Up First from NPR - Iowa caucuses, 100 days of Israel-Hamas war and Guatemala inaugurates a new president

Episode Date: January 15, 2024

The republican primaries begin today with the Iowa caucuses. What Israel's war against Hamas looks like in Gaza after a 100-days of retaliation. And after his inauguration was in doubt, Guatemala's new president is sworn in. Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Ben Swasey, Mark Katkov, Kevin Drew, Reena Advani and Mohamad ElBardicy It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Ben Abrams and Nina Kravinsky. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott. And our technical director is Zac Coleman. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

After weeks of listening to Republican candidates campaign in Iowa, caucus goers have their say today. All the polls say Donald Trump is way ahead, so are his rivals fighting for second place? I'm Leila Faldel, that's A. Martinez, and Israel shows no sign of scaling back its military campaign that it says is aimed at eliminating Hamas. The U.S. says it's urging a change. We have been talking to them intensely about a transition to low-intensity operations. Meanwhile, civilians in Gaza have paid and continue to pay a heavy price. How is the world responding to so much killing and destruction? And delays over the transfer of power in Guatemala are over. Just

after midnight, Bernardo Arrebalo, who was sworn in as president, will hear what held up his inauguration and the challenges he now faces. Stay with us. We've got all the news you need Now Our Change will honour 100 years of the Royal Canadian Air Force and their dedicated service to communities at home and abroad. From the skies to Our Change, this $2 commemorative circulation coin marks their storied past and promising future. Find the limited edition Royal Canadian Air Force $2 coin today. Iowa is at the center in U.S. politics today. Yeah, tonight, Iowa Republicans hold the first nominating contest in the party's presidential race. The favorite in that race, Donald Trump,

is also the clear favorite to win the Iowa caucuses. But some rivals to the former president have been campaigning hard, even as temperatures in Iowa have plunged below zero. NPR national political correspondent Don Gagne is in Iowa. We have defrosted him so he can join us today. Don, the forecast calls for what? Below zero degrees all day in Des Moines. So what's that feel like and how's it affecting the race? Oh, you are being so optimistic on the temperature. As we speak, it is minus 16, wind chill minus 33. Here's the good news.

We don't expect any snow today. At caucus time, it'll be five below plus wind chill. Candidates have been talking about it, knowing that the weather could play a role in the results. So let's listen to some sound from a recent day on the trail this week. Here's Nikki Haley, Donald Trump Jr., and then you'll hear Ron DeSantis. It's going to be so cold. Like, I don't even know what negative 15 is. I understand it's going to be minus four, but if I can get my Florida butt back up here. Zero degrees, negative 10, negative 20. But you know what? Okay. So, you know, we don't

know how many voters will actually show up. These are dangerous conditions. We don't know what the roads are going to look like everywhere. But I do have to say some voters, when you talk to them, are really committed. Like Bryce Musgrove. I met him at that DeSantis event. Might the weather affect whether or not you actually caucus? No, probably not. You'll get out. Yeah.

Yeah. We're used to it in Iowa. So that's important enough. We'll get out. You're used to 15 below? I don't know whether you ever get used to it, but you can tolerate it for short periods of time. Wow. All right. You know, Don, not that long ago, I spent a few days driving from Sioux County to Des Moines, and almost everyone I spoke to was, for the most part, all in on Donald Trump.

Is that what you're hearing, too? That's what the polls show us, certainly. And it's really easy to find people who are extremely enthusiastic about Trump running again. But you can find people who are not voting for Trump. You find them at rallies for DeSantis and Haley, and they'll tell you lots of reasons why they can't back Trump. But when you press them about what they'll do if Trump is the nominee come November, most say, yeah, they'd be with him over Joe Biden. Now, if Trump wins, it would seem to be a close battle for runner up between Haley and DeSantis. How they position themselves in the contest's final days. So Haley says Trump was the right president at the right time, but electing him again would just

bring chaos. DeSantis says you can like Trump, but you can't deny that if he is the nominee, then the election is going to be all about January 6th and criminal charges and that that plays into Democrats' hands. And, you know, and for Donald Trump, it seems like his main battle, Don, is not necessarily with the other candidates, but against his own expectations. So then what's in it for everyone else? Well, it does feel like a battle for second place. And more than anything, it's DeSantis who needs second place because he has poured so much into Iowa. And if he should finish third, you'd really hear calls for him to drop out. Haley has New Hampshire coming up next, where she has actually polled well, second place,

but well. And she really wants to set up a showdown with former President Trump there. That's NPR's Don Gagne. Thanks for braving the cold, Don. It will do. In Israel, Gaza, and around the world, people marked 100 days of war over the weekend. It was a somber moment, remembering more than 24,000 people killed in Gaza, the majority women and children following the Hamas attack, which killed 1,200 in October. Those numbers are according to the Gaza Health Ministry and the Israeli government, respectively.

Today, nearly 2 million people are displaced inside Gaza. That's almost the entire population. And people are starving, with only a trickle of aid being allowed into the Palestinian enclave. NPR's Lauren Freyer is in Tel Aviv. Lauren, those numbers that Leila just mentioned, I mean, they're horrible, horrible, horrible numbers. How are Israelis and Palestinians marking this? There's grief across Israel, the West Bank, and of course Gaza, where fighting continues. Overnight, Hamas issued a video of three hostages held in Gaza pleading with the Israeli government to end this war and bring them home. It's unclear when this video was recorded.

They're presumably speaking under duress. A spokesperson for Hamas's armed wing made an appearance on TV saying many of the hostages may already be dead, killed by Israeli bombing of Gaza. Wow, that has got to be difficult for families to hear. That's right. There have been vigils across Israel this past weekend for the hostages, a sense that time may be running out for them. Here's Kareen Rosh. She's an Israeli teacher whom my colleague Ea Batraoui interviewed in a gathering in Tel Aviv on Saturday. Everyone in Israel can't, no one will be able to go on with life until they're back. I know that everyone feels that this is the top priority and I just don't understand why it's not happening. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people have rallied in other countries this weekend, including the U.S. and Europe, calling for an end to Israeli attacks on Gaza.

Our Gaza producer, Anas Baba, is in Rafah in southern Gaza, where he spoke with a man named Mohamed Soubekh. He says he's from the north of Gaza, describes fleeing his home under fire, squeezing into the south with more than a million other evacuees. The United Nations says famine is imminent there, and it accuses Israel of using food, water and medicine as, quote, instruments of war. Now, the U.S. has stood by Israel, but President Biden has said that too many Palestinians have died in Gaza. So what role is the United States playing 100 days in? The U.S. is pushing Israel to tamp down that bombardment of Gaza and shift to targeted special operations to hunt Hamas leaders and find those

hostages. Here's the National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby on CBS Face the Nation yesterday. We have been talking to them intensely about a transition to low intensity operations. We believe it's the right time for that transition. But, you know, the U.S.-Israel relationship is showing some signs of strain. Wonder now if this conflict is in danger of spreading to other countries in the region. That's a worry. I mean, Israel's been trading fire over its northern border, too, with militants based in Lebanon. Two Israelis were killed yesterday when an anti-tank missile hit their home in that border region. And the conflict is also spilling over into global sports, actually. An Israeli soccer player who plays

professionally in Turkey was briefly detained there after he displayed a wristband with the words 100 days and a Star of David on it. And Israel's defense minister in response has accused Turkey of acting like, quote, the de facto executive arm of Hamas. So tensions are running high across the region over this war. That's NPR's Lauren Frayer in Tel Aviv. Lauren, thank you. You're welcome. In Guatemala, there was a giant victory for democracy overnight. Just a few hours ago, Bernardo Aravelo was sworn in as the country's new president. And it came despite months of efforts to prevent his inauguration that saw rising tensions both in the halls of Congress and on the streets, right up until the transfer of power. NPR's Eder Barata has been up all night. He joins us now from Guatemala City. Eder, let's just start off by telling us what happened there.

Oof, I mean, where do I start? It was full of drama, remarkable in every way. The day started with everyone thinking that this was going to be a celebration. The king of Spain, the presidents of Colombia, Honduras and Chile flew in and the new Congress was supposed to be sworn in at 8 a.m. And then in the afternoon, we learned that the old Congress was refusing to swear in the new Congress and it was that new Congress that gets to swear in the new president. So all of the young people who won congressional elections, along with the president, interrupted a meeting.

There was pushing and swearing inside Congress. And outside on the streets, the people took matters into their own hands. Let's listen. So now the indigenous groups have taken to the streets of Guatemala. This was supposed to be a day of celebration, and now it has turned into a day of protest. Not one step back, they're shouting. Not one step back.

And that man is named Hugo Chavez. He was facing off with cops in front of Congress, and he's saying that our anthem calls us to triumph or die, and any one of us could be killed at any moment, he said, but here we are doing something we believe in for something that matters. But what followed were hours of more stalling by the outgoing Congress. I mean, the sun went down. Some of those foreign dignitaries got tired of waiting and they left.

And Guatemala had not sworn in a president. So why were they trying to stop this inauguration? I mean, look, Guatemala has descended into a really dark political cynicism. People here say the country is run by a pact among corrupt politicians. And this is craven corruption, downright grabbing of millions of dollars that should be going towards schools and hospitals in a really poor country.

President Bernardo Alevalo is an outsider. His campaign was born at a university and out of an anti-corruption movement. And his win was grassroots, an unprecedented coalition between a young urban crowd and rural indigenous people. And that scares the corrupt. They can't buy those votes. And they think that this government might very well throw them in jail. So they've done everything to try to stop Arevalo from getting

to power. In the end, they couldn't stop the inauguration, though. They couldn't. And it was literally minutes ago that Bernardo Alevalo finally came out to meet his supporters. He came out on the balcony of the National Palace. And people here were just chanting over and over, yes, we did it. Yes, it could be done. And that just finished minutes ago, almost a whole 24 hours before it was supposed to have started. That's NPR's Eder Peralta reporting from Guatemala City. Thank you very much. Thank you, Abe. And that's Up First for Monday, January 15th. I'm Abe Martinez.

And I'm Leila Fadl. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Ben Swayze, Mark Katkoff, Kevin Drew, Reena Advani, and Mohamed El-Bardisi. It was produced by Ziad Batch, Ben Abrams, and Nina Kravinsky. We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott, and our technical director is Zach Coleman. Start your day here with us tomorrow. And thanks for listening to Up First. You can find more in-depth coverage of the stories we talked about today

and a lot more on NPR's Morning Edition. That's the radio show that Leila, Steve Inskeep, Michelle Martin, and I host. You can find Morning Edition on your local NPR station at stations.npr.org.