00:35:19.039 a soldier in the Lebanese Army earning three hundred dollars 594 00:35:19.079 --> 00:35:21.480 a month. You have to have three jobs. You're an 595 00:35:21.559 --> 00:35:24.880 uber driver, a barista and a soldier, he said. So 596 00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:26.960 you go knock on a Shia door on Mondays and 597 00:35:27.000 --> 00:35:29.079 say I'm sorry, man, Can I go into your basement 598 00:35:29.119 --> 00:35:31.920 and take out the AK forty sevens? And you're risking 599 00:35:31.920 --> 00:35:35.079 your life. Still, he added, We've

got to have just 600 00:35:35.159 --> 00:35:39.239 one army in Lebanon. Achieving that will not be easy. 601 00:35:39.480 --> 00:35:42.280 A week in Hesbela is not a powerless Hesbla. Funds 602 00:35:42.280 --> 00:35:44.639 still reach it through the drug trade and other means. 603 00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:47.280 Its fighters still number in the tens of thousands by 604 00:35:47.280 --> 00:35:51.320 most estimates, and the Shia dominated Dahia neighborhood of South 605 00:35:51.400 --> 00:35:55.159 Bay Root. The mood is defiant. Israel will be humiliated, 606 00:35:55.440 --> 00:35:59.159 Israel will be gone. We are far from humiliation, the 607 00:35:59.199 --> 00:36:01.719 cries rose from my hesblock crowd of about one thousand 608 00:36:01.719 --> 00:36:04.400 people gathered in a giant hangar during our visit in 609 00:36:04.440 --> 00:36:08.480 September wrapped. They listened to a speech by name Quassam, 610 00:36:08.679 --> 00:36:12.519 the Hesblah leader appointed last year to replace Hassan Nasralla, 611 00:36:12.679 --> 00:36:16.159 who was assassinated by Israel on September twenty seventh, twenty 612 00:36:16.199 --> 00:36:21.639 twenty four, leaving Hesblah rudderless mister Kassan appeared from an 613 00:36:21.719 --> 00:36:24.960 unknown location on a large screen. He was flanked by 614 00:36:24.960 --> 00:36:27.840 photographs of the dead, including many young boys and girls. 615 00:36:28.239 --> 00:36:31.480 The occasion was the commemoration of another Hesbloch commander killed 616 00:36:31.519 --> 00:36:36.480 by Israel last year, Ibrahim Akiel. Our partition separated a 617 00:36:36.480 --> 00:36:39.360 crowd of men and women in roughly equal numbers. The 618 00:36:39.400 --> 00:36:42.760 women all wear black with yellow sashes. They bore photographs 619 00:36:42.760 --> 00:36:46.000 of their dead relatives. It was a reminder that each 620 00:36:46.079 --> 00:36:49.199 death inflicted by Israel or by either side, seems only 621 00:36:49.239 --> 00:36:52.800 to fortify the resolve of its enemies, no matter how weakened, 622 00:36:53.079 --> 00:36:56.599 and erode any impulse for peace. A Hesbalah billboard on 623 00:36:56.639 --> 00:36:59.599 the coastal highway set at all, when we are victorious, 624 00:36:59.639 --> 00:37:02.599 we win, and when we are martyred, we win. A 625 00:37:02.639 --> 00:37:06.599 deep crater in Dahia where Israeli bombs killed mister Nazraala 626 00:37:07.000 --> 00:37:10.360 has been left almost untouched. A model hand rises from 627 00:37:10.400 --> 00:37:13.559 the point of impact, holding a yellow rifle emblazoned as 628 00:37:13.559 --> 00:37:17.800 Blah flag. A billboard says, I won't abandon you. The 629 00:37:17.960 --> 00:37:20.280 enemy is still the same enemy, and the perpetrator of 630 00:37:20.320 --> 00:37:23.960 the massacres is the same, mister Cassam declared, so how 631 00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:28.159 can we abandon weapons? How No, our weapons will remain 632 00:37:28.559 --> 00:37:32.400 from now until the judgment day. They will remain. Lebanon 633 00:37:32.519 --> 00:37:35.400 South has long been has Blad stronghold and the crossroads 634 00:37:35.400 --> 00:37:38.599 of conflict with Israel. It is here that Israeli forces 635 00:37:39.639 --> 00:37:42.760 rolled across the frontier in twenty twenty four in response 636 00:37:42.800 --> 00:37:46.800 to Hesbalah attacks. Fear and violence are rampant in these borderlands, 637 00:37:46.920 --> 00:37:51.039 where the wounds that Israel has inflicted run deepest. Abbas 638 00:37:51.039 --> 00:37:54.519 Fakhor al Din, the soft spoken mayor of Nabatia, a 639 00:37:54.599 --> 00:37:58.199 city in southern Lebanon, sat beneath the portrait of Ahmad Khalil, 640 00:37:58.920 --> 00:38:02.360 our doctor and his predece assessor. Doctor Kahil was killed 641 00:38:02.360 --> 00:38:05.840 in an Israeli strike on the municipal building on October sixteenth, 642 00:38:05.920 --> 00:38:09.039 twenty twenty four, that took the lives of sixteen people. 643 00:38:09.039 --> 00:38:12.639 In all the rubble remains. I asked for mister al 644 00:38:12.719 --> 00:38:15.280 Din if he was afraid. No, he said, I have 645 00:38:15.400 --> 00:38:17.440 to be with my people through good times and bad. 646 00:38:18.719 --> 00:38:21.199 Now Batiya and the surrounding area continued to be hit 647 00:38:21.239 --> 00:38:24.800 by intermitting Israeli strikes, killing people and heightening the sense 648 00:38:24.840 --> 00:38:27.840 that the ceasefire is even less stable than Lebanon's battered buildings. 649 00:38:28.519 --> 00:38:31.480 To the Mayor's eyes, American strategy is devoted solely to 650 00:38:31.480 --> 00:38:35.400 support of Israel. Everything is being done to accommodate Israeli 651 00:38:35.440 --> 00:38:38.280 aggression and make it easy for Israel to stay, mister 652 00:38:38.320 --> 00:38:42.159 al Din said, spreading his arms in bewilderment. What has 653 00:38:42.199 --> 00:38:46.039 happened to humanity among the regimes of the world, as Blah, 654 00:38:46.039 --> 00:38:49.440 he continued, now faces two enemies, Israel and a hostile 655 00:38:49.480 --> 00:38:54.519 regime in Syria, which once provided essential support. Syria's new president, 656 00:38:54.719 --> 00:38:59.480 Ahmad al Sharrah, a former Sunni Jihadis who set up 657 00:38:59.480 --> 00:39:03.199 an affiliate of al Qaeda in Syria. Syria before moderating 658 00:39:03.239 --> 00:39:06.719 his views, is no friend of Iran or of its proxies. 659 00:39:06.760 --> 00:39:11.360 Like Esblah, mister Alshara has not forgotten Iran's strong support 660 00:39:11.800 --> 00:39:15.239 for Bashar al Asad, the brutal tyrant he deposed of 661 00:39:15.719 --> 00:39:19.280 last year. After a thirteen year civil war. Syria was 662 00:39:19.280 --> 00:39:22.199 a big loss. Some Hesblah people say we lost everything. 663 00:39:22.440 --> 00:39:26.000 The mayor Hesblah sympathizer, but not a member said so. 664 00:39:26.039 -->

00:39:28.320 We have two fears to the south and to the east, 665 00:39:28.719 --> 00:39:32.559 and are asked to disarm. Farther south, adjacent to the 666 00:39:32.599 --> 00:39:35.639 Israeli border, the town of Kiam offers a portrait of 667 00:39:35.679 --> 00:39:39.400 the widespread devastation found in the area. Only Christian villages 668 00:39:39.440 --> 00:39:43.719 have been spared and Kiam slabs of concrete hang at 669 00:39:43.800 --> 00:39:48.199 unlikely angles from crumpled buildings. Somehow, the slender minaret of 670 00:39:48.239 --> 00:39:50.960 a mosque still stands over the prayer area beneath it 671 00:39:51.360 --> 00:39:55.239 that it is in ruins. A couple of earth movers 672 00:39:55.280 --> 00:39:58.280 have rubble here and there to no clear purpose. Every 673 00:39:58.320 --> 00:40:00.599 now and then a corpse is found beneath the masonry. 674 00:40:01.159 --> 00:40:05.679 Yellow Hasbala flags flutter in the swirling dust. Israeli bombardment 675 00:40:05.719 --> 00:40:07.639 during the war and since has left no more than 676 00:40:07.639 --> 00:40:09.760 the shell of a town where twenty eight thousand people 677 00:40:09.800 --> 00:40:12.880 once lived. The number of its dead is unclear, but 678 00:40:12.960 --> 00:40:16.480 it is certainly in the hundreds. Kaled Musa twenty three 679 00:40:16.519 --> 00:40:19.119 is Syrian refugee who said he fled from the Syrian 680 00:40:19.159 --> 00:40:21.480 Civil War at the age of ten, carried on the 681 00:40:21.519 --> 00:40:24.519 neck of my father, sipped a grick a thick, grainy 682 00:40:24.559 --> 00:40:28.280 coffee in a solitary street. Sand war chases us. He 683 00:40:28.360 --> 00:40:32.360 said the living Israeli hostage is taken by a Mosser 684 00:40:32.440 --> 00:40:35.079 all home from Gaza. That is a great relief to 685 00:40:35.239 --> 00:40:38.920 Orna Weinberg at the Menara Kibutz on the Lebanese border. 686 00:40:39.480 --> 00:40:41.880 But she is still angry, full of distrust for the 687 00:40:41.880 --> 00:40:44.880 government under mister yet Yahoo, that she believes will use 688 00:40:44.920 --> 00:40:49.719 expanding conflict to keep itself in power. Israel's ready resort 689 00:40:49.760 --> 00:40:52.880 to preemptive strikes against enemies anywhere looks to her like 690 00:40:52.920 --> 00:40:56.599 a recipe for endless conflict. They can ignite the whole 691 00:40:56.599 --> 00:40:59.239 area again if it serves them, including in Lebanon. She 692 00:40:59.320 --> 00:41:03.199 said she saw hasblost Shelling devastate the kibbutz in the 693 00:41:03.199 --> 00:41:06.400 immediate aftermath of the October seventh Amas attack on Israel. 694 00:41:06.719 --> 00:41:08.440 The place she loves and where she has spent her 695 00:41:08.559 --> 00:41:11.559 entire life had to be abandoned. But as the war 696 00:41:11.599 --> 00:41:14.320 in Gaza dragged on for two years, she recoiled from 697 00:41:14.360 --> 00:41:17.159 talk by the extreme right of there being

no innocent 698 00:41:17.199 --> 00:41:19.880 people in Gaza and of death to Arabs, which she 699 00:41:19.960 --> 00:41:23.280 noted would mean killing Arab citizens of Israel, who constitute 700 00:41:23.320 --> 00:41:27.199 one fifth of the population. She cannot abide the way 701 00:41:27.800 --> 00:41:31.440 Israel's war since October seventh, twenty twenty three have been prosecuted. 702 00:41:32.039 --> 00:41:34.719 Once your government does things that contradict your morals and 703 00:41:34.760 --> 00:41:37.639 your very basic feelings and thoughts and ideas and principles, 704 00:41:37.960 --> 00:41:41.039 it shatters the soul, she told me. It does something awful. 705 00:41:42.159 --> 00:41:45.679 Unlike mister Hattan, thirty miles thirty five miles southwest on 706 00:41:45.719 --> 00:41:49.079 the same Lebanese border. She is appalled by mister Netnyahu 707 00:41:49.199 --> 00:41:52.280 and what a militant Israel has become. Divisions in an 708 00:41:52.400 --> 00:41:56.079 Israeli society are more raw than ever. War, she noted, 709 00:41:56.519 --> 00:42:00.239 is an effective distraction. Mister Netnaho is acutely awa aware 710 00:42:00.239 --> 00:42:02.880 of this. On November second, he said, we will not 711 00:42:02.960 --> 00:42:05.960 allow Lebanon to become a renewed front against US, and 712 00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:10.639 will act as necessary. Mister Barak, the American envoy, invited 713 00:42:10.639 --> 00:42:13.079 me onto the terrace of the U. S Ambassador's resistant 714 00:42:13.280 --> 00:42:17.480 residence in Istanbul, which overlooks the Boss. Four US vosporous 715 00:42:18.320 --> 00:42:22.519 container shipments chugged down the wind whipped waterway, fought over 716 00:42:22.599 --> 00:42:26.199 for centuries by covetous powers. From here. From more than 717 00:42:26.199 --> 00:42:29.599 five centuries, the Ottoman Empire, which once stretched from the 718 00:42:29.679 --> 00:42:34.119 Danube to the Persian Gulf cast its sapophoric sway over 719 00:42:34.159 --> 00:42:38.199 more than twenty nationalities, an old business pale of mister Trump. 720 00:42:38.320 --> 00:42:40.320 Mister Brock is trying to calm the wars that have 721 00:42:40.679 --> 00:42:43.199 ravaged the Middle East since that empire was carved up 722 00:42:43.199 --> 00:42:46.679 a century ago. Now, in his estimation, the region is 723 00:42:46.679 --> 00:42:49.679 at a new turning point. A realist with a can 724 00:42:49.679 --> 00:42:54.079 do briskness. Californian descended from Lebanese Christian immigrants, he is 725 00:42:54.119 --> 00:42:58.000 skeptical of the word piece, which he considers illusory or 726 00:42:58.039 --> 00:43:01.039 at best temporary in an environ men of deep wounds. 727 00:43:02.199 --> 00:43:05.760 He prefers to speak of fostering co operative prosperity, preventing 728 00:43:06.079 --> 00:43:08.800 needless death, and getting the lights turned on from Damascus 729 00:43:08.800 --> 00:43:11.440 to Beirut. It's not

the land you hold, he told me, 730 00:43:11.800 --> 00:43:15.360 it's the way you live in states like Lebanon in Syria. 731 00:43:15.480 --> 00:43:17.639 People have been killing each other for too longer, what 732 00:43:17.679 --> 00:43:21.079 he called facts that don't matter any more. Mister Brock 733 00:43:21.119 --> 00:43:24.320 wants a time out. How many more generations do you 734 00:43:24.360 --> 00:43:27.400 want to kill each other? He asked. It's a good question, 735 00:43:27.639 --> 00:43:30.000 but in a region where the disputed facts of the 736 00:43:30.039 --> 00:43:32.880 past often hold an iron grip on people. The demand 737 00:43:32.880 --> 00:43:36.239 for forward looking pregnant that pragmatism in this name of 738 00:43:36.280 --> 00:43:40.360 creating wealth can seem far fetched. The United States has 739 00:43:40.400 --> 00:43:43.119 had bold but ill fated plans before. In the Middle East. 740 00:43:44.039 --> 00:43:47.639 The Palestinian people want a state, and it seems unconceivable 741 00:43:47.639 --> 00:43:51.880 that money will ever alter that national ambition. This issue's 742 00:43:51.880 --> 00:43:55.199 capacity to ignite war at regular intervals has been demonstrated 743 00:43:55.280 --> 00:43:59.119 over and over. Still, America has upended its approach to 744 00:43:59.159 --> 00:44:03.360 the region, out with circuitous diplomacy and phrases like two 745 00:44:03.400 --> 00:44:07.119 state solution, and with bold action and creating momentum toward 746 00:44:07.360 --> 00:44:11.400 what mister Trump calls a new dawn. Mister Trump's grand 747 00:44:11.480 --> 00:44:15.840 vision is to confine Gulf capital, Lebanese commercial ingenuity, Israeli 748 00:44:15.920 --> 00:44:19.280 technology in a large Arab work force to produce economic 749 00:44:19.360 --> 00:44:24.400 miracles that concilitate, conciliate the Middle East. It remains to 750 00:44:24.440 --> 00:44:27.519 be seen whether it is more than an illusion. Mister 751 00:44:27.559 --> 00:44:31.199 Barrock is pushing hard to seize the moment. Disarming as Blah. 752 00:44:31.239 --> 00:44:34.320 He tells that Lebanese leaders will bring in the Saudis 753 00:44:34.320 --> 00:44:37.039 and the Qataris who have been burned in Lebanon because 754 00:44:37.039 --> 00:44:40.639 they tried and the money went to corruption. Mister Salaam 755 00:44:40.719 --> 00:44:43.920 told me that mister Brock had suggested simultaneous steps by 756 00:44:44.039 --> 00:44:47.559 Israel ann Hasblah as the way forward. As Bala hands 757 00:44:47.599 --> 00:44:50.679 over some weapons and vacates part of the country, Israel 758 00:44:50.719 --> 00:44:53.000 withdraws from two of the five points, and so on. 759 00:44:53.159 --> 00:44:56.079 He said there was a long silence. It was an 760 00:44:56.079 --> 00:45:00.400 excellent idea of his, but nothing. On September twenty first, 761 00:45:00.599 --> 00:45:04.159 the day after the killing below Beaufort Castle, Israel acted 762 00:45:04.199 --> 00:45:06.840 as it deemed necessary. In the town of vin Jabail 763 00:45:07.199 --> 00:45:11.639 in southern Lebanon. A drone strike on Shady Charara's car 764 00:45:11.719 --> 00:45:15.599 killed him, his two eighteen month old twins, Haiti and Ceylon, 765 00:45:16.039 --> 00:45:19.360 and his eight year old daughter Celine. His wife Amani Bazai, 766 00:45:19.679 --> 00:45:22.840 suff survived. A man on a motorcycle was also killed. 767 00:45:23.760 --> 00:45:26.719 Asked about that incident, the Israeli military said it had 768 00:45:26.760 --> 00:45:30.840 targeted and unnamed as Baalah operative and during the neutralization 769 00:45:30.920 --> 00:45:33.440 of the terrorist in an air strike, a second vehicle 770 00:45:33.480 --> 00:45:36.440 carrying civilians approached the target, and as a result of 771 00:45:36.440 --> 00:45:39.840 the strike, that vehicle was hit two. It added that 772 00:45:39.920 --> 00:45:44.320 it regrets any harm caused to uninvolved individuals. Thousands of 773 00:45:44.320 --> 00:45:47.119 people attended the funeral of the family on September twenty third. 774 00:45:47.480 --> 00:45:49.800 The tiny coffins of the twins bore a photograph of 775 00:45:49.840 --> 00:45:52.599 each of them and were covered in Lebanese flags. The 776 00:45:52.679 --> 00:45:55.719 infants themselves were wrapped in blue and pink cloth as 777 00:45:55.760 --> 00:45:58.760 they were lowered into the ground. There were no yellow 778 00:45:58.800 --> 00:46:02.679 as Baala flags, Noah rhetoric, no indication that this Lebanese 779 00:46:02.719 --> 00:46:05.480 family had any has Belah ties. On the day of 780 00:46:05.519 --> 00:46:08.119 the drone strike, mister Salam told me he had received 781 00:46:08.159 --> 00:46:12.360 a phone call from the monitoring Mechanism which abjudicates compliance 782 00:46:12.360 --> 00:46:14.639 with the ceasefire in Lebanon and is led by the 783 00:46:14.760 --> 00:46:18.360 United States and France. The mechanism reported to the Lebanese 784 00:46:18.400 --> 00:46:22.199 Prime Minister that it had held an excellent meeting. A 785 00:46:22.280 --> 00:46:25.360 half hour later, I get another call reporting five killed, 786 00:46:25.519 --> 00:46:29.519 including three children by then Israeli drone strike and bin Jabiel. 787 00:46:29.599 --> 00:46:32.679 Mister Salam said, I feel frustrated, but what is the 788 00:46:32.719 --> 00:46:38.440 point of protesting again and again. The next article from 789 00:46:38.440 --> 00:46:41.760 the front page of today's edition is entitled Hagsath ordered 790 00:46:41.760 --> 00:46:45.159 a lethal attack, but not the killing of survivors, officials say, 791 00:46:47.440 --> 00:46:51.199 by Charlie Savage, Julian E. Barnes, Eric Schmidt and Johannis May. 792 00:46:52.119 --> 00:46:55.000 The Trump administration on Monday defended the legality of a 793 00:46:55.000 --> 00:46:57.599 September second attack on a boat in the Caribbean Sea, 794 00:46:58.159

--> 00:47:00.599 as calls grew in Congress to examine whether a follow 795 00:47:00.639 --> 00:47:03.039 up missile strike that killed survivors amounted to a crime. 796 00:47:03.960 --> 00:47:06.599 The lethal attack was the first and President Trump's legally 797 00:47:06.639 --> 00:47:10.599 disputed campaign of killing people suspected of smuggling drugs at 798 00:47:10.679 --> 00:47:14.159 sea as if they were combatants in a war. It 799 00:47:14.199 --> 00:47:17.519 has started coming under intense bipartisan scrutiny in recent days, 800 00:47:17.519 --> 00:47:20.480 amid questions about the decision to kill the initial survivors 801 00:47:20.920 --> 00:47:24.039 and what orders were issued by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. 802 00:47:25.039 --> 00:47:28.480 At the White House on Monday, Carolyne Livett, the Press Secretary, 803 00:47:28.599 --> 00:47:31.159 read a statement that said mister Hegseth had authorized the 804 00:47:31.159 --> 00:47:35.559 Special Operations Commander overseeing the attack, Admiral Frank M. Bradley, 805 00:47:35.760 --> 00:47:39.280 to conduct these kinetic strikes. She said that Admiral Bradley 806 00:47:39.320 --> 00:47:41.639 had worked well within his authority in the law directing 807 00:47:41.679 --> 00:47:44.400 the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed and the 808 00:47:44.440 --> 00:47:48.440 threats of the United States of America was eliminated. According 809 00:47:48.480 --> 00:47:50.840 to five U s officials, who spoke separately and on 810 00:47:50.880 --> 00:47:53.840 the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter that 811 00:47:53.960 --> 00:47:57.880 is under investigation. Mister Hegseth, the head of the September attack, 812 00:47:58.360 --> 00:48:00.280 ordered a strike that would kill the people on the 813 00:48:00.280 --> 00:48:03.280 boat and destroy the vessel and its purported cargo of drugs, 814 00:48:03.960 --> 00:48:07.559 But each official said mister Hegseth's directive did not specifically 815 00:48:07.559 --> 00:48:10.440 address what should happen if a first missile turned out 816 00:48:10.679 --> 00:48:13.639 to not fully accomplish all of those things, and the 817 00:48:13.679 --> 00:48:17.039 official said his order was not a response to surveillance 818 00:48:17.079 --> 00:48:19.159 footage showing that at least two people on the boat 819 00:48:19.199 --> 00:48:23.840 survived the first plast Admiral Bradley ordered the initial missile 820 00:48:23.880 --> 00:48:26.199 strike and then several follow up strikes that killed the 821 00:48:26.199 --> 00:48:29.960 initial super survivors and sank the disabled boat. As that 822 00:48:30.039 --> 00:48:33.119 operation unfolded, They said, mister Hegseth did not give any 823 00:48:33.119 --> 00:48:36.599 further orders to him. The officials clarified the sequence of 824 00:48:36.639 --> 00:48:39.960 events amid the political and legal uproar that is followed 825 00:48:40.239 --> 00:48:43.920 a report in The Washington

Post last week. It said 826 00:48:43.960 --> 00:48:46.840 that Admiral Bradley ordered the second strike to fulfill a 827 00:48:46.880 --> 00:48:50.760 directive by mister Hegsath to kill everyone. The reaction has 828 00:48:50.800 --> 00:48:54.599 included questions about whether mister Hegsath specifically ordered an execution 829 00:48:54.719 --> 00:48:58.719 of shipwrecked sailors in violation of laws in the laws 830 00:48:58.719 --> 00:49:02.480 of war. Speaking to reporters on Sunday night, mister Trump 831 00:49:02.559 --> 00:49:05.199 said that mister Hegseth had denied ordering a second strike 832 00:49:05.239 --> 00:49:07.800 to kill two people who were wounded but still alive 833 00:49:07.840 --> 00:49:10.559 after the first one, saying Pete said he did not 834 00:49:10.719 --> 00:49:13.719 order the death of those two men. Mister Trump also 835 00:49:13.840 --> 00:49:16.960 sought to distance himself from the follow up strike, saying 836 00:49:17.280 --> 00:49:20.159 he wouldn't have wanted that, not a second strike, although 837 00:49:20.159 --> 00:49:22.920 he said the first one was fine. He defended his 838 00:49:23.000 --> 00:49:26.440 broader policy of having the military use lethal force against 839 00:49:26.440 --> 00:49:30.559 people suspected of smuggling drugs. Starting with the September second attack, 840 00:49:30.639 --> 00:49:34.039 this administration has said it has carried out twenty one 841 00:49:34.079 --> 00:49:37.320 such strikes in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean, 842 00:49:37.599 --> 00:49:41.840 killing eighty three people. Mister Hegseth called the post reporting 843 00:49:41.880 --> 00:49:46.159 fabricated and inflammatory. As we've said from the beginning and 844 00:49:46.239 --> 00:49:49.880 in every statement, these highly effective strikes are specifically intended 845 00:49:49.920 --> 00:49:52.840 to be lethal kinetic strikes, he wrote on social media. 846 00:49:53.719 --> 00:49:57.119 In another social media statement on Monday, mister Hegsett said 847 00:49:57.119 --> 00:49:59.760 he stood by Admiral Bradley and what he called the 848 00:50:00.159 --> 00:50:04.199 Admiral's combat decisions in the strike. Admiral Mitch Bradley is 849 00:50:04.239 --> 00:50:07.960 an American hero, a true professional, and has my one 850 00:50:08.079 --> 00:50:11.199 hundred percent support, he wrote. I stand by him in 851 00:50:11.239 --> 00:50:14.480 the combat decisions he has made on the September second 852 00:50:14.519 --> 00:50:18.920 mission and all others since. Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of 853 00:50:18.960 --> 00:50:22.480 Mississippi and chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said on 854 00:50:22.599 --> 00:50:25.800 Monday that he had spoken with mister Hegsath and General 855 00:50:25.880 --> 00:50:28.880 Dane Kane. Dan Kane, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs 856 00:50:28.880 --> 00:50:32.000 of Staff, about the strikes, and that his committee would 857 00:50:32.039 --> 00:50:36.559 conduct a congressional investigation into the matter. The Defense Secretary 858 00:50:36.599 --> 00:50:40.400 also spoke with Representative Mike Rodgers of Alabama, the chairman 859 00:50:40.440 --> 00:50:43.920 of the House Armed Services Committee. According to a US official, 860 00:50:44.920 --> 00:50:47.960 in interviews on Monday, two US officials, both of whom 861 00:50:48.000 --> 00:50:51.920 were supportive of the administration's boat strikes, described a meeting 862 00:50:51.960 --> 00:50:55.519 before the attack at which mister Hagsth had briefed Special 863 00:50:55.559 --> 00:51:00.320 Operations Forces commanders on his execute order towing gagged the 864 00:51:00.360 --> 00:51:03.800 boat with lethal force, that written order, they said, did 865 00:51:03.800 --> 00:51:06.559 not address what should happen if people survived the first strike. 866 00:51:07.559 --> 00:51:10.639 Several people familiar with the congressional effort said that lawmakers 867 00:51:10.639 --> 00:51:13.199 had asked to see a copy of the execute order 868 00:51:13.480 --> 00:51:16.400 and that the administration refused to turn it over. The 869 00:51:16.400 --> 00:51:19.559 two officials also said mister Hegsath made no oral directive 870 00:51:19.559 --> 00:51:22.400 at the meeting that went beyond the written order. The 871 00:51:22.440 --> 00:51:25.440 Post article did not provide context on when mister Hegseth 872 00:51:25.639 --> 00:51:28.719 gave what its sources described as a spoken order to 873 00:51:28.840 --> 00:51:33.320 kill everyone. The two officials questioned whether the surviving people 874 00:51:33.360 --> 00:51:37.159 were Admiral Bradley's intended target in the second strike, as 875 00:51:37.159 --> 00:51:40.559 opposed to the purported drugs and the disabled vessel. They 876 00:51:40.679 --> 00:51:43.320 argued that the purported cargo remained a threat and a 877 00:51:43.360 --> 00:51:47.159 lawful military target because another cartel associated boat might have 878 00:51:47.199 --> 00:51:50.159 come to retrieve it. One of the officials said the 879 00:51:50.239 --> 00:51:53.960 US military intercepted radio communications from one of the survivors 880 00:51:54.000 --> 00:51:57.800 to what the officials said were NARCO traffickers. If so, 881 00:51:57.960 --> 00:52:00.840 members of Congress could request those communitytions as part of 882 00:52:00.880 --> 00:52:05.800 its oversight investigation. The suggestion that mister Hegseath Admiral Bradley 883 00:52:05.880 --> 00:52:09.960 or both targeted shipwrecked survivors has been galvanizing because that 884 00:52:10.000 --> 00:52:12.880 would apparently be a war crime. Even if one accepts 885 00:52:13.000 --> 00:52:16.760 the Trump administration's disputed arguments for why its boat attacks 886 00:52:16.760 --> 00:52:21.480 have been lawful, Generally, a military cannot deliberately attack civilians, 887 00:52:21.679 --> 00:52:25.079 even suspected criminals who do not pose in an

imminent threat. 888 00:52:25.760 --> 00:52:29.360 The administration has argued the strikes are nevertheless lawful because 889 00:52:29.360 --> 00:52:32.360 mister Trump has determined that the United States is in 890 00:52:32.400 --> 00:52:36.360 a formal armed conflict with drug cartels, even though Congress 891 00:52:36.400 --> 00:52:39.960 has not declared any such war. Mister Trump has also 892 00:52:40.039 --> 00:52:43.079 determined that the crews of the boats are combatants. A 893 00:52:43.119 --> 00:52:46.079 still secret memo by the Justice Department's Office of Legal 894 00:52:46.079 --> 00:52:49.719 Counsel accepts mister Trump's determinations, according to people who have 895 00:52:49.760 --> 00:52:53.119 read it, adding it concluded that suspected shipments of drugs 896 00:52:53.159 --> 00:52:56.719 are lawful military targets to prevent cartels from using them 897 00:52:56.760 --> 00:53:00.559 to finance their war efforts. A broad rage of legal 898 00:53:00.599 --> 00:53:03.719 experts reject that analysis. But even if this were an 899 00:53:03.840 --> 00:53:06.440 armed conflict, it is a war crime to kill enemies 900 00:53:06.440 --> 00:53:09.960 who are out of the fight. That category includes enemy 901 00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:13.920 fighters who have surrendered or are otherwise defenseless, impose no threat. 902 00:53:14.960 --> 00:53:17.559 Members of the armed forces must refuse to comply with 903 00:53:17.639 --> 00:53:21.079 clearly illegal orders to commit law of war violations. The 904 00:53:21.119 --> 00:53:25.480 Pentagon's Law of War Law Law of War Manual says, 905 00:53:25.639 --> 00:53:29.239 adding for example, orders to fire upon the shipwrecked would 906 00:53:29.239 --> 00:53:33.239 be clearly illegal. It also says that it is prohibited 907 00:53:33.280 --> 00:53:35.840 to conduct hostilities on the basis that there shall be 908 00:53:35.880 --> 00:53:39.119 no survivors, or to threaten the adversary with the denial 909 00:53:39.159 --> 00:53:41.840 of quarter, which means refusing to spare the life and 910 00:53:42.360 --> 00:53:45.280 of an enemy who has surrendered or is unable to fight. 911 00:53:46.559 --> 00:53:50.480 Jeffrey Korn, who was the Army's senior adviser for law 912 00:53:50.519 --> 00:53:53.039 of war issues, that he believed the entire attack was 913 00:53:53.079 --> 00:53:56.719 illegal because he rejects the administration's argument that the situation 914 00:53:56.840 --> 00:54:00.880 can be legitimately treated as an armed conflict. But even 915 00:54:00.880 --> 00:54:03.480 if it were one, he said, and order specifically to 916 00:54:03.519 --> 00:54:07.519 finish off shipwrecked survivors, whether or not Admiral Bradley believed 917 00:54:07.519 --> 00:54:13.000 he was carrying out Mister Hegsett's instructions, would be unambiguously criminal. Still, 918 00:54:13.039 --> 00:54:15.880 he said, if Admiral Bradley's order was instead to finish 919 00:54:15.920 --> 00:54:18.840 destroying

the vessel even if people were clinging to it. 920 00:54:19.159 --> 00:54:23.159 That would be more complicated in a real naval armed conflict, 921 00:54:23.199 --> 00:54:25.519 he said. It is lawful to fire on a partly 922 00:54:25.559 --> 00:54:29.400 disabled enemy warship that is continuing to maneuver or fire 923 00:54:29.440 --> 00:54:32.519 its guns, even if there are wounded sailors aboard or 924 00:54:32.559 --> 00:54:36.400 shipwrecked sailors clinging to it. But if a warship signals 925 00:54:36.400 --> 00:54:38.639 it is out of the fight by ceasing firing and 926 00:54:38.719 --> 00:54:41.760 lowering its colors, he said, then it becomes illegal to 927 00:54:41.840 --> 00:54:45.000 keep firing upon it. The problem with all of that, 928 00:54:45.280 --> 00:54:47.599 he said, is that the speedboat was not a warship 929 00:54:47.639 --> 00:54:51.039 with guns to stop firing and colors to lower. This 930 00:54:51.239 --> 00:54:53.559 is the consequence of treating something that is not really 931 00:54:53.599 --> 00:54:56.639 an armed conflict as an armed conflict. He said. The 932 00:54:56.679 --> 00:54:58.519 speed boat could not signal it was out of the 933 00:54:58.519 --> 00:55:01.039 fight because it was not really fighting to begin with. 934 00:55:02.000 --> 00:55:05.719 Professor Korn, who now teaches military law at Texas Tech University, 935 00:55:06.280 --> 00:55:09.000 said that as lawmakers seek answers, they could look into 936 00:55:09.000 --> 00:55:11.960 whether the missile used in the second strike was configured 937 00:55:11.960 --> 00:55:15.159 as an anti personnel device one that is designed to 938 00:55:15.199 --> 00:55:18.639 produce lots of shrapnel, or was instead configured to cause 939 00:55:18.880 --> 00:55:25.760 maximal damage to a large object. With just one minute left, 940 00:55:25.840 --> 00:55:28.199 I will start this next story, but I know I 941 00:55:28.239 --> 00:55:30.719 will not finish it. The next article from the front 942 00:55:30.719 --> 00:55:33.880 page of today's edition is entitled what Jamaica wants after 943 00:55:33.920 --> 00:55:39.519 deadly hurricane visit US Island, says by Francis Robleys. With 944 00:55:39.599 --> 00:55:42.559 power still out nine days after Hurricane Melissa swept through 945 00:55:42.559 --> 00:55:46.000 western Jamaica, Kelleny Kerr stood in the dark at the 946 00:55:46.000 --> 00:55:49.440 stifling hot souvenir shop in Negro where she works, waving 947 00:55:49.480 --> 00:55:52.679 a fan at her sole customer. She tried to guestimate 948 00:55:52.719 --> 00:55:55.840 how dependent Negra, a beach town on Jamaica's far west coast, 949 00:55:56.039 --> 00:55:59.000 is on tourism, from a scale of one to ten, 950 00:55:59.480 --> 00:56:02.199 Ten said, or maybe one hundred, because that's what we 951 00:56:02.400 --> 00:56:05.960 use here to survive. Miss Kerr is one of more 952 00:56:06.000 --> 00:56:08.679 than half a million Jamaicans whose jobs depend directly or 953 00:56:08.719 --> 00:56:12.039 indirectly on tourism. In the Caribbean country that in October 954 00:56:12.159 --> 00:56:15.920 was battered by its first Category five hurricane. The storm 955 00:56:16.000 --> 00:56:18.559 killed at least forty five people, damaged about one hundred 956 00:56:18.559 --> 00:56:22.039 and fifty thousand buildings and homes, and crippled the tourism industry, 957 00:56:22.480 --> 00:56:25.000 which the island nation relies on for nearly a third 958 00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:28.400 of its economy. This concludes the reading of The New 959 00:56:28.440 --> 00:56:31.519 York Times for today. Your reader for today has been 960 00:56:31.599 --> 00:56:35.199 Chris Greco. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions 961 00:56:35.239 --> 00:56:38.559 concerning this program, please feel free to call us at 962 00:56:38.599 --> 00:56:41.400 eight five nine four two two six three nine zero. 963 00:56:42.079 --> 00:56:44.119 Thank you for listening, and now please stay tuned for 964 00:56:44.159 --> 00:56:46.280 continued programming on Radio I