Up First from NPR - Weaponry in Israel-Iran Conflict, President Trump's Domestic Agenda, Heat Dome

Episode Date: June 21, 2025

Israel warns of a "prolonged" conflict with Iran. But with the war now in its second week, do the two countries have the weapons to fight a sustained campaign? Plus, President Trump is pushing to pass his massive tax cut and spending bill by as early as next week. But can he overcome the opposition within his own party? Also, a heat dome is expanding across the country and millions of Americans could experience record-breaking temperatures in the coming days.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Israel warns of a prolonged conflict with Iran. But with the war now in its second week, do the two countries have the weapons to fight a sustained campaign? I'm Scott Simon. I'm Ayesha Roscoe and this is Up First from NPR News. President Trump is pushing to pass his massive tax cut and spending bill by as early as next week. But he'll need to overcome opposition from within his own political ranks. So can the president close the deal?

And we're about to have the first heat wave of the summer. Record-breaking temperatures are expected to affect millions of Americans, and extreme humidity is also a big concern. Stay with us, we have the news you need to start your weekend. But I thought, wow, this guy goes to work and he does Donald Duck. I'm Jesse Thorne on Bullseye the one and only Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker from Star Wars, on his life's greatest aspiration, doing silly cartoon voices in the moment that he realized his dream.

I did a terrible Donald Duck, but it made me think that's what I want to do. I want to do cartoon voices. That's on Bullseye for MaximumFun.org and NPR. The best kind of celebrity interview is one where you find out that the person who made a thing you love also thinks in a way that you love. Nothing is more foreign than when Ariel says in The Little Mermaid, I want to be where the people are. I don't want to be where the people are. I just don't. I'm Rachel Martin. Listen to the Wild Card Podcast only from NPR. I just don't. I'm Rachel Martin. Listen to the Wild Card Podcast, only from NPR.

President Trump says it's very hard to ask Israel to stop attacking Iran at this moment in the conflict. If somebody's winning, it's a little bit harder to do than if somebody's losing. But there's a specific kind of math that could determine just how long the war could go on for. How many long-range missiles Iran has versus how many missile interceptors Israel possesses to shoot them down? And of course, Kat Lonsdorf has been looking into this issue and joins us. Kat, thanks for being with us. Hey, good morning. Help us get hold of this.

Describe first Israel's air defense system. Yeah, so Israel has one of the best, if not the best air defense systems in the world. And it's multi-layered. Probably the most well-known layer of that is called the Iron Dome, but there are several others that work too. And the system works well. It generally has about a 90% success rate.

What makes this situation different is essentially sheer numbers. Iran has launched more than 400 missiles at Israel in recent days, along with hundreds of drones, according to Israel. And Iran continues to barrage Israel daily, often usually with dozens of missiles at a time. That means basically Israel is using its missile interceptors faster than it can make them right now. Here's Tom Karakou. Here's how he put it to me. He's the director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Whenever you're talking about somebody shooting big ballistic missiles at you, you pay real close attention to the clock in terms of how long you can shoot back. You know, he says his biggest worry right now is that eventually Israel's missile interceptors could run out. And what would that mean for Israel? Well, the longer this goes, Israel might have to start making some hard choices in terms of what to defend, maybe focusing on key military or security targets versus civilian infrastructure, for example, meaning that Israeli cities and towns might start seeing more destruction. Experts I talked to say this would be a big win for Iran, hoping it might put more pressure on Israel to give up on its goal of destroying Iran's nuclear infrastructure. I should say

Israeli officials won't comment on how many interceptors it has left. That would potentially give Iran a big advantage. NPR asked the Israeli military about its stock of interceptors, and it said it is, quote, prepared and ready for any scenario. And what about the other side of the equation? What do we know about the Iranian arsenal? Yeah, that's the other key piece of this, of course, is how many long-range missiles Iran has to shoot and what it

has to shoot them with. There aren't many reliable estimates on Iran's stockpile, but experts tend to think that Iran has used around a third to a half of what it has. You know, but perhaps more important is how many missile launchers Iran has because it can't use the missiles without them. Launchers have been a key target for Israeli strikes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu estimated earlier this week that Israel has taken out more than half of them, although that number is hard to know for sure. And another upper hand for Israel is that it's crippled Iran's air defense systems, claiming it has total control over the skies there and it can hit whatever it wants at

will. And President Trump says he would decide within two weeks if the U.S. would join Israel's bombing campaign against Iran. What would be at stake? Well, we know the White House has been weighing whether or not to greenlight using these huge bunker buster bombs that only the U.S. has to try to destroy a key Iranian nuclear site.

Obviously, Israel having control of Iran's airspace would be a huge help for that. But Scott, maybe the most important numbers in all of this to keep in mind here are the civilian lives being lost on both sides if this war continues. Iran says 430 people have been killed. Israel says it's lost at least 24. And Biers Kat Lonsdorf, thanks so much.

Thanks, Scott. This week's news, of course, has been dominated by events in the Middle East, but at home, President Trump is pressing ahead with his domestic agenda. Senate Majority Leader John Thune warned what's at stake if Congress doesn't pass the president's massive tax cut and spending bill. If we don't take action, American families will be facing a massive tax hike starting in 2026. Senator Thune aims for a vote next week, but first he has to resolve divisions among his own fellow Republicans. NPR congressional correspondent Deidre Walsh joins us. Deidre, thanks for being with us.

Thanks, Scott. Remind us please first, how is this bill significantly different than the one the House passed last month? Deidre McAllister Senate Republicans did make some changes to the version that cleared the House last month, but the core elements of this bill are similar. The bill permanently extends the tax cuts for individuals and businesses that Trump enacted back in 2017, but Republicans added some additional ones, things the president campaigned on, like no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime.

To pay for the tax cuts, this bill makes significant cuts to Medicaid, that's the healthcare program for low income, elderly and disabled Americans. It adds new work requirements and changes the way states can finance their Medicaid programs. This bill also phases out hundreds

of billions of dollars in clean energy tax breaks that the Biden administration put into place. And Senate Republicans are split on this package, right? Where are some of the divisions? Right. There are several issues. Rand Paul of Kentucky, for one, says the provision to increase the country's borrowing authority by $5 trillion to avoid a default later this summer is a non-starter for him. Some conservatives say the bill doesn't cut enough spending. Another group of Republicans in the Senate oppose the Medicaid changes. They're worried that some of the changes could cause rural hospitals in their states to close. There's

another group of Senate Republicans who represent states where new energy projects are getting up and running and generating jobs, and they want to delay phasing out those energy tax breaks so these projects can move ahead. Remember, Senate Majority Leader Thune can afford to lose only three votes to get this package through. And what's the Senator doing to try and bridge some of the differences? He's relying heavily on President Trump to be the closer. White House Chief of Staff Suzy Wilds was on the Hill meeting with Senate Republicans

this week and she reiterated the President wants this done by July 4th. There are discussions making tweaks to some of the things that I just talked about to address these concerns. But for people like John Thune, it's kind of like whack-a-mole. If you give into moderates on Medicaid, it can impact how conservatives view the bill in terms of its spending cuts. And whatever changes Senate Republicans make, we'll need to get a majority in the House. And there's already a group of House Republicans who are raising red flags about some of these changes that the Senate's making. It's pretty clear this could slip beyond July 4th. That's

not a real hard deadline. The real deadline comes later this summer when the Treasury Department warns the country could bump up against the debt ceiling if Congress doesn't authorize more borrowing. Separately, the Senate next week is expected to take up a resolution related to Iran, right? Right. As the president weighs whether or not to take military action against Iranian nuclear facilities, Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine is forcing a vote on a resolution. as the president weighs whether or not to take military action against Iranian nuclear facilities. Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine is forcing a vote on a resolution.

That resolution says the president cannot take military action against Iran without first coming to Congress for a vote. Kaine says he does expect some Republicans to join him, but so far no Republican has said they're voting for this resolution. There will be intelligence briefings on the Hill early next week on Iran, and that could really impact the vote on this kind of resolution. And, Paris Deidre Walsh, thanks so much.

Thank you. For much of the country, summer is about to be off to a blistering start. A heat dome is expanding over much of the U.S. It's expected to raise temperatures well into the 90s, even into triple digits in the coming days. And along with this extreme heat is unusually high humidity, which presents its own set of dangers. Ben Noll is a meteorologist with the Washington

Post and he joins us now. Hi Ben. Good morning. So how hot and humid is it going to get in the U.S. because here in D.C. it is hot as 80s. Can I say that? Yeah, look, I've just run some of the latest statistics and we're looking at about 265 million people across the country experiencing 90 or 100 degree heat over the next week. And this is interesting because I think this event can kind of interchangeably be called a heat wave or a humidity wave because it's going to be really brutally humid across the

central and eastern part of the country. What is causing that? Why is there so much moisture in the air? So the winds in this case are blowing up from the Caribbean Sea, so thousands of miles away transporting kind of the weather from the Caribbean Islands, from the Gulf of Mexico, right up into the United States. But it's not just that actually the ocean waters in those parts of the world are warmer than average.

And warmer air can hold more water vapor. And that's what millions of people across the United States are going to feel places like Minneapolis, Chicago, New York, Washington, Baltimore, down into the Carolinas, even up into southern Canada, places that you wouldn't normally associate with extreme humidity, feeling honestly more like the tropics for a couple of days next week. This high humidity, is that a part of climate change?

I think it is. It is part of that bigger picture. I mean, summer, it's hot, it's humid. But you can look back historically at humidity over the course of many past summers and look at how that is changing. And what you find is a gradual trend toward more humidity for the planet as a whole. The year 2024 last year was the most humid by one particular metric of humidity measuring on record since records began in 1940. So this is a real trend and it's kind of linked to the fact that a warmer atmosphere can basically

contain more water vapor. So a warmer world actually is often a wetter world. What are the specific dangers associated with high humidity? It makes the human body, it makes it more challenging to cool off. The human body cools off by sweating. That sweat, which needs to evaporate off of the skin, it can evaporate as quickly or as efficiently in an atmosphere that is very humid. So that sweat lingers, it sticks around, your body temperature starts to go up, and that's when kind of heat-related illnesses, heat stroke, heat stress can come into the picture. So remaining kind of in an air-conditioned place,

if you have access to that. Some folks may have a dehumidifier, that can help. If you don't have those two things, cool showers. If you have to work outside, you know, listen to your body, take breaks, drink water preferably and not other beverages that can actually dehydrate you. So it's knowing your limits because they can creep up on you fast in weather like this. That's been Noel, a meteorologist with the Washington Post. Thank you so much for joining us.

Yeah, thanks so much for having me. And that's Up First for Saturday, June 21st, 2025. I'm Ayesha Roscoe. And I'm Scott Simon. Wait, wait, one more thing for you today. Here at Up First, we take keeping you informed seriously. Meanwhile, our friends at NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me take making fun of the news very seriously. Each week they create a news quiz and we want to give up first listeners a chance to play along.

Test your knowledge of the week's news against the show's panelists. I mean what do they know by listening every weekend. Here's this week's Lightning Fill in the Blank News Quiz. Now onto our final game, Lightning Fill in the Blank. Each of our players has 60 seconds in which to answer as many Fill in the Blank questions as they can. Each correct answer now worth two points. Bill, can you give us the scores?

Harry has five, Rachel and Jeff each have four. All right, Harry has five, okay. Rachel and Jeff are tied for second, and you guys are gonna go first. I'm gonna arbitrarily pick Rachel. Here we go. The clock will start when I begin your first question. Fill in the blank.

On Wednesday, Israel launched an airstrike against a nuclear facility in blank. Tehran. In Iran, yeah. And Monday, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee's ban on blank, affirming care for trans youth. Um, affirming.

Gender affirming care, right. This week, NASA said that a giant asteroid has a chance of hitting the blank in 2032. Earth. No, sadly the moon. Okay. This week a monkey in Hong Kong was caught on camera destroying blank. Cameras. No, destroying a sign warning people not to feed the monkeys. On Tuesday, the Senate passed an act aimed at regulating Bitcoin and other blanks. Crypto. Right, cryptocurrencies. According to a new lawsuit, weight loss drugs like blank are causing vision loss. Wigovie.

Yes, and Ozempic. This week, the head of a waste management company in Sweden, once called the Queen of Trash, is headed to prison because she took the trash she was in charge of disposing and blanked. Sold it. No, she just left giant piles of it all over Sweden. Bad girl. Bad girl. On Tuesday, Fariba Vankor, who called herself the Queen of Trash, was convicted on 19 counts

of environmental crimes. Prosecutors called her waste management business a pyramid scheme, and they're right in that the giant trash piles she left all over Sweden were kind of pyramid shaped. Bill, how did Rachel do in our quiz? Four right, eight more points, total of 12. Rachel you did well, you're in first place. Jeff? How about that? Jeff, you're up next, here we go, fill in the blank. According to a new report by 2034, blank will not be able to pay out full monthly benefits. Social Security.

Right. During a routine test, another one of blank's rockets exploded on the launch pad. SpaceX? Right. This week, Brad Lander, city comptroller and one of the mayoral candidates in blank, was arrested by ICE. Oh, true? No, in the, I'm looking for blank.

Name of the city. Oh. New York? Right. No, in the... I'm looking for blank. Oh. Name of the city. Oh. New York? Right. On Tuesday, over 200 people waiting for aid in blank were injured by Israeli fire. Palestine? Gaza, yeah.

This week, a game of disc golf in South Carolina was interrupted when blank fell from the sky and onto the course. An asteroid? No. A shark. Oh. You know what? Shame on me.

Shame on me. On Tuesday, the owner of the LA Dodgers agreed to buy majority ownership of the LA Blanks for $10 billion. Lakers? Yes, the Lakers. Oh. According to a new study, regularly smoking blank may be worse for your heart than cocaine. Marijuana?

Marijuana, right. This week, a man in Texas was shocked to discover that his ex had secretly blanked after they broke up. Died. No, had secretly married him after they broke up. According to police, the woman somehow convinced a pastor to certify a wedding certificate without the man being there, which she then filed with the county clerk. So they're married.

The man only found out about it because his wife mailed him a copy of the marriage certificate along with, this is true, a gift bag from Bath and Body Works. Insult to injury. I know. Bill, how did Jeff do on our quiz? Jeff, this is hard to believe for a newbie, but you got six right. Twelve more points. Sixteen puts you in the lead. Yay! So, how many does Harry need to win? Six.

Go for it, Harry. Here we go. Six to win. Here we go, Harry. This is for the game. On Thursday, President Trump once again delayed the ban on social media app Blank. Tick-tock. Right. This week, the National Weather Service warned of record-breaking temperatures as a blank dome covers the US.

Heat wave? Heat dome, yes. Heat dome. On Monday, a recall order was placed on some brands of ready-to-eat fettuccine Alfredo linked to a blank outbreak. E. coli? Listeria. After multiple thefts of their street signs, residents of Blank Road in the UK are demanding police take action. Abbey?

No, Daddy Hole Road. On Tuesday, the Florida Panthers won their second consecutive Blank Cup. Stanley Cup. Cheated. Later on Tuesday, the Florida Panthers cracked and dented their Blank Cups. Stanley Cup. Right. Following a number of dangerous incidents, a shopping center in the UK has imposed a Later on Tuesday the Florida Panthers cracked and dented their blank cups. Stanley Cubs. Right, following a number of dangerous incidents, a shopping center in the UK has imposed a speed limit on blank.

Shopping carts. No mobility scooters. After a shocking number of collisions and near misses, the Idlewell shopping center in the UK announced a four mile an hour speed limit on all mobility scooters. I can't wait until someone's caught speeding, tries to make a run for it, and a chase breaks out between a mobility scooter and a security guard doing a brisk walk. Bill did hurry, do well enough to win. He got four right for eight more points, total of 13.

Jeff is the winner. Oh my goodness. First time's the charm. Wow. 13 Jeff is the winner. Oh my goodness. First time's the charm. Wow. You know I'm the first one here and I'm the last one to leave. See how closely you follow the week's news and have some fun by listening to the podcast Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, the NPR News Quiz every Saturday.

It's available in the NPR app and wherever you get your podcasts.