Transcript of U.S.-Iran Talks Continue, Texas Politics, 2026 Winter Olympics Begin New

Let the games begin. The 2026 Winter Olympics officially kicked off in Milan yesterday.

We also have the Super Bowl this weekend.

Ah, an embarrassment of sports riches. I'm Scott Simon.

And I'm Ayesha Rosco, and this is Up First from NPR News.

It's a midterm year. How are voters responding to President Trump's sweeping federal immigration campaign?

The recent issues have persuaded He knows that Trump has gone too far. We take a look at Texas and its US Senate race.

And the US and Iran met for 6 hours yesterday.

President Trump called the talks very good.

So please stay with us. We've got the news you need to start your weekend.

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The US and Iran held preliminary talks on Friday with the aim of avoiding war.

Iran wants the talks to focus on its nuclear program. The US wants much more.

Npr's Jane Raff has been following this story and joins us from Amman. Jane, thanks for being with us. Thank you. What do we know about what happened at the talks?

This was an indirect meeting in Oman in the capital, Muscat. There was the US envoy, Steve Whitkoff, and President son-in-law, Jared Kushner. They were communicating with Iran's foreign minister through Oman officials. Iran described the talks as lengthy and intensive. But really, the most important thing is that they met at all because it's really given breathing room to regional tension. Trump had threatened military strikes. Iran had said, If that happened, it could spark regional war. Here's President Trump speaking to reporters on Air Force One last night.

We likewise had very talks on Iran. Iran looks like it wants to make a deal very badly. We have to see what that deal is.

He noted there are US warships in the region and said the US was in no rush regarding a deal. So that, too, has diffused some of the considerable tension.

And how has Iran responded?

Well, Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Harakchi, said following the six-hour meeting that both sides wanted another round. He told Al-Jazeera television today that there was no date yet, but he thinks it should be soon. And asked about the prospect of war, he said Iran was ready for both peace and war.

The threat of military attack is not the only strategy the US is using, is it?

Totally true. Obviously, that military threat is the biggest one. But this week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told a Senate committee that the US had engineered the latest financial crisis in Iran, which sparked widespread protests. He says they did it by creating a dollar shortage in the country.

It came to a swift and, I would say, grand culmination in December when one of the largest banks in Iran went under, the Iranian currency went into freefall, inflation exploded, and hence we have seen the Iranian people out on the street.

So that financial crisis left many Iranians unable to afford food. And those protests morphed into anti-regime demonstrations. At least 5,000 people, most of them demonstrators, were believed to have been killed. And Scott, on Friday, the US levied new sanctions. It says, are aimed at supporting anti-government protesters. Those sanctions are against companies and people, it says, are illegally trading Iranian oil, and the White House has threatened additional tariffs against any country trading with Iran.

Jane, President Trump has been clear he wants to see regime change in Iran. Is that a Is there any idea in the region, or as you can tell?

It is very divided. Israel is very keen. Other countries are terrified of the consequences. I mean, let's face it, Iran is a powerful, oil-rich, very complex country. And what they worry about is the chaos that would result if there were an unplanned change of regime. As for these talks, Iran is insisting they focus on its nuclear program. It says that program is for peaceful purposes. Now, the US bombed Iran in December. And insists it was developing nuclear weapons, but the UN nuclear watchdog says there is no evidence Iran was building a bomb.

And Pierre's Jane Auraaf, thanks so much.

Thank you.

Texas is gearing up for its primary elections next month. Governor Greg Abbott is seeking re-election this year, as is Senator John Cornen.

And Cornen will face seven Republican candidates in the primaries, including Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. At least three Democrats are also vying for the seat.

As that US Senate race heats up, so does the debate over what immigration enforcement should look like. Blaze Gaine of the Texas Newsroom joins me now. Welcome.

Good morning. Glad to be here.

What are you seeing in Texas when it comes to political messaging on immigration enforcement?

Yeah, well, like most political messaging, parties tend to rely and repeat what they are hearing from the top. For instance, here, Governor Greg Abbott has recently called for the Trump administration to recalibrate things when it comes to enforcement. What he means by that is the White House needs to make sure respect for ICE is reinstilled and for them to recalibrate to make sure they can continue deportation efforts without intervention from citizens. The wording on that is really important because he didn't condemn their actions. Rather, he said they essentially need people to give them respect. This was carried into the race for Texas US Senate seat by incumbent Senator John Cornyn, who said he thinks it's a good idea to de-escalate, but then went on to say that American citizens should not continue to cross the line from peacefully protesting to interfering with law enforcement activity. They haven't necessarily shifted their message, but more so made an adjustment to call for peace while deportation efforts continue. On the Democratic side of the Senate race, both Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett and State Representative James Talariko have said they would abolish ICE if given the chance.

How are Texans responding to this adjustment.

Yeah, just last week, high school students across the state participated in a walkout over ICE's enforcement efforts, and there were also protests at the Capitol Building in Austin and other areas across the state. People are extremely upset and want to let it be known. This is not fully a partisan issue. As we should remember in 2024, Trump and the Republican Party as a whole got a lot of support from the Latino community for the promises they made on fixing the economy. Latinos say they haven't seen that and instead feel tricked by the fact deportation efforts haven't been solely centered on finding and removing hardened criminals.

How are Latino voters responding to what they're seeing on immigration enforcement right now?

Yeah, I will say Latino voters are furious with the way immigration enforcement efforts have played out not only in Minneapolis, but around the country. I just spoke with Gloria Leel, who lives in Austin, Texas.

The recent issues with ICE enforcement and immigration laws throughout the country have, I believe, persuaded Latinos that Trump has gone too far in his immigration enforcement efforts.

So as you can hear, it's having an impact. And as you see, they aren't forgetting the events that have taken place concerning ICE and Border Patrol over the past few years. And from everything I'm hearing, it doesn't seem like the Republican Party will have anything close to the support they had from Latinos last time around.

Well, if Latinos aren't likely to vote for Republicans in large numbers, does a Democrat really have a chance against the Republican nominee in the Senate race? And which Democratic candidate is better positioned to pick up those voters?

Listen, if I had a crystal ball, I promise I'd tell you exactly who, but it's up in the air right now. Both Democratic candidates, State Representative James Talarico and Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett have very similar wants and priorities if elected. For voters, what is separating them from one another is their demeanor. I spoke with Gabriel Rizales, the Texas League United Latin American Citizens Director, and he explained why he's backing Crockett.

She's just got a very powerful mannerisms about her. She's no hold bars, and she gets in their face.

I think we need people like that that are going to fight.

They're going to fight for you.

They're going to fight.

They're not going to look at color or race or gender.

As a reminder, Texas is still a red state, and no Democrat has won a statewide seating three decades. It'll be an uphill battle for the party, but they believe right now the energy and engagement is at a higher level than in the past, which is giving them hope that they can break the Republican street.

That's Blaze Gaine of the Texas Newsroom. Thank you so much for joining us.

Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Sports fans have a real culinary challenge this weekend. What snacks go with both the Milan Winter Olympics and the Super Bowl?

How about risotto sliders?

Or chicken parm tenders?

That sounds good. Maybe seven-layer tiramisu dip.

Leave the cookies. Take the canole. Sports writer Howard Bryant joins us now to talk more about food. I mean, all the fine sporting events we're watching this weekend. Howard, thanks for being with us.

Good morning, Scott. How are you?

Fine, thank you. Winter Olympics opening ceremony took place yesterday. Norway, that Winter Olympics juggernaut, is favored again in overall medals. But I don't know, it's nice to see the come together again on this, isn't it?

Yeah, I love the Olympics, and I did love the extremely artistic and very fashionable opening ceremonies. It's what the Olympics is all about. I had the pleasure and the good fortune of covering the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. It's just such a great event where you do see the world coming together and you do see all of these different sports that you don't see except for every four years, especially in the United States. Nobody's talking about luge, bobsled, or skeleton unless it's an Olympic year. It's great because of that international flavor. I also feel that journalistically, it feels very sad in a lot of ways because one of the great fun parts about the Olympics is covering is joining a lot of these international journalists and where the state of journalism is with the news of the Washington Post here. It all feels a little bit gloomy or a lot gloomy. But one of the beauties of the Olympics is once you get started, the individual stories and the individual achievements, this is not $100 million athletes doing their thing in large cases. Usually, it's Individual small stories, people doing things that they love. And the stories have always been really inspiring.

Lindsay Vaughn, coming out of retirement, going to compete despite tearing her ACL. Nl Chill players have been away from the Olympics for more than a decade. They're back. What are you looking forward to?

Well, I think what I always look forward to is that there are certain spaces that are going to dominate. If you happen to be there, you know that when you get to the speed skating rink, you know the Dutch are going to be there. They always show up. That's fun. The Swiss and the Italians are up on the ski mountain. They're going to represent. And of course, from the United States standpoint, you've got Mikaela Shiffrin, an unbelievable, probably the greatest female skier of all time, if the greatest skier of all time. And then, of course, there's Lindsay Vaughn, who is not just 41, who isn't just competing with a partially replaced knee, but also with no ACL. She ruptured her ACL in a crash a couple of weeks ago. That individual story is great. Yeah, it's wonderful to see the NHL players playing again, even though that does take away a little bit from the amateur side of it. But who doesn't want to see Connor McDavid and the great NHL players on the world stage. I'll tell you who we're not going to see, however, is we're not going to see Russia in any large number because of the invasion of Ukraine.

So Belarusian and Russian athletes, not going to be seeing them, especially out on the rank.

Super Bowl Sunday tomorrow, Seattle Seahawks, New England Patriots.

What do you foresee? The thing that we always get. You're going to get $7 million ads for your Super Bowl commercials. You're going to try to get a lot of pageentry here, but it all feels a little bland to me simply because it's hard to love sports when the world feels like it's on fire. But those two fan bases are going to be into this. Seattle, the Patriots, of course, they are linked because of the last time they met in the Super Bowl. Oh, yeah.

There's a history there.

There's a history there. One yard to go. Pass. That's right. A pass. And Malcolm Butler intercepts the game-winning throw by Russell Wilson. All that's under the bridge. The Patriots are underdogs here. I think Seattle is very much considered to be the better team, but not by that much. But the The Patriots have been underestimated all year. You've got a young quarterback, Drake May, in his second year now in the Super Bowl, and you've got another quarterback, Sam Darnold, who used to play for the Jets and the Vikings, and everybody underestimated and called him a bust. Here he is in the Super Bowl, one game away from being a world champion. This is a game where you're dealing with one team that is rising. The Seahawks had been considered the best team in the league for weeks. In another team, the Patriots that are still there, and everyone keeps saying, How are they still here?

And?

Oh, you're prediction? Come on, Scott Simon. I don't know. That's why they play the games. Don't put me on the spot. Somebody's going to win. How about that? Oh, perfect.

I'll bet on that. Howard Bryant, thanks for being with us.

My pleasure. Thank you, Scott.

For more Olympics coverage, you can check out Up First Winter Games, a new video podcast from NPR. Find new episodes at youtube. Com/npr. That's Up First for Saturday, February 7, 2026. I'm Scott Simon.

And I'm Ayesha Rosca.

Andy Craig, produce today's podcast along with Gabe O'Connor, Dave Mistich, and Martin Patience.

Our editor is Samantha Balaban. She had help from Hadeel Al-Shaucey, Jacob Finston, Miguel Macias, Fernando Naro, Dee Parvaz, and Megan Pratz. Michael Radcliffe is our director.

Our technical director is Simon Lazlo Jansen, who, with a name like that, really should be a downhill skier, with engineering support from Zo Van Genhoven, Valentina Rodriguez-Sanchez, and Damian Harry.

Our Senior Supervising Editor is Shannon Rhodes, Evie Stone is our executive producer, and Jim Cain is our Deputy Managing Editor.

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I know. You got to find out about those chicken farm tenders.

Chicken farm tenders. And we have more. We may have hit on something there.

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