Transcript of Trump Rejects Iran's Ceasefire, UK Foiled Plot Near US Base, Trump Press Corps Fight

President Trump says he doesn't like Iran's latest proposal for a ceasefire.

The idea was similar to the last ceasefire. Its offer would reopen the Strait of Hormuz if the U.S. lifts sanctions and its blockade. Is there any path forward?

I'm Steve Inskeep, with Leila Fadel, and this is Up First from NPR News. Police in the U.K. say they foiled a planned attack near an airbase that U.S. forces use to strike Iran. Authorities are holding 5 British nationals After white vans were spotted near the base. Iran is denying involvement today, but many questions remain.

And the president's fight with the press has left some of his biggest events without major TV coverage. CNN was kept off Air Force One this weekend. Is Trump's fight with the media costing him politically? Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

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President Trump says he rejected an Iranian offer to suspend hostilities for 7 days and immediately reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

The president said the Iranian offer, quote, would not be acceptable, and that Iran is, in his words, losing so badly.

Joining us to discuss this and more is NPR international correspondent in the Gulf, Aya Batraoui. Good morning, Aya.

Good morning, Leila.

Okay, so today marks 7 months since the US and Israel launched war on Iran and killed its supreme leader. Where do things stand right now?

So Iran's latest offer, which you mentioned, is basically that the 2 sides agree to something similar to the memorandum of understanding that they had agreed to back in June. And that deal barely lasted a few weeks. So what Iran wants is the US to lift the its naval blockade on its oil exports and to unfreeze billions of its dollars in foreign banks in exchange for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. But Trump already says he rejects those terms. Now, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, he was on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, and I'd like you to listen to how he describes his country's position 7 months into this war.

We are fully prepared for the war to be resumed, and I repeat, we stand firm in the face of any new aggression, even if it comes to a doomsday war. But at the same time, we are ready. We stand ready for diplomacy. It is up to President Trump to choose.

So as you heard there, he talked about being ready for a doomsday war or for diplomacy. Now, Trump says Iran is desperate to make a deal because U.S. sanctions are strangling its economy. And he says that massive amounts of oil are already flowing through the Strait of Hormuz now.

Is that true? Are massive amounts of oil coming through the strait?

So, Layla, flows coming out of the strait are really not consistent. They do swing from one week to another, but the most recent data by Kpler shows a 7-day average last week of around 13 million barrels a day of oil coming out of the strait. Now, that's compared to around 15 to 17 million barrels a day of crude exports before the war. But there's 2 things to keep in mind. One is that Iran can and still does attack ships transiting through that narrow waterway. So these ships are running dark with their transponders off to hide their location. And that leads to the second point, which is that it's very expensive for to export oil through the Strait of Hormuz because of those risks without a deal in place. Brent crude is trading at around $107 a barrel today. That's more than 50% higher than before the war. And we heard last week Qatar's energy minister saying that the Strait of Hormuz is indispensable, that pipelines are not a solution and they're vulnerable to attacks. Saudi Arabia's key pipeline to bypass the Strait of Hormuz was attacked this month, and it needs the Strait of Hormuz open.

Because its secondary route to export oil through the Red Sea remains blocked by Yemen's Houthis.

That's right. Tell us about that war between the Houthis and the Saudis. Is Saudi Arabia getting support from allies?

So, Leila, the UK has stepped in with a refueling aircraft to support the Saudi Air Force in its bombing of the Houthis, who are supported by Iran. The UK says these wars in the Gulf are having an impact on prices at home. And as France looks to another winter and its needs for gas and oil, it is sending soldiers, radar, and defense systems to help the Saudis defend against Houthi attacks. Now, the Houthis say their attacks will continue until Saudi Arabia ends its attacks. And this past weekend, Saudi Arabia says the Houthis again fired at its capital, Riyadh. But, you know, ultimately, as we said, Leila, it's 7 months into this conflict, which remains unresolved. There is an absence of peace in the Gulf, and it's Washington's Gulf allies that are the ones paying the heavy price of this continued uncertainty and instability.

That's NPR's Aya Batraoui in Dubai. Thank you.

Thanks, Leila.

Iran is now denying involvement in what British officials describe as a suspected terror plot on a military base in western England. This is one of the bases the U.S. military uses to launch attacks on Iran. British police have arrested 5 suspects on suspicion of terror offenses, and NPR's Lauren Frayer has been covering this all day. Hi there, Lauren.

Hi, Steve.

Okay, what exactly happened? What are the basic facts as known?

So this was near RAF Royal Air Force Base Fairford in the Cotswolds, where some American bombers and reconnaissance aircraft take off for Iran. This is an otherwise sort of bucolic green area a couple hours west of London. A farmer who lives nearby called police in the middle of the night to say she noticed 3 suspicious vans with masked men. Now police went and intercepted those vehicles, arrested 5 men on suspicion, they say, of explosives and terrorism offenses. Police say the men are British They're both British nationals who live in London and are in their mid-20s. The British Army spent all day Sunday using a bomb disposal robot to probe these vehicles. Now police say that an Iran link is just one of the possibilities they're investigating, but Iran calls that malicious speculation.

Ah, tell me more about the Iranian response.

So the Iranian embassy in London posted a statement on social media saying that it categorically rejects what it calls malicious speculation that Iran was involved in any such terror plot here. It is worth noting, though, that back in July, Iran's IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, issued a statement saying any base used against Iran is a legitimate target and that, quote, London is responsible if it assists U.S. attacks on Iran. Now, the U.S. military has had a presence at RAF Fairford and many other British bases for decades, going back to the 1991 Gulf War, during the 2003 Iraq The U.S. and the U.K. have a long history of working together. The Iraq invasion. The British Defense Secretary Wes Streeting was on the BBC this morning and he was asked whether Britain is now being targeted for that long relationship of working with the U.S. military. And here's what he said.

The defense and intelligence cooperation we have with the United States of America is the closest alliance of any 2 sovereign countries anywhere in the world. That makes us more safe, not less safe.

Streeting was also asked specifically about Iran. He refused to speculate about these regime does want to do harm to British interests and allies. And the U.S. Embassy in London actually put out a security alert last night asking U.S. citizens in this country to exercise caution.

Okay, you mentioned a new bit of information this morning that these suspects are British nationals. What other information have you been able to gather?

They have not been identified publicly for a while. President Trump was actually our lead source on these suspects because he told reporters, quote, we had them under investigation. They were looking to do big damage. Now, authorities here have not said whether the suspects were previously known to authorities or under any surveillance. It's worth noting that RAF Fairford has also been the target of protests. You know, polls show Brits oppose the Iran war. British bases have been vandalized. The British government has charged anti-war protesters with terrorism offenses, too. Under terrorism laws, these suspects can be detained for up to 14 days without charge. So who exactly they are and what their motive is may become clear during that time frame in the coming days.

NPR's Lauren Frayer in London, it's always good to hear your voice.

Thanks.

Good to chat. Thanks.

President Trump lost in court in his latest attack on the media but continued his retaliation against CNN anyway.

Just to review here, a federal judge said last week that the president likely violated the Constitution. When he banned 3 news outlets from the White House, Trump explicitly said he was banning them over coverage he did not like— this limited coverage last week of a speech at the United Nations and the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping. The news organizations returned to the White House after the court ruling, but Trump then blocked close-up camera coverage over the weekend as he traveled to a football game in Tennessee and a golf tournament in Illinois.

NPR senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson is here to talk it through. Good morning, Mara.

Good morning.

So President Trump chose to attack news outlets at a time when it would seem he would want all eyes on him. Was this a political miscalculation by the president?

Well, it could be a miscalculation because he missed out on some coverage he would have liked to have had. On the White House press passes, it looks like the White House exploited a loophole in the judge's order because while White House press passes were restored at the judge's order, CNN was prevented from boarding Air Force One to cover the president's trip to see a college football game in Tennessee. So far, the other networks networks, including NPR, are standing in solidarity with CNN, but they're going to be making decisions about the press pool on a case-by-case basis.

Politically speaking, does a fight with the major broadcast networks benefit Trump in some way?

Well, that's a big question. Picking fights with the media might be popular with his base, but it's similar to another big question that hangs over Trump, which is why is he taking stands that are opposed to majority public opinion on issue after issue. The public wants AI regulated. Donald Trump says he doesn't want regulations. The public is skeptical about data centers. He said the only people who oppose them are people who want to be, quote, poor and backwards. He's, of course, for tariffs and the war in Iran, 2 very, very unpopular policies. And all of this does not seem to be adding up to a coherent strategy to help his party win the midterms.

So this fight is also distracting from other things Trump is doing, things that could directly impact people's lives far more than a fight with the media. Over the weekend, the administration canceled $810 million in spending Congress already approved. What happened there?

On Friday, the White House announced what's known as a pocket rescission. That is a spending cut that the president makes without Congress's approval. The canceled funds, according to the White House, include over $550 million from programs that, quote, provide services to refugees and other noncitizens. Later this week, the cuts to Medicaid and SNAP benefits—that's food assistance—that were in Trump's one big beautiful bill will kick in. The pocket rescission has been called illegal by the GAO, the Government Accountability Office, and also by Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins. She's in a tight reelection race in Maine. In a post on X, she said the cuts were intended to "quote undermine Congress's constitutional power of the purse." Now, regardless of how that separation of powers. dispute is resolved, these cuts, added to higher prices at the pump and the grocery stores, give voters more reason to feel economically stressed and angry. And that's not good for the incumbent party just before an election.

NPR's Mara Liasson, thank you, Mara.

You're welcome.

This week, The Sunday Story looks at a wave of Democrats running for office this November who are all members of the clergy. Can they convince the party's secular base?

I don't think religion should play into government and politics at all. I thought the country was founded on that.

This week on The Sunday Story, how Democratic pastors are reframing the role of faith in American politics and how voters are responding. Listen now to The Sunday Story right here on NPR's Up First podcast. And that's Up First for Monday, September 28th. I'm Leila Faldon.

And I'm Steve Inskeep. Today's Up First was edited by Miguel Macías, Tina Craya, Kelsey Snell, Mohamed El-Bardisi, and Ali Schweitzer. It was produced by Ziad Batch, Ben Abrams, and Nia Dumas. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Nisha Hynes and Patrick Murray. And our technical director is Carly Strange. Join us again tomorrow.

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