(upbeat music) - Hey everybody, it is Monday, July 8th. Welcome back from a holiday weekend. You're listening to the Mo News podcast. I'm Moshe Wannunu. - And I'm 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, Jill. How was your holiday? - It was really nice, Moshe, a lot of family time. I think we're all getting a little sick, which is not the best thing. - Oh, no. - A summer cold. But all as well, how was your long weekend? - It was great. It was great. Major news in our household as Olivia began sitting up on her own this weekend. - Is she mobile yet? - She does the army crawl, Jill. She does the army crawl. But she's getting up on the knees, she's starting to climb up. You know, we're cherishing these last few, what could be weeks before we started having to chase after her around the house. - Before it gets real, is he's all put it. And Moshe was a holiday weekend, but no one told that to the news. - No, there was a lot going on multiple international elections, a full throttle effort inside the Democratic Party right now to potentially change the nominee and get Biden to withdraw. Jill, we were covering it all week last week on Monuse Premium on the Instagram account. If you hadn't joined, we had a special going, and we're actually running it through midnight tonight with the code stay informed. It gives you access to our members only Instagram account for holiday periods, weekend periods, extra analysis, as well as a premium pod. We did live coverage of Biden's ABC News interview, which we'll discuss here on the podcast. So check it out over at mo.news/premium. Again, the promo runs out tonight. The code is stay informed. I got a lot of notes from people who founded to be very valuable over what was a very eventful, long weekend, Jill. So make sure to join the Monuse Premium Party. - The party, is it? - Yeah, listen, we news nerds, we call it a party, but it's really just a lot of news coverage and analysis. There's several hundred slides about things going on in the world. - I love the name, the Monuse team, because I do feel like there's this camaraderie on that feed, that platform. So I do feel like a team effort. - Yeah, we have the members pod and the members Instagram, and it really is a team effort. - Jill, for example, we ended up diving into plastic recycling. Among other topics we dove into on premium, Jill, and it turns out in the Monuse team, we have a recycling executive, somebody who works in recycling, and could really break down literally and figuratively how plastic gets recycled and does it get recycled. So always rely on the community, and that's what I love about the larger community, but especially on the premium page, where we really try to open it up for a conversation. - All right, motion with that. Let's get to some headlines here. The first hurricane of the season is making landfall in the United States, while the latest on barrel. The chorus of Democrats is getting louder for President Biden to withdraw from the presidential race. There are now about a dozen sitting house Democrats openly calling for him to turn over the keys, and it comes after this major sit down interview with ABC that appears to have done little to quell concerns about his cognitive abilities. Speaking of elections, a trio of foreign elections were held over the weekend, the British Labour Party won a huge victory after 14 years of conservative rule. In France, it appears that the left and center have united to defeat an insurgent far-right party, and the so-called reformist candidate wins the Iranian presidential election. But what does that really mean? We'll break it down. Plus nine months into the Israel Hamas war, the status update of a possible hostage ceasefire deal. In tech news, it might be time to change some of your most sensitive passwords. A hacker has uploaded 10 billion passwords to a crime forum, and the crew of a NASA mission to Mars emerged after a year-long voyage that never left Earth. Plus, Moshe has on the same history. Jill, of course, on July 4th, we were celebrating America's birthday, but it's the birthday of a significant menu item for many of us at many restaurants. We'll give you the history behind, which appetizer turned 100 years old over the weekend? I know. Jill read the notes to the podcast, everybody. It's a good one, you don't want to miss it. Okay, we are now 12 days since that disaster of a presidential debate, and President Biden is facing a cascade of calls from his own party, including some prominent House Democrats to exit the presidential race. We are now at about a dozen Democratic elected officials who have put out public statements, or at least said privately, that Biden is no longer the right person to make the case against Trump. And despite his achievements that he should not be running for another four years in office, it comes just days after Biden vowed to continue his campaign and prove to Americans that he was up to the job. He sat down for an interview with ABC News on Friday. And yet, the pressure continues to build on the president over his fitness for the White House. Congress returns from its holiday break today, and we are expecting more calls for Biden to go. Multiple House Democratic committee leaders said in a call on Sunday afternoon that President Biden should withdraw from the 2024 presidential race, at least four Democrats who lead House committees, said on that call led by minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, that Biden should drop out, and that includes the top Democrats who serve on the administration, judiciary, armed services, and veteran affairs committees. The private pronouncements add to public calls now from at least five House Democrats over the weekend, and concerns raised by many other in Biden's orbit about the president's ability to defeat former President Trump. Notably on Sunday, the White House did not put out any defenders on the Sunday political shows. It was a lot of Democrats raising questions about the president. Here is California Congressman Adam Schiff, who is set to be the next senator from California, making the argument that we are hearing from a lot of Democrats. - Given Joe Biden's incredible record, given Donald Trump's terrible record, he should be mopping the floor with Donald Trump. Joe Biden's running against a criminal. It should not be even close, and there's only one reason it is close, and that's the president's age. And what I would say, Kristen, what I would advise the president is, seek out the opinions of people you trust. He's obviously talked to his family about this, and that's important. But he should seek out people with some distance and objectivity. He should seek out pollsters who are not his own pollsters. He should take a moment to make the best informed judgment. - In an effort to quell that concern, Biden sat for a TV interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Friday, that 22-minute sit-down focused on Biden's cognitive ability, and whether he plans to stay in the race. And he was adamant that he does not plan on going anywhere. He went as far as to say that God would literally have to come down to tell him to get out of the race. Here is a 90-second highlight reel from that interview that we posted on Instagram. - If you can be convinced that you can not defeat Donald Trump, will you stand down? - It depends on if the Lord Almighty comes out and tells me that I might do that. - And if Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi come down and say, "We're worried that if you stay in the race, we're gonna lose the house and the Senate, how will you respond?" - I'm going to detail with him. I've spoken to all of them in detail, including Jim Clymer. Every one of them. They all said, "I should stay in the race. Stay in the race." No one said, "No," and the people said, "I should leave." - But if they do. - Oh, it's like, they're not gonna do that. - You sure? - Yeah, sure. Look, I mean, if the Lord Almighty can not say, "Joe, get out of the race." I get out of the race. The Lord Almighty's not coming down. - You're sure you're being honest with yourself. And you say you have the mental and physical capacity to serve another four years. - Yes, I am, because George, the last thing I want to do is not even need that. - But are you being with honest with yourself as well about your ability to defeat Donald Trump right now? - Yes. - Do you really believe you're not behind right now? - I think it's all posters I talk to tell me, it's a toss-out. - And if you stay in and Trump is elected and everything you're warning about comes to pass, how will you feel in January? - I feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest jobs I know I can do. That's what this is about. - Biden didn't freeze up or make any big stumbles, but he also didn't offer a strong showing to alleviate the concerns of his supporters or undecided voters or lightly calm his critics. Instead, he just leaned hard on this established campaign narrative about how he had a bad night, how the debate night was just a bad night for him. - He had a bad cold, Joe, he had a bad cold. Over the weekend, they tried to argue that he also was suffering still from jet lag. Joe, he returned from a broad 12 days before the debate and spent seven days secluded at the retreat at Camp David. So some people finding it hard to believe that the president has jet lag after two weeks from a trip to Europe, but that's part of his argument here, notably the next day. He was at a rally and there were no signs of that cold that he says was causing him to have so many troubles in that performance on Thursday night. So nothing disastrous in the Friday night interview, also nothing so stellar. So sort of the worst case scenario here where you're going to continue to see this drip drop and we have seen it throughout the weekend. Joe, I keep refreshing social media. Every couple hours is another Democrat calling from DeGo. Right now, Senator Mark Warner on the Senate side is potentially looking to get a bunch of Senate Democrats together for an intervention with Biden. Notably in that interview, Jill, and this has come up even among Democrats, Stephen Alpless tried to get Biden to commit three different times in the interview to agree to an independent cognitive test. And Biden's like, I don't need one. I've been told I don't need one. I get a cognitive test every day as president because that's the nature of the job. So that's where things stood at the end of that interview. Also notable is just he's in denial when it comes to polling. He says that all the polls that show him with the 36% approval rating, all the various polls showing him down to Trump, he doesn't believe any of them. And so that was one of the other themes that we took away from the Friday night interview. That said, in the last few days, polls out CNN, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, all showing a majority of Americans believe that Biden should get out of the race, nearly three quarters, agreeing with a sentiment in several of the polls, three quarters saying he does not have the cognitive ability to be present anymore. There were also numbers from a prominent Democratic polling firm that were leaked over the weekend, showing him losing traction to Trump in certain states and actually Trump now being competitive in states like Minnesota, New Mexico, states that Democrats can't even remotely stand to lose, beyond the existing battleground states. At the same time, there was a Bloomberg poll out that showed that Biden remains competitive, and I imagine given what we saw of Biden in the White House, they're probably looking at that poll, it's evident saying, "Hey, this hasn't really impacted Americans, "and I need to stay in this thing." So for now, it appears, we're 12 days out from this debate, he's still full steam ahead, and the fact that he survived this long is not insignificant. He's got the NATO summit this week. Until next week is the RNC and Trump's VP selection. So this thing can continue to get dragged out here and without a prominent major intervention, which you heard Stephanopoulos ask in that clip, you know, "What if I came Jeffries "and Chuck Schumer came to the White House "and asked you to hand over the keys?" You know, Biden's like, "There's no way that's happening." Short of that, it does not appear like he's getting out anytime soon. One of the things that comes up, what's the alternative? Who's the alternative? Right now, it looks like Kamala Harris would be that alternative, going to open convention bypassing the VP, the sitting VP who's elected, who's gone through the voters, would be a very hard thing for the party to do, especially given, you know, that she is a black woman, the most loyal voting base in the Democratic Party is black women. So that's not to be overlooked. So while they do talk about Gavin Newsom and Gretchen Whitmer and some of these governors, ultimately they're untested at a national stage. Harris being part of that ticket, being VP is tested. That said, per polling, not that much better than Biden's polling. So the question the party has is, do we stick with a Biden at 81 years old with questionable cognitive ability? Or do we experiment with a call for Kamala Harris? Or do we blow the whole thing up at the convention? Again, that's the least likely scenario here. But it does come as we keep seeing these leaks from the White House jail every single day about the accommodations being made to Biden, how they've changed his walk to Marine One, where it's not him by himself anymore. He's walking with others to cover up his gate and his awkward kind of old man walk. He now takes the short stairs on Air Force One, not the tall stairs, 'cause they wanna eliminate the chance for him to trip down the stairs. He's gone to different shoes that help him with walking. So a lot of accommodations being made here. And as the family around Biden, Hunter, the son, Jill, the first lady have been effectively saying, "Your advisor's the one's letting you down." It appears the people around Biden, the advisors, and are leaking against Biden is kind of like, it's not us, it's him. - So Moshe, I noticed on the Instagram platform, you giving kind of like your percentage of when you, if you think you're gonna drop out or not. And it has really fluctuated. I feel like you were at 90% he's staying in. And then it went kind of the other way. - We went to 45% he's staying in. - As of this recording, Sunday evening, where are you? - We're slightly above 50% that he remains the nominee here, Jill. Again, this is not a mathematical scientific scale. This is a gut check based on who's out there and what they're saying. But yeah, we've been doing that on the premium Instagram account, giving people the daily field tests of where we're at. Again, the families around him saying, stay in this Joe, Joe is defiant. Joe believes that every time critics have counted him out, he has proven them wrong. That's his part of his philosophy. So as you see these calls so far, it's making him even more defiant. And ultimately, as we've told you on this pod last week, a hostile takeover over the party, the delegates, 2,000 delegates, Biden, Harris delegates, turning against the president in a matter of weeks in Chicago. Still a very unlikely scenario. Still the ball remains in his court unless they're, you know, you see a majority of all the Dems on the House and Senate come out against him. And even then, who knows? So I still think, you know, he's a precarious ground, but still it's more likely than not by a slight margin that Joe Biden, despite all of this, especially given that he's already done 12 days here, remains the president. One thing, Jill, as we head to Washington this week for the NATO Summit, we'll be looking at this Thursday, two weeks after the debate, Biden will give his first press conference, open to media, answering questions. That'll be the sort of next major moment, expected moment in the, does he still have the juice to be able to run through the selection cycle? - And most of the Republican response has been pretty fascinating as well. So just walk us through a little bit about what's been going on on that side of the aisle. - Yeah, so been relatively muted because the rule in politics is if one side is tearing itself apart, you stand back and let them tear themselves apart. That said, Republicans cannot help themselves, but say, I told you so, they've been saying for a while, hey, does the president have the ability, like does the president have cognitive ability? I mean, Republican accounts, the RNC, et cetera, have been posting clips for a couple of years when it appears the president is a bit out of it. So you've seen Trump to a certain extent take a step back that with social media accounts, it's been full of tweets about the president's condition. He actually called for a second debate with no moderator, just mono, emano, he said, with Biden. And on Capitol Hill, you have House Republicans who lead that chamber, who have a number of options, especially since they have investigatory ability on the House side. And among them, you had James Comer. He's the one who's been pushing an impeachment effort against Biden. They've been sort of looking for a reason to impeach him, whether it was the border or other issues. Well, now they have his health and questions about whether the White House is covered up, issues in President Biden's health. And so on Sunday, a letter was sent to the doctor of the president, Kevin O'Connor, and James Comer of the House Oversight Committee said, you are looking to investigate the circumstances surrounding your assessment earlier this year that Biden is a healthy, active man who is fit to be president. We'd like details on that and how you came to that assessment. They also want information as to how the White House doctor can provide an accurate and independent assessment of the president's health. They cited a whole bunch of recent mental lapses by Biden, some that have been linked in the media in recent days. And so they're looking for Kevin O'Connor, who I think a lot of people are looking to speak to. So far, Kevin O'Connor has declined interview requests from the media. They're looking for him to do a transcribed interview with the House Oversight Committee. We should note Dr. O'Connor has been with the White House since the Bush administration. He came aboard during W. He was then assigned to Biden when Biden was Obama's VP, became very close to the Biden family, and she took care of Boba in the sun when he had cancer, has also helped other members of the family. And so he is very close here to Biden. So when Biden became president, he brought O'Connor in as his personal physician. Jill, there isn't much in the way when it comes to the Constitution or the law in terms of how much disclosure needs to happen from the White House doctor. So the Republicans on the House side, looking for more here. Notably, this is something that came up when Democrats led the House, and there were questions about Trump's health. Democrats ended up dropping that issue after Biden was elected. And now you have Republicans bringing it up. So another element here, which is the White House position. What did he know? Is there any diagnosis that we're not aware of? And so you have House Republicans here looking for more answers. - The last thing I want to say on this motion, I feel like we could do a full podcast on this. I don't get, like I get the power thing, and that they're very used to this lifestyle. I don't get why at 81, he even wants to run again. It's exhausting, that is such a grueling schedule. - True. - I don't know. I get it. - You have never been the most powerful person in the world. - You literally just may be seeing her if you're on Friday night, I run the world, right? - It was very poignant to hear him say that. - Pick your dream, your dream job, that you don't actually get till you're 78 years old, right? And you finally get there, and you're at the top of your power. And you genuinely believe, especially as someone at that age, and we all know people at that age, you tend to become more stubborn. You tend to think you continue to have the skills of your youth. All of that together, you're gonna voluntarily hand over power, because 12 house Democrats, some pundits in the media, and one governor of the governor of Massachusetts say you should hand it over, you know? It's a hard thing, especially with the family rooting you on. So I think that to many of us, we're like, listen, go enjoy, you know. - Go golfing every day. - Go golfing, you know. - Go do your thing. But I think, you know, for him, he ran for, like Joe Biden's story is this. He wanted to run for president 1980, didn't. He wanted to run in '84, he didn't. He ran in '88, it was a debacle. You know, he had to get out early 'cause of plagiarism. He was plagiarizing speeches. Then he sits in, you know, is in the Senate in the 90s. Then the 2000s, then he runs in '08, loses, but becomes the VP, sits back for eight years as VP, then wants to run in 2016, but his son dies, and then is sort of kind of nudged aside by Obama, who's like, this is Hillary's chance to run in '16. Seize what happens with Trump, comes in in 2020, somehow pulls off the election, wins the election by a smidge in a couple of states. And so now he's like, well, I beat Trump, and Trump's running again, I gotta do this again. But like, I'm giving you the track rate of the last 45 years. Like this has been a 45 year project for him. So to just give it up at this juncture is, you know, clearly is not something that the man wants to do, and based on the interviews right now, he is very defiant. So some people have to turn in the next couple of weeks for the predictions out there, right here from all of you. I have a friend who says that he's resigning tomorrow. I'm like, okay, God bless you. A lot is gonna have to happen, and it's likely not happening this week. You're gonna see this crescendo, and I think the next two weeks are gonna be really telling. All right, now to the first major tropical system, making landfall very early this hurricane season. Beryl, making landfall along Texas's Gulf Coast overnight, about 100 miles south of Houston. The tropical system was wavering between tropical storm and a category one hurricane, and it brought with it damaging winds, life-threatening storm surge, flooding rains, and even the threat of tornadoes. Texas officials expressed worry that not enough coastal residents and beach vacationers in Beryl's path were heating warnings to leave. The earliest storm to develop into a category five hurricane in the Atlantic, Beryl caused at least 11 deaths as it passed through the Caribbean on its way to Texas. The storm ripped off doors, windows, and roofs with devastating winds, and that storm surge again fueled by the Atlantic's record warmth. Yeah, this is very early for this sort of storm to be making landfall in the US, and as many of you know, they named the systems alphabetically. So Beryl, we're only at B in the alphabet here, and it's very early July. So there's a major rain event that you're unfolding here for Houston and the area around Houston. Forecasters expecting the storm to dump as much as 10 inches of rain in some areas. Houston being the fourth largest city in the US, so they're on the lookout for flooding, especially in light of recent storms and the flooding that we've seen around Houston. As you mentioned, Jill, it made its way through the Caribbean, a deaths in a Granada, St. Vincent, Venezuela, Jamaica on its way. It eventually made its way through the Yucatan Peninsula, and then strengthened again as it made its way to the US Gulf Coast. So a lot in store, there's hurricane season. It appears there's a bunch of dust coming off to Sahara Desert right now that's gonna limit hurricane growth over the next week, but then after that, they're expecting more to potentially develop. Okay, so we've got a week. Good to know. Just saying, you know, it's an engine right now with the record warm waters there that could create a lot of storms. And typically we see the worst ones in September, and again, we're just sitting here right now in early July. All right, a lot more to get to in today's pod. 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Use the code MoNews50 to get 50% off your first box, 20% off your next month. Again, that is factormeals.com/monews50. Use the code MoNews50 to get 50% off your first box, plus 20% off your next month. - And Moshe, 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, ashwagandha 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 drinkagone.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 drinkagone.com/monews, M-O-N-E-W-S for this special deal and really start to take ownership of your health. Time now for the speed read. We covered several elections over the long holiday weekend over on our premium Instagram account with some surprising results. So let's start over in the UK. That is where Keir Starmer is the new prime minister after his labor party swept to power in a landslide general election victory. The conservative party suffered a dramatic collapse after a rollercoaster 14 years in power, which saw five different prime ministers run the country. It lost 250 seats over the course of a devastating night. It was the conservative's worst performance in 200 years. That's a long time. Yeah, you got to go back to when they still thought they should take America back, the War of 1812. Starmer took over as prime minister on Friday after King Charles formally asked him to form a new government. He is promising the British public that he will steer the country towards calmer waters. He is a human rights lawyer and began his term with what is one of the biggest parliamentary majorities in British history and it's expected to introduce a program of far-reaching reforms. He took over a party that did poorly in recent years and moved it towards the center, pushing out some louder far-left voices like Jeremy Corbett. Yeah, the labor party there in the UK suffered some major losses in recent elections. As the Starmer said, we got to move towards the center. We got to moderate a bit. So he's a very pro-business. He's promising sustainable public finances of reforming the national health service, no increases in income taxes, and at the same time an environmental green agenda building new homes, renationalizing rail services. There's a lot there that's part of his new agenda here. Jill, one thing I found remarkable in the UK, while we have this longer period of time in the US between our election and inauguration day, nearly three full months, in the UK, the next morning after the election. So the election was July 4th. July 5th that morning, he meets with the king, the king officially requests that he form a government, and that morning he moves into 10 Downing Street, the prime minister's residence, and the previous PM, Sunak, had to move out the next morning. - So there's no lame duck period, like we have here in the United States? - The lame duck period is a night of sleep. Like there's, yeah, there's no, it starts immediately over there. And it comes after five conservative prime ministers, as you mentioned, they pushed the country to leave the European Union. What was called Brexit happened. The Brits voted on it, immediately had regrets. It took a while to implement. It's been haphazard. By most assessments, it has been terrible for the economy. The economy would have grown better if the UK had stayed in the EU. And so you had the Brexit debacle, you had the pandemic, you had the war in Ukraine, that is really all of those things. I've heard the economy there have increased energy prices. Then you had the personal scandals of Boris Johnson and a few other of the PMs there, also the shortest lasting PM in modern British history in Liz Trust. So it's been a debacle. So the country was ready for change there. Though at the same time I should mention, there's a smaller far-right party run by Nigel Farage that did win a few seats in Parliament and that's one of the trend lines we're watching across Europe. And so they actually took a few seats from the Conservatives there. And so that's gonna be something to watch in the coming years. - And just because we mentioned Jeremy Corbyn a little bit earlier, he actually ran as an independent candidate for Parliament and he won his seat against the candidate from the Labour Party, which as we noted, he once led. Corbyn had been suspended as Labour leader and eventually purged by the party over his anti-Semitism during his tenure. Okay, let's cross the English channel now to France, which had the second round of its parliamentary election on Sunday and there was a bit of a surprising result there. A coalition of the French leftist parties that quickly banded together last week beat back a surging far-right party in legislative elections. The left appears to have the most seats in Parliament but not a majority, which means the outcome that threatens to plunge the country into political and economic turmoil. So initial projections put President Emmanuel Macron's centrist alliance in second place, which means they're no longer in control of Parliament. The far-right party gained seats but still finished in third. France has a very novel to round voting system. We told you last week that the far-right performed very well in the first preliminary round. And in the aftermath of that, that's when the leftist coalition actually coordinated with the centrist party of French President Macron to drop some candidates in various areas to ensure that they would defeat the surging far-right national rally party and it appears to have worked. Yeah, so there's a lot of parties in the parliamentary system. It's not like here in the US where we basically have our two-party system. And so you have this coalition of leftist parties, including some very far-left parties, you have Macron's centrist coalition and you have the right and then the far-right. And the far-right has been surging in recent years to the point where people actually thought this was going to be the election where they won a majority and had their first right-wing prime minister since the Vichy government back during World War II. But what happened here after last week's initial results is, as you mentioned, the coordination here between the centrist and the leftists. Still, this leaves Parliament effectively a third, a third, a third. So how will they coordinate moving forward? Will France be able to do much in the next couple of years because the president's elected separately. So Macron has two more years left in office. This government's in, so they're in it now for two plus years. And while Macron is willing to work with the leftists, the leftists don't necessarily want to work with him. They want to be given their own mandate here. But the folks in the left in the center tend to agree on a few things, including that the far-right agenda when it comes to anti-immigration and some other items is not palatable to them. So Macron here has lost substantial power in France. He called for these elections. It was a big gamble by him. He thought the people would come back to him and throw out the extremes. And it appears the extremes have done very well here. And while you might be seeing headlines out there that the leftists defeated the right, that this is bad for the right, ultimately here, this is the most successful before a right has been in French modern history here. So they continue to win more seats every single election. So while they thought this was their time, they're getting close to it. So still something to watch, a trend line to be watching in France and across Europe right now, as we told you in recent podcasts, when it comes to the economy, when it comes to massive amounts of immigration and migrants and what they mean to the social healthcare systems of these countries, that continues to be a trend line here. And you already saw riding last night by the far left is celebratory riding. So Joe, there really is a struggle right now in France over its future. And I'm clear here what this result means for France moving forward. - Finally, in Iran, reformist candidate, Masoud Pazeshkin is the country's new president. He beat hard liner, Said Jalili in the presidential runoff by promising to reach out to the West, at least in a limited way, and ease enforcement on the country's mandatory headscarf law. Pazeshkin promised no radical changes to Iran's Shiite theocracy in his campaign and has long held Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini as the final decision maker of all matters of state in the country. So just a reality check here. Even Pazeshkin's modest aims will be challenged by Iranian government still largely held by hardliners. - Yeah, we use air quotes here on the podcast when we describe an Iranian president as reformist of sorts reform within limits. Ultimate authority in Iran resides with the Supreme Leader. The Ayatollah has final say on national security, on foreign policy. Now, while the president does have the government, it can help with economic policy, the moral codes, like the headscarf law, and guide diplomacy. Ultimately, it's clear here Pazeshkin will be deferential to the Supreme Leader. Pazeshkin has said that they should take a less confrontational posture towards the West, but then she, you know, being open to potential nuclear attacks here. At the same time, he could be blocked on that by the Ayatollah by the various clerics around the Ayatollah who are declaring victory right now. They believe that Iran has never been stronger. They have this alliance, this burgeoning alliance with Russia, with China, and their influence across the region continues to expand. The question will be here, how strong a leader or influence he'll be. Jill, one thing I found noteworthy, Javad Zarif, the foreign minister, who served in some previous governments who is a really eloquent in English and has been open to diplomacy with the West, looks to be influential in this next government. So there's a lot to watch here and like everything Iran, we'll watch the public statements and then we'll try to get a sense that was actually happening privately. - From the New York Times, Sunday marked the nine month anniversary of the October 7 terror attacks and the Israel Hamas war. Israelis on Sunday marked the date with a nationwide day of anti-government protests and a pivotal juncture in the conflict. Protesters calling for a ceasefire deal with Hamas that would see hostages return from captivity and as well for new elections in Israel brought traffic to a standstill at several major intersections and cities and on highways across the country. Some progress we should note has been made in recent days for a resumption of negotiations toward a tentative deal after weeks of an impasse. Hamas revised its demands and gave initial approval for a U.S.-backed proposal for a phase ceasefire deal in Gaza, reportedly dropping a key demand that Israel commit immediately to a complete end to the war and it would deliver the first pause in fighting since November and set the stage for further talks but like OA is all sides cautioning that a deal is still not guaranteed. Anything could really change and cause this to not happen, unfortunately. - Yeah, it's all in the details here. And so while they've dropped the demand that Israel has to promise an end to the war before the talks, what they have added is a demand that once phase one begins, they effectively have the same thing, that Israel has to perpetually be negotiating with Hamas once the first phase begins. Now that's something the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said over the weekend, he won't agree to. That now has people inside Netanyahu's government saying he's sabotaging the plan. There's questions as to how forthright Hamas is being. There are questions as to whether Netanyahu actually wants the ceasefire here. There's certainly a number of members of his government, Jill, that I've spoken to who definitely want the ceasefire to go down here that especially after nine months of war, the economy can't continue this way, the country can't continue this way, and ultimately most of the aims of the war have been achieved in terms of taking apart Hamas's main capabilities. So if this deal is to go through, it's similar to some of the deals that we've seen as a phase deal, the first phase would be six weeks. That would include the release of a number of hostages, including women, older people, and the wounded in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. And that would then open the door to a second phase here where Israel would begin to withdraw, allow people back into certain parts of Gaza. But we'll see if this goes down. Again, it's all about the details and what happens first and what happens next. And whether, again, Hamas is really ready to sign up that line and whether Netanyahu is willing to do the same. - From Forbes, it might be time for all of us to change our passwords to our most important websites and accounts. The world's largest collection of stolen passwords has now been uploaded to an infamous crime marketplace where cyber criminals trade these credentials, according to security researchers, a hacker using the name Obamacare has posted a database allegedly containing almost 10 billion, with a B, unique passwords, thoughts have been collected from numerous data breaches and hacks across many years. Security researchers from CyberNews say they've uncovered what appears to be the biggest collection of stolen and leaked credentials ever seen on a criminal underground forum. - Yeah, significant here. By the way, that hacker code name Obamacare has nothing to do with Obama or Obamacare. They've had to have a lot of provocative titles. So these passwords cover 2021 through 2024. So pretty up-to-date passwords. Apparently, it's estimated that the latest credentials file contains entries from 4,000 databases of stolen credentials covering two decades here. So experts say, well, it's time to develop some more unique passwords, everybody. If you're guilty, like many of us, of using the same password in a lot of places, it might be time to actually make sure you have unique passwords for all of your accounts, which will mean you're less susceptible to these types of data breaches. While we know it's really hard to have a different password for every single site and remember them, there are now password managers, like Dashlane, like one password, and others, where you can basically put in all your passwords into a password manager. Of course, you have to remember the password for the password manager, but that's one password. And then they will auto-fill your various websites, email accounts, financial accounts, et cetera. And so this is where we're at in 2024. Effectively, don't expect any of your passwords to hold for a very long time, given the number of hacks we're seeing. - From the AP, the crew of an NASA mission to Mars emerged from their craft after a year-long voyage that actually never left Earth. The four volunteer crew members spent more than 12 months inside of NASA's first simulated Mars environment at Johnson Space Center in Houston. Coming out of the artificial alien environment Saturday afternoon, the four Americans entered the 3D printed habitat more than a year ago on June 25th, 2023, as the maiden crew of the space agency's crew health and performance exploration analog project. - So you might have seen Biodone with Paulie Georg back in the '90s. That's all I can think about when I read about these. They've been doing a lot of these over the course of time. This one was 17,000 square feet with simulating Mars. And it's a frequent thing that they're doing right now because the goal for NASA is to get astronauts on Mars in the next decade, in the 2030s. So over the last year, this group partook in Mars walks, simulated spacewalks in that environment. They were growing and harvesting vegetables to supplement their provisions, as well as maintaining the habitat and their equipment. They were also confronted with real challenges the Mars crew would deal with, limited resources, isolation, a 22 minute communication delay between them and the outside world, quote unquote, outside the habitat's walls. And as I mentioned, they're looking to get astronauts on Mars by the 2030s. The first step would be to get back on the moon with humans in the next couple of years, and that's NASA's big goal. (upbeat music) - All right, now time for Anastane history. As I mentioned, July 4th was not only America's birthday, it's the birthday of the Caesar salad. Happy 100th birthday to the Caesar salad, which was developed by Italian immigrant Caesar Hardini. He apparently invented the dish on July 4th, 1924 at his restaurant Caesar's place in Tijuana. So he lays claim Caesar Hardini does to the Caesar salad and apparently the restaurant still makes about 300 Caesar salads a day in Tijuana. - I read that I think on the Instagram account and I did a double take because I was not expecting that the Caesar salad was born in Tijuana, Mexico. I was expecting either like somewhere quaint in Italy or even somewhere in the United States. - So Jill liked the origin of many things. This is in dispute, though we give credit here to Hardini, other people say no, it was actually my idea. But for the purposes of this podcast, we're going with the storyline that Caesar Hardini, the Italian immigrant in Mexico invented the Caesar salad. All right, a bit of journalism history for you on this day, journalist Charles Dow published the first issue of the Wall Street Journal on this day in 1889. If that last name Dow sounds familiar, well, he also invented the Dow Jones industrial average. He actually had put together a business pamphlet daily, had put together an average of companies, give you a sense of how the market was doing, along with his friend, last name Jones. They come up with a Dow Jones industrial average and then eventually they start to expand their markets broadsheet into a newspaper, hence the Wall Street Journal. All right, a bit of UFO news for you on this Monday, a local newspaper on the state in 1947 reported that a flying saucer had been recovered at Roswell, New Mexico. Turns out the claim was quickly refuted by authorities. We've done a whole deep dive on the interview podcast on the history of UFOs and Roswell and how this turned out not to be a thing, even though it has become the center of conspiracy theories regarding UFOs over the course of the last 80 years. But it was a local newspaper reporting Roswell on this day that really set the country the UFO theories by storm. All right, we end here with a bit of pop culture. On this day in 1990, one of my favorite 80s sitcoms, Mr. Belvedere aired its final episode, Jill, it was a British butler in Pittsburgh because 80s sitcoms had plots like that. Talking robots, most that is so typical 80s sitcom plot. Yes, talking about, as you mentioned, small wonder. You had perfect strangers, right? You had-- Balki. Right, you'd ALF, an alien that was part of the family. So the 80s really gave us some creative, some unique sitcoms and those of us of a certain generation appreciate them and remember them fondly. A couple of music headlines on this day, on this day in 1995. ♪ Go go chasing waterfalls ♪ TLC waterfalls reaches number one on the Billboard charts and a year later on this day. ♪ Yo, see you on the run, run up, really, really run ♪ ♪ Don't tell me what you want, what you really, really want ♪ On this day in 1996, the Spice Girls released their debut single, "Wannabe." Mosh, a doozy of a podcast, a lot of news, a lot of ground to cover after four days off. Yeah, we hope we caught you up on your, we hope you all enjoyed your holiday weekend and we caught you up on all the news that you missed. Yeah, but big thank you for listening to the "Mo News" podcast. If you like what you hear, please share this with your friends, it will help us grow, follow us and subscribe so you don't miss an episode and review us in the app store. Do you guys beg her tomorrow? Thanks for listening to the "Mo News" podcast. ♪♪♪ (upbeat music)
