Transcript of Progressives in Midwest Primaries, Trump and Iran Stalemate, Colombia Earthquake New

A self-described Democratic Socialist is shaking up the race for Wisconsin governor.

A progressive is up against a moderate in Minnesota. How much of an appetite do voters have for these non-mainstream candidates?

Primary races in 6 states today will offer clues. I'm Eyemartinez. That's Leila Fadel. And this is Up First from NPR News.

Iran's demand for war reparations has prompted President Trump to make a demand of his own.

Well, we're going to ask for money for the damage they've done over a 50-year period. Whether you go SS Cole or whether you go all of the people that were so badly hurt, so badly wounded or killed.

Can Trump afford a stalemate with Iran that will keep the Strait of Hormuz closed?

And we get the view from Colombia, where rescue workers and volunteers are digging through rubble for survivors of a major earthquake. Stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your day. How will a historically unpopular president navigate a midterm election season that may leave him with a lot less power? Stay caught up on the latest news with Trump's Terms, the podcast where we curate NPR's coverage of President Trump in short episodes focused on a single story.

Follow Trump's Terms on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. French fries, tater tots, Colombian ajiaco. Potatoes are beloved everywhere. And yet— They're always kind of denigrated. There's a long history of racializing potatoes. How the potato became an insult around the world. Listen to NPR's Code Switch podcast in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

It is primary day in 6 states.

President Trump may not be on the ballot, but he's a big factor factor in several of today's races. In Minnesota, Trump endorsed Mike Lindell for governor. He's the MyPillow guy who echoed Trump's false denials about the 2020 election results. And Trump is backing the sister of Lindsey Graham, Darlene, for Senate in South Carolina.

Alabama, Connecticut, and Vermont are also holding primaries today, but the most watched races might be where Democrats are deciding whether they want progressives or more centrist candidates to oppose Trump's policies. That is the question in Wisconsin, where we've called up Wisconsin Public Radio's Anya van Wagtendonk. All right, so Wisconsin State Representative Francesca Hwang is really shaking up the Democratic primary for governor there. She's a self-described Democratic socialist. Anya, what can you tell us about her?

Yeah, she is running a very grassroots, volunteer-driven campaign. So alongside the normal forums and meet and greets, there's been dance parties and livestreams and cookouts, like where Hwang herself cooks. She comes out of the restaurant industry. But at the same time, she has said some controversial things over the years, especially on social media several years ago, like calling to defund the police and abolish prisons, which she's taken different positions on more recently. So there are also a lot of Democrats who are worried that she cannot win a general election here in Wisconsin, where winning statewide usually hinges on just a few thousand moderate and independent voters.

So, you know, we've seen progressives do pretty well lately. I'm thinking about Abdul El-Sayed, who won the Democratic primary right across from where you're at in Michigan. That's another Midwestern swing state. So how do mainstream Democrats where you are in Wisconsin, how are they gearing up?

So here they are responding by backing a more traditional kind of Democrat, and that would be Milwaukee's county executive David Crowley. And Crowley had actually dropped out of the race and supported a different moderate candidate. That candidate's campaign imploded. And so then Crowley got back in, but this time with a coveted endorsement from outgoing Governor Tony Evers in an effort to counter Hong. And that has helped him raise a ton of money in just a few weeks.

Yeah.

Next door to you in Minnesota, a similar dynamic has taken shape.

Mm-hmm. Uh, Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan is running for Senate against Representative Angie Craig. Flanagan there is the progressive option, although they are not so far apart on the issues. Flanagan wants Medicare for All, while Craig has backed a public option that competes with private insurance. Israel has also been a dividing line there. Flanagan speaks out much more strongly against the Israeli government, and Flanagan is endorsed by Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, while Craig is backed more by centrists and has raised more money.

All right. So what about some of the Republicans that have President Trump's backing?

Yeah.

So here in Wisconsin, the Trump-backed candidate for governor is Congressman Tom Tiffany, and he is the very likely opponent for whoever wins that Democratic primary that Hong is in. Uh, over in Minnesota, as you mentioned, Mike Lindell has Trump's endorsement, but the state GOP chairman there has questioned his electability and even his residency. He faces Speaker of the State House Lisa Damuth and Army veteran Kendall Qualls. And in South Carolina, Lindsey Graham's sister Darlene is in his Senate seat and running to keep it. As you said, Trump backs her, but she is facing stiff competition from a crowded field that includes Congressmen Ralph Norman and Russell Frye, former Governor Mark Sanford, and businessman Mark Lynch.

That's Anya van Wagendonk of Wisconsin Public Radio in Madison. Thanks a lot.

Thank you.

President Trump wants Iran to pay the U.S. reparations for all the pain it's inflicted on the U.S. over decades.

Trump's request comes after Iran demanded the U.S. commit to, quote, "compensation for violations" of the framework agreement both countries signed in June that's meant to end the war.

Here's what Trump told reporters at the White House Monday: Well, we're going to ask for money for the damage they've done over a 50-year period, whether you go S.S. Cole or whether you go all of the people that were So badly hurt, so badly wounded or killed, many thousands of people.

In response, Iran now says it's completely ruling out any future negotiations, declaring it will wait out Trump's remaining time in office.

NPR's Franco Ordoñez is here to tell us about all of this. So, Franco, it sounds like both sides are pretty, pretty dug in. So what does it say about the status of negotiations?

Yeah, I mean, I think it reflects how quickly these talks can turn sour, and in this case, how it can all happen in a very public fashion. I mean, it was just a week ago that Trump was touting great progress as he has before, and even boasted that he would soon be announcing an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. That's obviously not happening now. Instead, he's, you know, he's signaling a change in tactics, saying he's going to be low-keying negotiations, calling it a chess match, and saying he's going to focus on economic pressure, and also getting into this public spat about compensation. It all just does not project a terrible amount of confidence that a deal is around the corner., as he was suggesting last week.

Yes. So President Trump got very defensive when he was asked for a timeline to reopen the strait. Let's listen to that.

The only one that has control of the Strait of Hormuz right now is the United States Navy. We have a blockade that's been infallible. It's a steel wall. And we let people in that we want to let in. And those people come in and they've been coming in and they're going out.

So Trump said this on Monday. He keeps repeating this, Franco. I mean, it sounds like nothing more— that it's not tethered to reality.

Right. I mean, very few ships are going in and out of the strait. That is very clear. I think it really speaks to how desperate the president is to not only end the war, but to also present the US as strong and not caving to pressure from Iran, a much smaller and weaker nation. I mean, Iran has already survived so much that the US and Israel has waged on them militarily, short of ground troops. Corey Schake served in the National Security Council in the George W. Bush White House. She told me that Iran has rightly assessed the president's desperation, the shortage of munitions, and that they understand the political pressure that Trump faces ahead of the midterms. And she says they're using all that leverage to make maximalist demands, which also stretch out this process and continue to hurt the president politically. She likens it to the political pressure around the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis that helped take down another president.

It looks to me like the Iranian regime wants to turn President Trump into Jimmy Carter. It wants to impose the kind of humiliation on President Trump that they imposed on President Carter, and I think they're pretty much succeeding at that.

The one difference there is that Carter was running for reelection, lost to Ronald Reagan. President Trump is not running for reelection. So it seems like a pattern here, though. Trump talked up an imminent deal with Iran. That still has not happened. He also talked about a deal with Israel geared toward disarming Hamas that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has now rejected. So what does that mean for the peace process?

Yeah, I mean, it means no peace yet, eh? I mean, it's a significant setback for Trump. It was less than 2 weeks ago that Trump was touting the plan as a major breakthrough. The idea was for Hamas to disarm and Israeli forces to withdraw from Gaza. The problem is neither side is willing to go first. But so far, Trump is kind of downplaying it all. He was also asked about this yesterday. And said that the relationship with Netanyahu is good.

That's White House correspondent Franco Ordoñez. Franco, thanks.

Thanks, eh.

Rescue teams in western Colombia are working to find people trapped after a powerful 7.4 earthquake caused widespread destruction.

More than 130 people were killed by the quake on Monday. Authorities say that number is likely to rise. Thousands of people were killed in an earthquake in neighboring Venezuela a little more than a month ago.

Reporter Manuel Rueda is in Bogotá. Um, Manuel, how widespread is the damage from this earthquake?

Yeah, so the damage is basically along 4 cities in the west of Colombia and some small towns in between. Uh, the hardest-hit places have been Cali, Pereira, Manizales, and Quibdó in the Chocó region. And these are places with very different landscapes. So Chocó is sparsely populated, There's a lot of rainforest there and few roads. And then towards the south, it gets more mountainous. It's the area known as the Coffee Axis, and the mountains also present the risk of landslides. So that's where the city of Pereira is located. The mayor there said that there's at least 15 buildings where people could still be trapped under the rubble. He said that 55 people, at least 55 people were killed in that city. And the biggest of the cities that has been affected is Cali, where the mayor said that 40 buildings were destroyed and confirmed the deaths of at least 15 people.

Wow.

Okay. How are rescue efforts going?

Well, they're already going on around the clock. In Cali, the mayor said they managed to pull 37 people out of the rubble on Monday. They still have teams working there. However, you know, Cali, you can get aid quickly because there's a major airport there. Some areas, it's gonna take more time to get aid. For example, in the Chocó region where the roads are in bad shape and where there's many small towns that don't have an airport or that might even be tough to get to with a helicopter. So they're gonna have to wait for trucks to bring aid. You know, that's the case in San José del Palmar, the town closest to the epicenter, and it's just located in a very remote area on top of a mountain ridge with no airport access whatsoever.

So given how many Colombians have lost their homes, I mean, how are the survivors coping and dealing with, with what they have to deal with now?

Yeah, you have many people sleeping outdoors because they're afraid of going back into their buildings because the structures have been seriously damaged. Also in Cali, they turned a baseball stadium into a shelter, as well as a smaller arena in Manizales, a basketball arena is now a shelter. And one thing that's particular to Colombia perhaps is that in some of these cities, they've declared curfews because they're afraid of the, you know, activities of criminals and possible looting. So in Cali and Pereira, for instance, there are curfews. From around 8:00 PM to 6:00 AM, which is when the sun comes back up in Colombia. And the president of Colombia has been visiting some of these areas and also offering some solutions. Like, for example, in Chocó, he offered a rent subsidy to families that have been affected by the earthquake and have lost their homes, which just in Chocó, they estimate it's 1,400 families.

All right, that's reporter Manuel Rueda in Bogotá. Thank you very much.

Thanks.

And that's Up First for Tuesday, August 11th. I'm Emi Martinez.

And I'm Leila Faldin. Today's episode of Up First was edited by Olivia Hampton, Arzu Razvani, Larry Kaplow, Rebecca Metzler, and Miguel Macías. It was produced by Ziad Butch and Milton Guevara. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Misha Hynes. Our technical director is Zach Coleman, and our supervising senior producer is Vince Pierson. Join us again tomorrow.

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