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Headlines:
– Welcome to Mo News (01:30)
– Killing of Two Israeli Enemies Puts Middle East on Brink of Wider War (03:45)
– Kamala Harris Wipes Out Trump’s Swing-State Lead in Election Dead Heat (10:15)
– Donald Trump Attacks Kamala Harris’ Racial Identity At Black Journalism Convention (11:45)
– 9/11 Plotters Plead Guilty To Avoid Death Penalty (14:50)
– Texas’ Floating Barrier in the Rio Grande Can Stay For Now, Appeals Court Says (16:30)
– The Fed Holds Interest Rates Steady. Here's When A Rate Cut Could Happen (17:30)
– Boar's Head Recalls 7 Million Pounds of Deli Meats After Being Linked To Listeria Outbreak (19:30)
– Boeing’s New CEO Kelly Ortberg And The Big Task Ahead (20:30)
– Taco Bell’s Drive-Thru AI Might Take Your Next Order (21:20)
– Olympics Wrap (22:15)
– On This Day In History (23:10)
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Mosheh Oinounou (@mosheh) is an Emmy and Murrow award-winning journalist. He has 20 years of experience at networks including Fox News, Bloomberg Television and CBS News, where he was the executive producer of the CBS Evening News and launched the network's 24 hour news channel. He founded the @mosheh Instagram news account in 2020 and the Mo News podcast and newsletter in 2022.
Jill Wagner (@jillrwagner) is an Emmy and Murrow award- winning journalist. She's currently the Managing Editor of the Mo News newsletter and previously worked as a reporter for CBS News, Cheddar News, and News 12. She also co-founded the Need2Know newsletter, and has made it a goal to drop a Seinfeld reference into every Mo News podcast.
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Hey, everyone. It is Thursday, August 1st. And you are listening to the Mo News podcast. I am Jill Wagner. This is the place where we bring you just the facts and we read all the news and read between the lines so you don't have to. So just when we thought we were going to get away with a slightly quieter Newsweek, things get even more heated in the Middle East. A big thanks to Moshe for jumping on the podcast overnight on Tuesday from his vacation with some of that breaking news about the killing of a top Hamas leader. And I'll have more about that in a bit. In the meantime, happy Friday, Eve. Everybody, Moshe will be back tomorrow for our Friday podcast. But for now, let's get to the headlines. The Middle East on edge as if it wasn't already. The killing of two Israeli enemies puts the Middle East on the brink of a wider war. The reaction from all sides and what this could mean for a possible ceasefire hostage deal with Moshe. To presidential politics here in the United States, Kamala Harris wipes out Donald Trump's lead in some key swing states. And we'll take another look at the beef steaks and why some donors think that she's going to pick a governor as her running mate. Plus Donald Trump appears at a conference of black journalists where things got heated from the get go, the interview cut short. And what he had to say about his vice presidential pick J.D. Vance. And some breaking news on Wednesday evening, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks college Sheikh Mohammed and two others reach a plea deal after years of legal delays. One big issue in the upcoming election immigration. And for now an appeals court says that Texas' floating barrier in the Rio Grande can stay. To business news, the Fed holds interest rates steady. When a rate cut could happen, Boeing has a new CEO. Who is he? And the huge job in front of him. Plus Bors had recalled 7 million pounds of deli meat. We'll tell you what to look out for. And the next time you go through the drive through a Taco Bell, it might just be AI taking your order. Plus an Olympics roundup. And on this day in history. Let's start in the Middle East where concerns of a much wider war remain front and center with the region on edge as we reported yesterday. And again, thanks to most for jumping on the podcast overnight Tuesday in just 24 hours. Israel assassinated or is presumed to have assassinated top Hamas political leader Ismael Haniah while Haniah was in Tehran. He was attending the inauguration of the newly elected presidents of Iran. This was a blow not only to Hamas, but also to Iran as it points to weakness within its own security. Haniah was reportedly killed when he was sleeping in an Iranian government official guest residence in Tehran. His deputy says that he was killed when a missile hit his bedroom. And hours earlier, Israel said that it struck Fuad Shukar, a senior member of Hezbollah in a Beirut suburb. Hezbollah has now confirmed that Shukar had in fact been killed. So we've got two major terrorist leaders taken out in just 24 hours. On Wednesday, we heard from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who said that Israel has dealt crushing blows to Hezbollah and Hamas. But he stopped short of claiming responsibility for the killing of Hamas leader Ismael Haniah in Tehran. He did say Israel quote will exact a very heavy price from any aggression against us on any front. And he continued by saying that quote, there are challenging days ahead. Iran is reacting with fury. Iran, as we've been reporting here, backs both Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. Iran says that it will retaliate for quote, killing a dear guest in our home. And that Israel had prepared a harsh punishment for itself. So there are a lot of questions now starting with what kind of response we could see from Hezbollah, Hamas and Iran. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is expected to speak today at Shukar's funeral. And we could learn a little bit more about some potential retaliation from Hezbollah. Tuesday's killing of Shukar was Israel's response for the killing of 12 kids in the Golan Heights. Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging fire nearly every day since the Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7th. Hezbollah saying it is showing solidarity with the Palestinians. Ian Bremmer, friend of the podcast, a political scientist and the president of the Eurasia group said that he actually does not think that the assassination of Shukar will spark a wider war with Hezbollah. Mostly, he says, because Netanyahu really doesn't want that. Bremmer posted this to his own Twitter feed, not with the Israeli Prime Minister, who is very, very strident in wanting to ensure that the Gaza war continues until Hamas is fully destroyed, has been very cautious about starting a war with Hezbollah, a Hezbollah that is far better armed and trained than Hamas is. So on the one hand, they do want to brush Hezbollah back. They want to cause more damage to them. They want to get the Hezbollah forces away from the Israeli borders. The Israelis can come back to their homes to their schools. On the other hand, I think the likelihood of all-out wars actually pretty low. As for Iran, according to some reporting from the New York Times, Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei has issued an order for Iran to strike Israel directly in retaliation for the killing in Tehran of Hamas's leader. He reportedly gave the order at an emergency meeting of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Wednesday morning. Unclear at this point what this means. We know that back in April, Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel, 99% of which were intercepted with the help of the United States and some of Israel's other allies. So this was in response to an Israeli strike on Iranian commanders in Syria. And then there is the question of what this all means in terms of negotiations for a Gaza ceasefire. The Hamas leader Ismail Hania was a top negotiator in those ceasefire talks. He led Hamas's political office in Qatar. Axios reports that the Biden administration is very concerned that the assassination could derail negotiations over the Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal and also increase the risk of a regional war. Hania was really the go-between with Qatari and Egyptian mediators. On Wednesday, the White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters it is really too soon to know how the assassination is going to influence those ceasefire talks and says it doesn't mean we're going to stop working on it. And US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who is currently abroad in the Indo-Pacific region, he said on Wednesday that the US was not aware of the assassination before it happened and would keep pushing for a ceasefire deal. This is something we were not aware of or involved in. It's very hard to speculate and I've learned over many years never to speculate on the impact one of that may have on something else. So I can't tell you what this means. I can tell you that the imperative of getting a ceasefire, the importance that that has for everyone remains. And we will continue to labor that for as long as it takes to get there. The Prime Minister of Qatar, who is heavily involved in negotiations, he wrote on ex quote political assassinations and continued targeting of civilians in Gaza while talks continue, leads us to ask how can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller says that Blinken called the Qatari Prime Minister after that post and emphasized the importance of continuing to work to reach some type of deal in Gaza to bring the hostages home and to stop the fighting. And Israel's Defense Minister also telling the US Secretary of Defense that quote, especially during these times, Israel is working to achieve a framework for the release of hostages. And I will just say that I'm recording this late on Wednesday night. And it is possible that by the time you hear this on Thursday, things have changed and there are developments in the story. So definitely monitor the Monews Instagram feed for all of the latest that's at Moshe M-O-S-H-E-H. All right, now to presidential politics, there is a new poll from Bloomberg News and Morning Consult that shows Kamala Harris has pretty much wiped out Donald Trump's lead across seven battleground states. The vice president is riding a wave of enthusiasm among young black and Hispanic voters. So according to this poll, Harris was backed by 48% of voters to 47% for Trump in the swing states that will likely decide November's election. It is still a statistical dead heat. Harris overtook Trump's lead in Arizona and Nevada and more than doubled Biden's lead over Trump in Michigan. Now, to the deep stakes, it appears that Wall Street thinks that Harris is going to pick a governor as her running mate. According to Axios, the campaign has been pressing Wall Street donors to cut their checks ASAP. And that's because there is a financial rule that fars contributions to tickets that feature a sitting governor. So if Wall Street is correct, that would mean that Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona would be out of the running and it would basically narrow the picks to Governor Joshua Piero of Pennsylvania, Governor Andy Bashir of Kentucky and Governor Tim walls of Minnesota. And we're not going to have to wait too much longer to find out who she picked because Harris is expected to hold a rally in Philadelphia with her vice presidential pick on Tuesday. Harris, just do us a favor. Don't make the announcement over the weekend, please. All right, now to the Republican side, Donald Trump on Wednesday gave an interview to a panel of black women journalists. And let's just say it was heated from the first question. Here is one exchange. This is from Trump's appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists Conference in Chicago. He seemed to suggest that Vice President Kamala Harris had switched her race or at least how she identifies herself, perhaps in order to help her get elected. Take a listen. Do you believe that Vice President Kamala Harris is only on the ticket because she is a black woman? Well, I can say no, I think it's maybe a little bit different. So I've known her a long time indirectly, not directly, very much. And she was always of Indian heritage and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn't know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black. And now she wants to be known as black. So I don't know, is she Indian or is she black? She is always identified as a black I respect either one. I respect either one. But she obviously doesn't because she was Indian all the way. And then all of a sudden she made a turn. Harris, his father is black. Her mother is Indian. She attended Howard University, which is a historically black university. She was part of a historically black sorority. White House press secretary, Korean Jean Pierre called Trump's comments, quote, repulsive and insulting. Trump also said that he was the best president for black people since Abraham Lincoln, which is something that he has said before, he pointed to job creation in the black community when he was president. And also how he provided millions of dollars to the nation's historically black colleges and universities. Still Trump's appearance was controversial even before he took the stage and ultimately was cut short lasting just 34 minutes instead of the originally planned hour. His team reportedly cut things off. Also to note, he did not really answer a question about whether his vice presidential pick J.D. Vance would be ready on day one. We're always talking about health trends and food trends and how hard it is to get all of your nutrients. Well, one way to get all the important ones is HE1 powder. It is just one scoop with a glass of water in the morning. It is easy and quick. So you can replace multiple health supplements like multivitamins, digestivates, immune support and more with just one simple scoop. There's things like folate, magnesium, my favorite ashwaganta for stress support, vitamin C and zinc all through your immune system. It's good to know that you could cover your nutritional bases and just set yourself up for success in just 60 seconds. So with your first purchase of HE1, they are giving Mo news listeners a free one year supply of their vitamin D and five free travel packs of HE1. Visit drink AG1.com/monews to take advance to this offer. You can get a discounted monthly subscription or try it one time for just a month. Again, that is drink AG1.com/monews M-O-N-E-W-S for this special deal and really start to take ownership of your health. Now to the speed read from ABC News, the man accused of being the main plotter in Al-Qaeda's September 11th, 2001 attacks has agreed to plead guilty. According to the Defense Department, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two accomplices in the attack are expected to enter the pleas at the Military Commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. As soon as next week, the trial of the five 9/11 conspirators has been stuck in legal delays for a very long time. There are no details right now about the specific terms and conditions of the pretrial agreement. Last September, ABC News reported that President Biden had rejected a set of demands that would have formed a basis for clean negotiations offered by the five defendants. They were transferred to the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in 2006, and their case has been held up by legal proceedings for years with no trial date set. Unbelievably, it has been more than two decades since the attack on 9/11, and I know that a lot of kids listen to this podcast. And while that day is certainly seared into my memory, and I would say any American who is alive at the time, in case you are not familiar, on the morning of September 11, 2001, two hijacked passenger jets flew into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. It marked the start of a series of coordinated attacks that day against the United States by Al Qaeda, a terrorist group that was based in Afghanistan. Nearly 3,000 people were killed that day, many of whom were just going to work, starting their day, and thousands more were injured. From the Texas Tribune, the floating barrier that Texas deployed in the Rio Grande last year to deter illegal migration can remain in place, at least for now. This is according to a ruling from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which says that it could stay until a lower court hears the case. The fight over the barrier, one of many broader, hard fought legal and political battles over the state's authority to control the flow of migrants at the border. This has been going back and forth in the courts. Motion, I have been reporting on it here on the podcast. Texas started to deploy chains of specially designed buoys down the middle of the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass as a way to deter migrants from crossing into the United States. This was in June of 2023, and it sparked protests for migrant activists and from the Mexican government. And then in July of last year, the US Justice Department sued Texas in an Austin federal court, arguing that the barrier was a safety hazard that violates international treaties, harms relations with Mexico, and was installed without necessary authority from the federal government. From CBS MoneyWatch, the Federal Reserve is leaving its benchmark interest rate unchanged. Yet policymakers hinted that they are moving closer to a rate cut. The Fed wrapped up its two-day meeting on Wednesday, saying that they're going to wait for some more evidence that inflation is back on track as the economy cools. They did acknowledge though progress in taming price increases. Rates are still at their highest level in 23 years, 5.25% to 5.5%. And that's where they have been parked since July of 2023 when the central bank last raised rates. Analysts tend to parse every word of the Fed's statement after it holds a two-day meeting. So one thing that they did notice is that the Fed described inflation as, quote, "somewhat elevated." In June, they just said that it was elevated. So this is seen as a little bit of good news in the way the Fed is viewing inflation. And the bottom line here, Wall Street analysts are interpreting the Wednesday statement as opening the door to a cut at the Fed's next meeting in mid-September. About nine in 10 economists have penciled in the September meeting for the Fed's first rate cut since 2020, pointing to inflation that is easing faster than expected. Another question is how many rate cuts we could expect this year. Some economists are expecting too. The central bank though has projected just one reduction this year. As Moshe and I have been reporting, Fed officials are walking a tightrope. They have said they're trying to balance the need to keep rates high enough to quash inflation. And at the same time, they don't want to slow down the economy so much that it sends the U.S. into a recession. There is now some growing concern about the job market, which had proved extremely resilient, but job growth has started to slow down. The next major jobs report for the month of July comes out tomorrow. From Fox Business, Borshead is expanding a recall of deli meat products that may contain listeria. The recall has been expanded to nearly 7 million additional pounds worth of ready-to-eat meat and poultry products. The recall expansion includes 71 food items produced between May 10th, 2024 and July 29th, 2024, both by Borshead and old country brands. Borshead writing on its website on Monday evening, we learned from the USDA that our Strasburger brand Liverwurst has been linked to the national deli meat listeria outbreak. So based on that new info, they took some steps to ensure that they were doing everything possible to protect public health. Listeria is a serious infection that primarily affects people who are pregnant, aged 65 or older, or with weakened immune systems. The government also recommending that retail delis clean and sanitize all food and non-food surfaces and discard any open meat and cheeses in the deli. From Bloomberg, Boeing as a new CEO, and he has got quite the job in front of him, which is to pull one of the country's most storied manufacturers out of its current crisis. Kelly Ortberg was hired out of retirement after rising through the ranks at aviation supplier Rockwell Collins. He's going to be taking over from outgoing CEO Dave Calhoun, but he's going to be in charge of one of the most audacious turnaround challenges in corporate America. One analyst says right now Boeing needs a company doctor to come in, turn over every stone, tell everyone the bad news, take the charges needed, and then bring about an effective turnaround. In January, if you remember, a fuselage panel blew out of an almost new 737 Max9 airliner during a flight, which set off a chain reaction of events culminating in Ortberg's appointment. From the tech website, the Verge, your next Taco Bell drive through order might be handled by AI. And in fact, AI may already help you get your Chalupa already. Parent company Yum Brands has been testing its voice AI technology at more than 100 Taco Bell drive through locations in the US. And now Yum is aiming to bring that technology to hundreds of Taco Bells by the end of the year. Yum is pitching the AI tech as a way to ease workloads for staff, improve order accuracy and reduce wait times, all of course, while driving profits. But so far, fast food industries, experiments with AI have had mixed results. Wendy's has reportedly been thrilled with its tests, but McDonald's recently pulled back some of its plans. There are more than 7,400 Taco Bell stores in the US. So this will be actually a relatively small rollout. And now to an Olympics roundup from CNN, it is a big night in the pool as American Katie Ledecky won her first gold of the games in spectacular fashion with a new Olympic record in the 1500 meter freestyle. The US women's soccer team made it three wins in a row as it beat Australia two to one and topped Group B ahead of the knockouts. The US men's basketball team led by LeBron James and Steph Curry cruised past South Sudan 103 to 86th when its second game in Paris. But if you remember South Sudan almost beat the Americans in an exhibition game where LeBron James had to basically bail out Team USA at the very end of the score 101 to 100. And finally, the River Sen was deemed clean enough for the men and women's triathlon. Great Britain took gold on the men's side and France took gold on the women's side. And finally, on this day in history, on this day August 1st, 1944, Anne Frank, a Jewish girl who spent two years in hiding during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, she wrote her final entry in her diary. After 25 months in hiding, Frank and seven others who were hiding in that secret annex were discovered by the German secret state police who had reportedly learned about the hiding place from an anonymous tipster. Anne Frank and her sister, Margot, were sent to Auschwitz and then to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where they died a few months later. In some lighter pop culture news on this day in 1972, Elvis Presley released his version of Burning Love. And on this day in 1996, American author George R. R. Martin published A Game of Thrones. It was the first installment in his hugely popular fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire. All right, everyone. Thank you for listening to the Monuse Podcast. If you like what you hear, share this with your friends. It will help us grow. Follow us and subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Thank you for sticking with me this week, another very big week of news and motion I will be back together again on the podcast tomorrow. See you then. Thanks for listening to the Monuse Podcast. [Music]
