(upbeat music) - Hey everybody, it is Monday, July 1st. As Bon Jovi says, we're halfway there. 2024, officially half over. Second half begins now. You're listening to the "Mone News" podcast. I'm Oschwannoonu. - Take my hand, I'll make it a swear. I'm Jill Wagner. This is the place where we bring you just the facts. - And a bit of '80s music. And we read all the news and read between the lines so you don't have to. Jill, how was your weekend? - The weekend was great and got a little bit better with some Bon Jovi to close it out. So thanks, Moshe, I appreciate it. All right, a bit of scheduling for us this week. This is a holiday week, which really creeped up on us. We are going to have episodes of course today, tomorrow and Wednesday, but then we'll be off for Thursday and Friday. - Yeah, so we're gonna make these three days strong for you. There's no shortage of news as you're about to find out in this podcast. We should note also over on Instagram, we're offering our daily coverage during this holiday week, exclusively over on the Emo News Premium account. All week, we won't be back on the regular account until next Monday, the 8th, but we are offering a special holiday promo to all of you. So if you're not already Emo News Premium member, check it out right now at mo.news/premium. We're offering three months free July 4th special here in the US, just $63 for the annual package with the code stay informed, one word stay informed. Over there, you get access to all our news coverage this week, as well as weekend coverage on the reg, as well as video ask me anything, news quizzes, deep dives, access to our premium podcast, and it's a way to support what we're doing here in Mo News. Again, mo.news/premium, the code is stay informed. - And most you said it, no shortage of news for the summer, which is supposed to be, it is supposed to be relatively slow, news wise. - Jill, that has not been the case in at least 20 years. I remember like when we were starting the business, maybe that was true, but-- - Well, you know I live in the 90s, so-- - Well, exactly, the 90s call, they used to have quite some respect then. - All right, so to the headlines here, let's start with politics and fallout from President Biden's disastrous debate appearance continues. What happens now? - The calls for him to go from his own party, who's saying it behind the scenes, and who's actually saying it publicly, his private meetings at Camp David this weekend, what European leaders are not telling the Wall Street Journal about some of his behavior at the G7 Summit, Jill, there's a lot to get to here. - Plus some huge decisions from the Supreme Court that will impact everything from the environment to homelessness, and what decisions we could expect today. - The season finale today at the Supreme Court. - Overseas French voters in their first round voting have given a boost to far-right nationalists in a blow to Emmanuel Macron. And in Iran, a so-called reformist has reached a runoff in that country's presidential election. - A reformist by the theocracy standards. - Yes, a reformist who was approved to run by the Ayatollah. - By the Ayatollah, yes. - All right, we told you this could be a bad hurricane season, and it is already off to an early start. Hurricane Beryl has strengthened into a category four storm as it nears the Caribbean, and sci-fi or real life, a robot gets a face of living skin that allows it to smile. - Jill, a lot of people saying, this feels a little too much like Westworld. We'll tell you about it. - Yeah, people have got opinions on this. And Moshe has on the same history. - Jill, your clue today from 90s movie history, I don't wanna miss a thing. (laughing) - Too easy. - Too easy for you. Let's see how everyone does. (laughing) - Okay, the fallout from President Biden's disastrous debate appearance continued this weekend. Senior Democrats scrambled on Sunday to defend President Biden and dismissed concerns about his candidacy. The surge of allies followed a concerted effort by Biden and his team over the weekend to reassure anxious donors, party leaders and supporters who have raised questions about whether he should continue his candidacy. The president did concede to top donors at multiple events that he did terribly in the debate, but he says he is still the guy to beat former President Trump. And that came after a number of Democratic campaign operatives, commentators, columnists spoke out over the weekend. And then behind closed doors, a number of top donors and some Democratic members of Congress, they expressed concerns about whether Biden should be the nominee and they wondered whether or not they should nominate someone else at the August Democratic Convention. Notably though, no elected Democrats would say that publicly. So it's also far been anonymous quotes and private messages at the moment. Publicly though, top Democrats did offer versions of the same argument that Biden should be judged not on his performance in a 90 minute debate, but on his record as president over the past three and a half years. So Biden got back up from former President Obama, former President Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and others, one after the other on Friday, really trying to tamp down on concerns. And they believe that voters should give more weight to Trump's numerous false statements in the debate. Trump, by the way, lied 30 times to Biden's 10 lies, according to fact checkers. And they warned that voters should focus on the fact that Trump has so far refused to say that he will accept this fall's election results if he loses a close ally of Biden's Delaware Senator Chris Coons, who was also a co-chair of the 2024 campaign, said that Biden is the only Democrat who could beat Donald Trump. Here is a bit of what he told ABC News on Sunday. >> Look, I think it was a weak debate performance by President Biden. He had a scratchy, roughy voice. Excuse me, scratchy, rough voice. He answered a few questions in ways that were not the most forceful. But I think side by side, Donald Trump had a horrifying debate performance, where yes, he spoke plainly. But what he said was lie after lie after lie, that left most of those who watched either confirmed in their opinion to vote for Joe Biden or alarmed at the prospect of Donald Trump. >> And most we did hear some of that on the Instagram account from people. Notably though, Republicans were asked about Trump's false claims, and they struggled at points to defend Trump's debate performance, in which he spoke more clearly than Biden did, but he made many false claims. Instead, they were focusing on Biden's performance. The Trump campaign had its allies out over the weekend to hit the Biden campaign. And what they say was a media cover up for the president, here is South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. >> You know this idea that Biden had a bad night? That's not the story, he's had a bad presidency, had a disastrous debate. How could we get here? How could the American people see what they saw and not be forewarned? You got a compliant media who's written off the problems with President Biden. They've tried to soft sell. This is attacked by the right wing that he's compromised. There is no clean fakes here. The man is compromised and the media's been covering. >> All right, what do the voters think? The first major post debate national poll out Sunday from CBS News found an increased number of voters, including many Democrats, no longer think that Biden should be running for president at all. Prior to the debate, about two-thirds of Americans didn't think that Biden should be running post debate. That's now up to about 75% or three out of four Americans that think he should get out of the race. >> Yeah, it wasn't good going into this, Jill, and that's one of the questions people have, is how much of an impact does this have? How much was already priced in, so to speak, into Americans' impressions of Joe Biden? Beyond that, in that CBS poll, another notable figure, 72% of Americans no longer think that Biden has the cognitive or mental ability to function as president. Again, that's three out of four Americans. Notably, it's not that much better for Donald Trump. Half of Americans don't think Trump has the cognitive ability to serve as president again either. But of course, much worse for Biden there. When they specifically as Democrats about this, half of Democrats say that Biden should not be running for reelection. About 40% of Democrats don't think that he has the cognitive ability to serve as president. Again, this is Democrats here. So they were trying to put up the fires, Jill. We told people about it already. In the hours after the debate Thursday night, Friday saw the attempt by the party faithful, by the senior elites in the party trying to put out the fire. They had a call that DNC did with a number of top donors and officials over the weekend that didn't go very well. Multiple committee members on the call speaking out to the AP describing the feeling that they were being gaslighted by the party. They're being asked to ignore the dire nature of the predicament. Apparently, the officials were saying, just let's move on here. Let's move on. Let's focus on Trump. And in some cases, it may have worsened the panic among elected officials, donors and stakeholders. As you noted, none of them speaking out publicly here. This is all behind the scenes. There's a collective action problem. One of them I spoke to an official on Friday, Jill, described it as such. No one's willing to go forth unless everyone goes forth. And there's a lot of concern, you know, going up against the sitting president of the United States. If you hope to have a future in this party, if somehow Biden wins or isn't knocked out here, you've lost your future in the party. So a lot of nervousness despite what they're telling us behind the scenes, despite what they're texting us, and those best positioned to replace Biden, namely Vice President Kamala Harris, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. These are among the names that you hear are all publicly radiating their support for Biden after the debate. So it all effectively gives Biden a bit of cover here. What we're gonna be watching in the coming days is polling. Will there be a collapse in the polling here? You know, we know one of the reasons Biden wanted this debate early is that he already saw that Trump had a slight advantage above him in the key battleground states. He wanted to turn that advantage and make this referendum on Trump. His failure Thursday night has now made this a referendum on him. So if significant polling, if you start seeing polls that Biden is trailing in places like Wisconsin, in Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, by 10 points by the end of the week, there may be a real effort here. You might start to see people speaking out publicly. Oddly enough, CBS didn't ask voters, though they asked those other questions, straight up who you voting for, kind of an interesting decision there. So we're gonna wait for some other polls to come out. But the big question we've been trying to answer all week and on the premium account, Jill, can the Democratic Party change horses at this point? Is it too late and how would that happen? And the bottom line is this. It all comes down to Joe Biden. He needs to step down if there's to be a change. And there's no indication of that as of now, over the weekend, he was with his family. It camped David, the presidential retreat. Now this was a pre-planned get together with the family. They were actually taking family portraits with Andy Leibovitz, the famous photographer. Jill Biden was there, Joe's sister of Valerie. They're among those who he listens to the most here. They're the ones who, if you talk to anyone on the party, they're the ones who would have to tell Joe, it's time to hang it up, if he was to actually listen. Everyone else here who's going after them, including Joe's favorite media outlets, The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, Morning Joe, a whole bunch of other columnists. I mean, it was almost a joke on Friday, Jill, if you read column after column in The New York Times, it was always like, Joe must go. We love Joe, but he must go. We love Joe, but he must go. And it was one after another after another. The thing is, Biden's a fighter. And in fact, those columns in the pushback might actually incentivize him to stay in the race, which is an interesting development here. So Joe would have to step down and say, listen, I've done the four years. I've heard the message. I'm going to pass the baton. Now 90, 95%, if he somehow did that, which again is unlikely at this juncture, it would likely go to Kamala Harris as vice president, if he doesn't choose his own VP, sort of an indictment on himself. That said, we'd see what the convention would do. A hostile takeover at the convention, like Joe says, I'm in it. Unlikely 90% of the delegates pledged to him right now, you would have to get 2,000-ish Biden loyalists to somehow be willing to go against him at the convention in Chicago in August. That hostile takeover, extremely unlikely. - So Moshe, I think that you make a great point here. The bottom line is that this is a decision that ultimately rests with President Biden. And if it's a long shot, but if he made that decision that he was going to step down, it looks like at this point, the likeliest front runner to take over that nomination would be Kamala Harris. And I think the issue is that she is even more unpopular than he is. And actually, some polling shows that Trump leads Harris by almost 7 percentage points in a head-to-head race between them. - Yes, and we'll say a couple of things there. For those of you saying, well, what about Gavin Newsom? What about this? Kamala Harris is the vice president of the United States. She is the first woman to serve in that role. She's a black female. The most loyal voters in the Democratic Party, black women. So anyone who's like, you're going to pass over her for a white man, Gavin Newsom, and that'll lead to its own issues within the party. That said, it's a part of the desperately wants to win. Jill, I'll say this about those polls. They would have to figure out how to elevate Kamala in a way so she could win in the fall. Those polls are taken against the perception of her as vice president. Suddenly, let's say Biden says, I really want to give her a chance to win. I'm actually going to resign from office and let her be president. I mean, these are all very far-fetched scenarios. Could elevate her in a way where people actually see her as acting president and then ultimately able to make a decision based on that. That said, a very unlikely scenario. Again, you talk to senior Democratic officials behind the scenes. They say they're still very concerned about Biden. At the same time, they still think it's too late here. This is a conversation they needed to have two years ago, a year ago, six months ago. The fact that we're in July now, the elections in November, the primaries have been had, the convention delegates get locked in on August 7th, a week plus ahead of the Chicago convention. To somehow do that, we'll have to see a collapse in the polls here. Remember, at the same time, Biden and his people say, it was one bad night. Why are you burning me for one bad night? I've given you three and a half years, which is why you've seen some of these other people come out to support him. You have the sentencing of Trump on July 11th. You have the Republican convention on July 15th. This is going to go by very quickly. And I think you have Democrats who say, Biden makes us nervous. There are questions about his cognitive ability. But if you look at polling, introducing America to Gretchen Whitmer or Josh Shapiro from Pennsylvania or Gavin Newsom or Kamala Harris as president, they might actually fare worse against Trump than a Joe Biden who three out of four Americans think lacks the cognitive ability to be president, which sort of gives you the predicament. Democrats are in right now. Jill, I mentioned the Europeans and the headlines, and there's an instant story in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend. This is basically just not unloading of leaks over the weekend. You had White House staffers talk about how Biden is really optimal between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. but otherwise tends to lose his train of thought before 10 a.m. And after 4 p.m., which is why they schedule most events in that time. - Right, and of course the debate was at nine p.m. So-- - Yes, not in that six hour window. - Yes. - Yes. That said, people are like, well, so he has a good six hours. What about the other 18 hours of the day? - Just one more hours of the day. - It's actually not really helping folks in the West Wing. Then beyond that, you had a story in Axios talking about how Jill and certain staffers keep the White House staff away from Joe Biden, which is why his delivery Thursday night surprised so many people 'cause he doesn't spend much time with staff. And then you had an instant story on the Wall Street Journal over the weekend with European leaders, some of whom are going on the record here saying, yeah, the Joe Biden that we saw at the G7 summit earlier this summer was losing his train of thought. Was the only G7 leader not to come to the private dinner where a lot of business gets hammered out? There were times where he lost his train of thought, told the same anecdote multiple times. Tony Blinken at some point had to help him with talking points during one situation 'cause he couldn't follow the conversation. So there's been some concern among European leaders about this at the same time the European leaders, many of whom are in office right now, besides the Italian premier, don't like Donald Trump. So they've been sort of keeping this on the DL. So a larger question here about how candid, transparent, a lot of folks have been at the White House. We've talked on this podcast before about how Joe Biden has done the least amount of interviews and the least amount of press conferences than any other modern president. And so you haven't gotten a sense of this, which is why sort of there's an element of this that was priced in, but an element of this that did still shock a number of viewers and the viewership was about 50 million people watch the debate down from previous debates, which are usually between 1780, not insignificant. Jill, I'll tell you about this anecdote, was it a parking garage in New York City over the weekend and somehow got in the conversation about the debate with a parking attendant there who was like, I didn't watch the debate, but I saw a clip, like it sounds like Biden was a total disaster. And I was like, oh, what clip did you happen to see someone who didn't watch the debate and said they were planning on voting? And they're like, oh, I just saw the clip of Trump saying, I have no idea what he was talking about and he probably doesn't know either. And it does give you a sense of how the vast majority of voters and Americans are probably taking in this debate versus say the, you know, news aficionados are being able to send to this podcast. - And on that note, Moshe, I saw that you addressed some criticism over, I think it was on the premium account over the weekend where you had some premium members saying, you know, this is the media spinning in a narrative. Why aren't they being as harsh on Trump who as we reported lied three times as much as Biden? And your point was, look, this is a sitting president and this actually isn't a media narrative as much as it's these democratic operatives and these donors that are now really coming out to be worried. But I thought it was interesting. And for everyone who missed that explanation over on Instagram this weekend, if you could just go into that, I think it's worth the time. - Yeah, there's a lot of Biden supporters who are like, you guys in the media are being way too harsh on Joe Biden, you're not focusing enough on Donald Trump. And, you know, I think a couple of things. Number one, news is new. What was new about that debate was not that Trump made some false statements and Trump lied. That's been priced in for the better part of a decade. That said, we still cover that. And that's not insignificant. What is new is that the sitting president, by members of his own party, that there's an active conversation about replacing him and concerns about his health. The commander in chief and the most powerful elected official in the world, that there are questions coming from his own party, loyalists in his own party, is very significant, very new, hence news. And that's why we, you know, have been giving it the time that we have, because again, we're getting these notes from behind the scenes from, you know, concerned House members, concerned Senate members who are worried about their own reelection, because of what they watched happen on Thursday night. And what's interesting is that you see the Biden campaign also saying this too. If Poland goes down this week, they wrote a memo over the weekend that said it's the media's fault. It's not, it's not his performance on Thursday nights. So, you know, listen, we're going to cover, you know, when can does make false statements? That's an important part of coverage. But one of the reasons this is getting so much attention is because of just how novel this is. We've never seen this before. I'm not in modern American history. And, you know, you have to go back to, you know, FDR, potentially, you know, and the fact that, you know, they were hiding his condition from the American public, or JFK, they were hiding his Addison's disease from the American public. Again, questions here about transparency from the White House, questions here, coming from his own party. Again, not media people from his own party about all of this. So, this is going to be a very compelling storyline to watch in the coming weeks to see how they put out this fire and whether, you know, nothing changes here. Maybe in three weeks from now, the American people are like, we already sort of know that, you know, Biden's an old man. This is nothing new. Or whether this is significant enough. Remember, this is an election, a very small percentage points. Biden won this whole thing in 2020 based on about 100,000 votes in four different states. Trump won his election by less than 100,000 votes in four states in 2016. And so, even if I'm the margin, this hurts him, there's going to be a serious conversation here where there's too little, too late as far as some are concerned, TBD. But we're going to cover it, and we're going to cover it actively. - So, it's summertime, and we're looking to max out on being outdoors, and given the heat, avoid more of it in the kitchen. Some of the many reasons why we are loving factor meals this season. Factor delivers you chef crafted, never frozen meals that are ready to eat in just two minutes. With 35 different meals and more than 60 add-ons to choose from every week, you will always have new flavors to explore, delivered right to your doorstep. They go straight in the fridge, and then you can heat them up and have a delicious meal. They've got everything from breakfast to dinner, options like filet mignon, shrimp, and black and salmon. So, no shopping, prepping, cooking, or cleaning up. And they've got a special deal for the Monuse community. 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You can visit drinkag1.com/monews, take advantage of this offer, and you can get a discounted monthly subscription, or just try it one time for just one month. Again, the website, drinkag1.com/monews, that is drinkagthenumberone.com/monews for this special deal. - All right, time now for the speed read, some major Supreme Court decisions Friday, and some other major decisions expected today. Let's start with last week's rulings from the Washington Post on Friday, the Supreme Court in a six to three vote, killed a legal precedent that conservatives have attacked for decades. It was known as the Chevron deference, referring to the landmark ruling from 40 years ago. The court decided back in 1984 that judges should defer to federal agencies in interpreting ambiguous parts of statutes. The idea was that if Congress passes a law where something is unclear or there is a gap, it is up to an agency to fill in the gap, and that gave agencies like the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, the freedom to create and implement rules without fear of protracted legal battles. And after 40 years, the court has now overturned that, which is a really big win for conservatives and businesses, cutting the powers of the federal bureaucracy. So in areas like workplace safety, financial markets and the environment, businesses had to yield to federal agencies' interpretations of laws. - Yes, so the shorthand here, Chevron, no more. It's actually been involved in more than 18,000 court cases, Jill, over the last four decades. The Supreme Court, we know we've been reporting on this, has been trying to pair back an agency power here, saying that when it comes to major questions of policy, Congress must be explicit. Congress must be specific. They've been doing this for a few years now, saying, you know, if you want that to be a law, then Congress has to do it. The executive cannot do that. And so this is just the latest there, throwing out the Chevron deference, though the Biden administration and liberals have been arguing that this would be hugely destabilizing, given the number of cases it involved. Liberal Justice Elena Kagan in the dissent, saying that the ruling elevates the Supreme Court's power over other branches of government advocacy groups, progressives also calling it a setback for clean water, public health, fair lending, worker safety, other areas where people rely on federal help, that ultimately here, this is a green light to polluters, manufacturers, to be able to do what they want here, especially since Congress isn't passing a lot these days. So, Jill, not a surprising ruling, given the makeup of the court, this is conservative majority, but still significant. - Another big decision had to do with how cities deal with homelessness. The Supreme Court cleared the way for cities to enforce bans on homeless people sleeping outside in public places on Friday, even if cities do not have sufficient space in shelters, it overturns a ruling from an appeals court that found such laws amount to cruel and unusual punishment when shelter space is lacking. The case is the High Court's most significant ruling on the issue in decades, and it comes as a rising number of people in the US are without a permanent place to live. - So, this was another 6-3 ruling, the High Court finding that the outdoor sleeping bans do not violate the Eighth Amendment. That's a restriction against cruel and unusual punishment. This is a case that came out of a town in Oregon, and in a lower court, the court had ruled that they couldn't do this. The city said that makes it really hard to manage outdoor encampments in public spaces, in parks, et cetera, that we want the rest of the public to be able to use. Now, homeless advocates said this punishes people who need a place to sleep and would criminalize homelessness, still the court ruling in this case. Again, even if there's not sufficient shelter space, which was the case in this Oregon town, the cities do have the right to do this in California, which by the way, we should note the state is home to one-third of the country's homeless population. The governor there, a Democrat, Gavin Newsom, said the decision now gives state and local officials the authority to clear unsafe encampments, which you see in L.A., in San Francisco, in a number of towns across the state, though the governor says they will still act with compassion. And as I noted, homeless advocates not happy about the decision saying this punishes people, we have no other place to sleep. - And then a ruling about January 6th that could impact several hundred of the prosecutions against rioters from that day, the Supreme Court ruling Friday that the Justice Department misinterpreted a law by charging hundreds of people who rioted at the U.S. Capitol. The justices ruled six to three to throw out a lower court's decision in the case of one of the rioters that had allowed a charge of corruptly obstructing an official proceeding, and interestingly, Moshe, in this case, it was not along party lines or partisan lines. - Right, so you actually had five conservatives in the majority, along with liberal Katanji Jackson, joins conservatives here, and Amy Coney Barrett, the conservative, joined the two dissenting liberals in this case. Jill, we've been talking about this on the Instagram account. The Supreme Court not always the 6-3 that you see the majority of decisions, unanimous actually. And in some of his cases, there's been some really interesting combinations of the liberal and conservative justices. That said, this case, another significant case, because it's gonna impact several hundred of the prosecutions of January 6 rioters, the court in this case taking a narrow view of a specific law and obstruction law that was passed out of the Enron scandal in the early 2000s, called Sarbanes-Oxley. Effectively, what you need to know is that they said that that law not only requires obstruction of an official proceeding, which is what they tried to prosecute these rioters on, but it has to involve a document, impairing or the availability or integrity of documents that they believe that was the original intention of the law because of the Enron scandal. And so the fact that a bunch of these rioters were prosecuted, some are sitting in jail here, solely based on obstruction, not dealing with documents. The court says, nope, you got that wrong prosecutors. So that could free now several dozen people who are in jail solely because of this statute. It also could lessen prison time for others. Jill, among those who are facing charges related to the statute, Donald Trump. Though notably in his case, his case does have to do with documents related to his alternate slates of electors on January 6th. So this, you know, he probably likely here will still be prosecuted under the stricter definition here. Still a very interesting move here and the federal government disappointed 'cause this impacts, again, several hundred of the prosecutions related to January 6th. Jill, along those lines in the season finale today, final day of the court today, releasing their final decision sometime between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. so have your news alerts ready. There will be a ruling on a key Donald Trump case that could impact the federal prosecutions. What's he arguing that he has immunity from criminal charges in his attempt to overturn the 2020 election? He's arguing he was doing this as president and he's immune from all criminal prosecution for anything he does as president. He's actually trying to argue a very wide definition of immunity saying basically nothing I do as president it ever be prosecuted. The court here will rule on that and depending on what they rule here, it could really impact his specific prosecution related to January 6th. It's gonna come down to this. Was he acting as president, was trying to overturn the election in official act? Or was he acting as a private citizen who just wanted to be president again? The court will have to potentially interpret that. They might kick it down to a lower court, but still a very interesting here, the special counsel has been arguing that's crazy. You can't just say as president that everything you do is immune. So look for the court here to narrowly define something and also potentially in that a unanimous decision 'cause if this is a partisan decision, that's not a good look for the court. So look for the Roberts court here to potentially find a way to get liberals into the majority with the way that they approach this case. - All right, Moshe, we're also closely watching a couple of foreign elections this weekend. The first one is out of Europe, this from the Associated Press. France's high stakes legislative elections propelled the far right national rally party to a strong lead in the first round vote Sunday. And that is a major initial defeat to centrist president Emmanuel Macron. The projections indicated that Macron's risky decision to call snap elections earlier this month appeared to have backfired. French polling agencies said that his grouping of centrist parties could finish a distant third in the first round ballot. Those projections put Macron's camp behind both the far right national rally anti-immigration party and a new left wing coalition of parties. There will be a final runoff election next Sunday. It isn't clear how many legislative candidates from Macron's centrist party will qualify for the runoff. Many French voters are frustrated about inflation and other economic concerns as well as Macron's leadership seen as arrogant and out of touch with their lives. The National Rally Party has tapped that discontent. Voters in Paris had issues including immigration and the rising costs of living on their minds as the country grew more divided between the far right and far left blocks with a deeply unpopular and weakened president in the political center. - Yeah, so just FYI, the way the system works in France, the president is able to call for elections, legislative elections, and so that's what Macron did here. This comes out of the EU elections we told you about earlier this month. That's where the far right did very well in voters selecting far right members for the representation to the larger EU parliament which handles all the countries there. So Macron out of that said, I got a problem here. Let me just call elections right away. I'm gonna be able to convince the country that this far right, that they're gonna be scared by what happened early June and they're gonna come back to the center. Well, it appears he failed with that bet here. And in this case, finishing third place. So this is gonna be a huge challenge depending on the final results here on Sunday. In these runoff results, Jill, if the far right wins, that'll mean that Macron remains president 'cause these are just legislative elections, but his prime minister likely could be from the far right party, which means Macron handles foreign policy the way the French system works, and the prime minister handles domestic policy, but still has a huge amount of authority. There could also just be basically a parliament that can't get anything done there for the next couple of years as part of this gamble. - Sounds vaguely familiar. - Jill, there are trend lines we are seeing globally here. And what happens here, you're seeing in Europe, what happens in Europe? You're seeing here immigration a key issue there. And you're seeing the far right is tapping into discontent. A lot of French people who believe that they're losing France. They make France great again, if you will, that they have now the largest Muslim community in Europe. They've seen a huge amount of immigration and migrants come in from North Africa, from the Middle East. There's estimated nearly half a million people there illegally. And the far right party says we're gonna deport all of them. And that is really tapped in to a lot of French feelings there. And so you're seeing that, now we should note that the far right party has origins that are racist, anti-Semitic. They've tried to clean up their image in recent years, Marine Le Pen, who runs the party, has tried to clean it up from her father who was vehemently anti-Semitic, et cetera. And has tried to say, really we're focused on taking back control of the country on immigration. Notably, Jill, the prime minister that might end up getting elected next week, a 28-year-old named Jordan Bardella. And he's talked about ending birthright citizenship for people born in France to foreign parents and making it easier to shut down mosques, banning Muslim veils and making, again, deportation easier. So a risky bet here by Macron that appears not to have paid off. We'll wait for the final results on Sunday to see sort of where France goes next and given their size in Europe, what impact that has on the rest of the continent. - In other foreign voting news from Reuters, Iran held a presidential election over the weekend, though we at Mo News will use the term election loosely here, given that it was between hand-selected candidates by the Iranian Ayatollah and other religious leaders. The top two finishers for this weekend's election are a little-known reformist against a hard-line former nuclear negotiator. They came out of a larger field and will now compete in a runoff this Friday. So you've got the reformist, Masoud Pazeshkin. He finished ahead of the religious ideologue. Said Jalili. Although voter turnout was the lowest in the Islamic Republic's history, more than 60% of voters cast no ballot in the race. As many Iranians know that either man will basically be deferential to the religious, theocratic regime of the Ayatollah. The election is being held after the previous Iranian president, Ibrahim Raisi, died in a helicopter crash on May 19th. The religious clerics approved of a list of candidates for the election in the weeks after that. - Yeah, so you mentioned Jill reformist against hard-liner here, though we should put air quotes around reformists because you're limited in terms of how much reform you could really do, even if you are a so-called reformist in Iran. Some Iranian speculating that Pazeshkin's place in the second round may mobilize pro-reform voters to cast ballots, but many unsure whether he can actually usher in any meaningful change. He hasn't really been at the forefront of any criticism or reform movement. In Iran's Shiite theocracy, ultimate authority resides with the Ayatollah. He has final say on national security, on foreign policy. All major matters. Now still, the Iranian president does officially serve as the head of government. He's the second highest ranking official. He can help set economic policy. Influence how moral codes are enforced, like the head covering ban, as well as guide diplomacy with other nations. Pazeshkin is a cardiac surgeon and lawmaker. He supports some engagement with the West. He has criticized the harsh enforcement of the mandatory dress code for women within reason, but he's not, again, among the most prominent reformists, and he has publicly expressed loyalty to Khamenei, the Ayatollah, which suggests he has little willingness to really challenge him on major issues of substance. Meanwhile, he was one of three hardliners who came out of the election of the initial round this weekend. So it looks like he has the advantage here. He was once described by the CIA director as stupefyingly opaque in negotiations. And so he's seen here as a hardliner, religious conservative, someone who's gonna challenge the West, someone who believes in strictured dress codes for women, building better ties with Russia and China, aligning much more closely with the Ayatollah there. So you got Jalili, you got Pazeshkin, they're gonna face a second round here later this week. And Jill will see if there's a major move to vote. And ultimately what the result is, there's a lack of transparency when it comes to Iranian elections given the Ayatollah is running this whole thing. - From Fox weather, Hurricane barrel strengthened into what experts are calling an extremely dangerous category four storm as it approaches the Southeast Caribbean, which began shutting down Sunday amid urgent pleas from government officials for people to take shelter. Hurricane warnings were in effect for Barbados, St. Lucia, Granada and St. Vincent. Barrel Center is expected to pass about 70 miles south of Barbados this morning. It will then head into the Caribbean Sea as a major hurricane on a path toward Jamaica. So we'll be closely monitoring it as it's expected to weaken by midweek, but we'll still remain a hurricane as it heads towards the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. - Yeah, given how far it is right now, the models right now show it, most of the models show it heading towards the Yucatan. So if you have plans later this week for Cancun, Kazumil, be where, though there are also models that show it turning towards the North once it gets into the Gulf of Mexico and heading towards Texas or Louisiana. Less of those so far, but it is still way too far out. So it's worth monitoring again, if you're going to the Yucatan or if you're on the U.S. Gulf Coast, it appears right now though that Florida will be okay. It is a sign though of how rough this hurricane season is gonna be, we've told you about the predictions, about record numbers expected. The average day chill for the first hurricane to form in the Atlantic is typically August 1st. So this is five weeks ahead of schedule. We've told you about record warm waters this year. It took barrel less than 48 hours to strengthen from tropical depression to major hurricane. That is a feat that has only been accomplished six other times in Atlantic hurricane history. How fast it escalated there. September 1st is typically the earliest day for that. That's when the waters are at their warmest. Again, this happened in June. So fair warning for those of you in the Caribbean. On this, I will be watching barrel, but there's also another development coming behind barrel right now. So it's a set to be a busy season. - From NPR, if humanoid robots make you a bit queasy, would it help if they had fleshy faces that could smile at you? No, actually, that makes it worse. - No, I think NPR knew the answer to that question when they asked it in the story. - So this new feat is the result of new technology using engineered living skin tissue and human-like ligaments to give robots more natural smile. Tokyo University researchers unveiled their work this week. Japan is often at the cutting edge of innovation regarding humanoid robots. The approach promises to make robots more lifelike. Researchers say similar techniques could also be used on humans in the cosmetics and plastic surgery industries. So to overlay and connect the lab produced skin on a robotic skeleton, a layer of collagen gel containing a type of connective tissue cell binds to the surface of the robot and it lets the skin move with the underlying structure without tearing or peeling. - Yeah, so the robot was able to smile with the skin, the work of muscles done by actuators. Jill, some folks on Instagram over the weekend saying, "This is Westworld and like, why are we doing this?" Now again, they say-- - Who asked for this? - Well, they say this has implications for plastic surgery for better understanding how the skin heals itself, wrinkles, et cetera. But in the meantime, let's be very careful about where we're going here, our friends in Japan. The lab is called Biohybrid Systems. They have previously engineered skin that can heal. They've created small robots with biological muscle tissue. They've created 3D printed lab-grown meat. And they say the latest work here has a string of potential next steps. Self-healing, they say, is a big deal. And so there's a lot of hope around that. It's critical for robots to have the ability to heal and self-repair, because they say small scratches could develop in the serious impairments. Again, that assumes you need to put skin on robots. Future projects apparently are gonna look to add sensors, pores, and even sweat glands and fat on these robots. So between AI and this robot work out in this Tokyo lab, Jill, beware in the decades to come. You're already worried about talking to AI when you message with customer service. Soon enough, they'll be walking around. You're like, is that a person I was talking to? (upbeat music) All right, now time for on this day in history, back when we didn't have to worry about robots with humanoid skin, Jill, July 1st, 1941. The world's first TV commercial aired on a New York City station. It was a nine second ad for Boulevard watches that aired between a game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Best forward, 1963. The U.S. Post Office inaugurated the five-digit zip code. They actually had ads with Zippity Duda. This was a big deal. They were trying to speed up mail delivery, inauguring the use of machine readable zip codes to facilitate better sorting of mail. Of course, you have the zip code. And then over time in the '80s, they added the dash for digit extra code to make mail distribution even more efficient. In other innovations on the state in 1979, Sony introduced the Walkman. For the kids out there, this was a big deal. Loved you to listen to music on the go for the first time. Jill, you remember your first Walkman? - I don't know if it was my first, but I remember having a yellow Walkman. - Yeah, that was like the shake-proof one, right? The sports one, I feel like. So you could run with it. - Yes. - I remember I got my first one from my bar Mitzvah in seventh grade. It was a big deal. I was very excited. And then the disc man comes in when I'm in high school, but then the disc man, with the CD twirling around on the move would shake, the music would stop, et cetera. So you needed the shake-proof disc man. - Yeah, you needed the sport disc man. - The sport disc man, the yellow one again. Sport and yellow and gray always indicated the sport version of it. As far as Sony was concerned. All right, a bit of Supreme Court history on this day, George H.W. Bush, President George H.W. Bush on this day in 1991. Nominating appeals court judge, Clarence Thomas. He was just 43 at the time. To the Supreme Court, led to very contentious hearings among those grilling Clarence Thomas, a young girl, Senator Joseph Biden during that time. Clarence Thomas ultimately get on the court. He's now the longest serving member of the court, now in his mid-70s. And Jill, notably, he likely will retire if Trump is elected again, 'cause he'd wanna be replaced by a conservative. And that would ensure conservative majority for another generation as an argument that you're gonna see play out here on the election trail. And finally, as I promised 26 years ago in pop culture news, Armageddon premiered in theaters on this day. ♪ I could stay awake ♪ ♪ Just to hear you breathing ♪ Jill, the key soundtrack from that was "Don't Wanna Miss a Thing" by Aerosmith, because also, it turns out, the movie stirred. Steven Tyler's daughter lived. - I think I saw this movie more than once in the theater, Moshe. - No, it was one of the movies that you felt in the late "Man's Joy" 2000s, that do I get the DVD? Will I watch this enough to necessitate buying the DVD of this movie? - And now you're like, which streaming platform is it on? - I haven't thought of watching Armageddon in a while, but probably, it's worth a check. It's probably, it's definitely on one of them at this time. - With a young, less-wethered Ben Affleck. (laughing) - Let's tat it up. Two jailer relationships ago. - Well, I'm more innocent. All right. - Jill, he was 26 years old in that movie. - All right, thank you everyone 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, subscribe, so don't miss an episode, and review us in the app store. - And check out "Mo News Premium". If you want coverage all week, 24/7 on the Instagram account, mo.news/premium special code, three months free on the annual package for all new members, stay informed. One word, stay informed over at mo.news/premium. - All right, bye everyone. - Thanks for listening to the "Mo News" podcast. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
