Transcript of Israel-Iran-Lebanon Escalation, Trump Walks Out Of Interview, Ebola Outbreak In DRC

Israel and Iran traded fire overnight. It is the most serious escalation since their shaky ceasefire started in April.

Israeli strikes hit Beirut despite a U.S.-brokered ceasefire. Then Iran fired back at Israel. Is the region sliding back into an all-out war?

I'm Michelle Martin. That's A. Martinez. And this is Up First from NPR News. President Trump abruptly ended an interview on NBC's Meet the Press after being questioned on his anti-weaponization fund and claims that elections are rigged. Let's call it quits, because I've had it.

Thank you, darling. Have a good day.

Mr. President, let's please—

He also defended his handling of the war with Iran before he walked out.

And the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is spreading at an unprecedented pace. Africa's CDC is warning of a regional threat that could rival the worst Ebola outbreak on record. Stay with us. Got the news you need to start your day. Israeli strikes in Lebanon and Iran and Iranian attacks on Israel are threatening to plunge the Middle East back into an all-out war.

Iran launched rounds of missiles toward Israel, and Israel struck central and western Iran early Monday following an Israeli attack on Hezbollah targets in the Lebanese capital. This morning, President Trump posted on social media that Israel and Iran must, quote, "immediately stop shooting," unquote.

NPR's Jane Arraf joins us from Beirut. Jane, there was supposed to be a ceasefire. Now what we have is a lot of fast-moving military developments.

Well, Iran now says it's halting further attacks on Israel, saying Israel has, quote, "learned a lesson." But earlier this morning, sirens sounded in Israel after Iran and Yemen's Houthi rebels, Iranian allies, launched missiles. Iran says it targeted two Israeli military bases in retaliation for Israeli strikes on Iranian radar sites, and Israel says it hit an Iranian petrochemical plant. In Lebanon, Israel kept up attacks in the south Sunday, including on the southern city of Tire.

So there's been a U.S.-brokered ceasefire in place since April, although there have been sporadic attacks. So what prompted this escalation?

Well, the background is that this war in Lebanon is part of a wider Iran-U.S. deal. Iran insists on a ceasefire in Lebanon, where Israel has occupied parts of the south and is fighting the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. Iran had warned that if it saw any strikes by Israel on the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital, where Hezbollah has offices, it would see that as a red line. So last night, Israel struck an apartment building there, killing 2 people, and Iran retaliated with the wave of strikes.

Jane, you've just returned from southern Lebanon this morning. What's happening there?

We were able to see some of the damage there from Israeli airstrikes in neighborhoods that are still under attack. Israel 2 weeks ago warned almost the entire city to leave, along with surrounding villages. It left the tip the tip of Tire, the section of the ancient city with a large Christian population exempt from the warnings. So in areas that were still under threat, we saw apartment buildings leveled by airstrikes, and another place there was an entire block with nothing standing. But despite that, there are still people there, a lot of them elderly or disabled, and they're trying to live in those neighborhoods. Tire was a thriving coastal city. Imagine Miami. So yesterday there were new Israeli strikes in Tire, in other parts of the city, and More people flooded into that tiny section of the old city. There were displaced families with absolutely nothing, leaving damaged houses, setting up tents on the beach near fancy shuttered restaurants and luxury hotels. And some were just sleeping on the sand.

What are you looking for next, Jane?

There's still the question of what Yemen will do. It has said it will target Israeli assets in the Red Sea, affecting crucial Suez Canal shipping channels. And there are Iran-backed groups in Iraq that the Iraqi government has been trying to rein in that are also a factor. Iran's foreign ministry spokesman said events of the last 24 hours fueled Iran's distrust of the U.S. And then some of this depends on President Trump. He told Fox News on Sunday that the deal with Iran had been days away, so we'll have to see what happens with that. He says Israel had not coordinated the strikes in Lebanon with the United States, and he said, "I am not happy about it." That's NPR's Jane Arraf from Beirut.

Ruth, thank you very much.

Thank you.

President Trump abruptly walked out of an interview with NBC's Meet the Press after being pressed about his controversial weaponization fund and ongoing false claims about elections.

Let's call it quits because I've had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good day.

Mr. President, let's please— I traveled all—

Trump also used the interview to defend his Iran policy and continue to tout a possible peace agreement but without giving details. All right, NPR's White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez has more.

Franco, I mean, a good portion of the interview focused on the war on Iran. He seemed, though, visibly frustrated.

Yeah, he was defensive about the war not coming to an end faster. I mean, making several comments about other wars lasting longer—Vietnam, World War II. I mean, he wants more slack for what he's doing. Now, again, he said there will be a deal soon or that military action would resume, but he didn't give any specifics. And as we've been reporting, he's been saying that kind of thing for weeks now.

Yeah, he often talks about how desperate Iran Iran is to make a deal, yet weeks go by, weeks go by, still no deal.

Yeah, I mean, Trump was pressed about that specifically, and he expressed some sympathy for the Iranians, saying they're being forced to do something that's very hard. They're proud.

There are things they never thought they'd be doing that they're going to have to do. They've got no choice, and it takes a little while.

Yeah, and he said similar things about the new Ayatollah, who he said has been getting involved.

Yeah, one of the big challenges that the administration has faced and complained about is dealing with the various factions of the Iranian government, all the differing opinions. But like you said, the new ayatollah does appear to be getting more involved. He still hasn't been seen, though, since the start of the war when his father was killed. But interestingly, Trump called the new ayatollah brave and rational and said he had the respect of the people.

And it wasn't until NBC's Kristen Welker started questioning Trump about the anti-weaponization fund that things started to get really, really heated.

Tell us why. Well, Trump says the fund is for those who have been unfairly targeted and victimized by the government, but many critics see it as a slush fund for Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol and beat police officers on January 6th. Now, a lot of Republican lawmakers are concerned about the political implications. I mean, so much so that Trump's own attorney general tried to assure them that the fund was going away. But in the interview, Trump made very clear that he's not giving up on the idea.

Me personally, I think the weaponization fund is a great idea, and so do many other Republicans. You have to get it approved. If they get it approved, that's great. If they don't get it approved, I'd be disappointed.

You know, it was soon after that that Trump walked out of the interview when Welker was pushing back on his continued claims of election fraud.

You know, so speaking of this week, Franco, what else are you going to be watching for?

Well, I expect the Anti-Weaponization Fund will continue to take up a lot of oxygen in Washington, D.C. I mean, Trump's also heading up to New York to watch the NBA Finals tonight. Trump's always liked to mix politics and sports in ways that other presidents just have not done. And to that end, I mean, he's gearing up to host a big UFC mixed martial arts fight on the South Lawn on Sunday. Though there are legal efforts to stop it. And then he heads to France, where he'll be doing some business with top European leaders, talking about Iran, Ukraine, trade, and other global challenges.

A lot coming up this week. That's White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez. Franco, thanks.

Thank you.

African health officials are warning that the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is spreading faster than any other in history.

The Africa Center's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the pace of spread is even outstripping the early trajectory of the 2014 West Africa epidemic. Health workers at the epicenter are still operating with limited resources as aid agencies scramble to contain the outbreak.

Reporter Emmett Livingstone is in the DRC capital of Kinshasa. Emmett, tell us just how bad the situation is.

The situation is pretty bad, and health workers are still fighting an uphill battle to bring this outbreak under control. Since it was declared on May 15th, confirmed cases of Ebola have spread across a wide expanse. Ituri, a province in eastern Congo about the size of West Virginia, is the epicenter of the outbreak, with about 94% of recorded cases in Congo. And according to Congolese health authorities, the virus has now spread to half of the province's health zones. Now, it's hard to gage the scale of this crisis, but there are clues that suggest it's much larger than the official figures suggest. Over the weekend, 71 new cases were confirmed across 3 provinces in eastern Congo. And this jump, according to Congolese health authorities, showed that there is, quote, rapid and ongoing community transmission. The Congolese government has stopped publishing figures on the total number of suspected cases, but aid officials say that they suspect them to be in the thousands. Wow.

How's the health response going?

So there's a massive international effort to stop the spread of the virus that's underway with financing from the US, the EU, UN, and NGOs. But according to health workers, this is still really in its early days. Ituri has been decimated by decades of conflict, and its health infrastructure is extremely weak. In Mongwalu, the town the worst hit by the virus, NGOs have started building new treatment facilities from the ground up in order to handle the number of cases. So at the moment, in some instances, Ebola patients are turning up to hospitals that are essentially construction sites. And another massive challenge is isolating suspected Ebola cases and also contact tracing. According to the latest figures, health workers are only managing to trace the contacts of about 40% of the confirmed cases in Ituri. Dozens of people have also left treatment centers and returned to their communities. But there is some good news. Testing capacity, which was a huge problem in the initial weeks of the outbreak, has recently improved.

And some people are being healed, though.

Right, so some people are recovering from Ebola. On Saturday, Peter Stafford, an American doctor who had contracted Ebola in eastern Congo and was evacuated to Germany, was released from a medical facility after repeated negative tests. Inside Congo too, some patients are getting better. Health authorities He said that over the weekend, 3 new people had been healed, bringing the total number to 12. And what this shows is that the virus isn't necessarily a death sentence. It's still extremely dangerous, but the species of Ebola virus that's circulating appears to have a slightly lower mortality rate than more common variants. Experts are saying that the chances of recovery are much higher if patients seek appropriate medical care early. But really, that's the whole problem in a nutshell: access to appropriate medical care.

All right, that's Emmett Livingstone in Kinshasa. Emmett, thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, before we go, on June 11th, the globe's biggest sporting event comes to North America, the FIFA World Cup.

The Super Bowl, you might say, averages something over 100 million live viewers, but the World Cup final, think like 5 times that much.

The favorites, the underdogs, and the Americanization of the world's game.

Listen now to the Sunday story from the Up First podcast on the NPR app. And that's Up First for Monday, June 8th.

I'm Emilio Martinez. And I'm Michelle Martin. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Tina CRYOP, Dana Farrington, Miguel Macías, Mohamed El Bardisi, and Jon Stolmes. It was produced by Ziad Butch and Nia Dumas. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Zoe Vangenhoven. Our technical director is Carly Strange. And we hope you'll join us again tomorrow.