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--:-- Steve Inskeep: Military officers planned a strike on an Iranian nuclear facility for 15 years. They literally dreamed about this target at night when they slept. What were the results once the attack finally came? I'm Steve Inskeep with A. Martinez, and this is Up First from NPR News.
--:-- A. Martinez: The Supreme Court ends its term today with six rulings due, including one on birthright citizenship. Three lower courts have blocked the president's birthright citizenship executive order. And the court will decide whether judges have the authority to issue nationwide injunctions against such things.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And the U.S. has pledged funding for a new Israeli and U.S.-supported E-group in Gaza. Gaza health officials say hundreds of Palestinians have been killed as they approach the group's distribution sites for food. Stay with us. We'll give you all the news you need to start your day.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The Trump administration has revealed a number of new details about U.S. airstrikes on Iran's nuclear program. The president's top military advisor described an operation many years in the making. And at the end of those years, he said B-2 pilots put giant bombs on the target and returned safely.
--:-- A. Martinez: At the same briefing, the defense secretary attacked the media, but officials did not give much clarity on exactly how much damage the attack did to Iran's nuclear program. For more, we're joined by NPR national security correspondent Greg Myrie. Greg, so are we any closer at all to knowing how much damage was done to Iran's nuclear program?
--:-- Greg Myrie: Well, we're learning more, but we still don't have a clear assessment. And A, it's probably not realistic to expect one at this point.
--:-- A. Martinez: All the evidence presented by the Trump administration shows the U.S. airstrikes hit their targets Sunday at three separate nuclear sites south of Iran's capital, Tehran. But President Trump just got way out ahead of everyone by immediately saying the Iranian program was completely wiped out.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: That's NPR's Greg Myrie.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Today is the last day of the Supreme Court term. Yeah, and the court has been releasing its rulings in many cases. Today, we expect to learn their opinions on the final six, including some of the biggest ones argued this term. NPR Legal Affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg is covering this and is in our studios once again. Hi, Nina.
--:-- Nina Totenberg: Hi there, Steve.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Okay, the major case we're looking at is on birthright citizenship. It revolves on the meaning of a phrase in the Constitution, a sentence, All persons born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States, the Constitution says. What should we be looking for in the case?
--:-- Nina Totenberg: Well, Donald Trump has issued an executive order saying that only some children born in the United States can be citizens. And it's directly opposite of what the actual text says in the Constitution. And every judge to have ruled on it has said he's wrong. It's every baby born in the United States is automatically an American citizen.
--:-- A. Martinez: The Justice Department I think knowing that it was going to lose this case on the merits didn't ask the court to reverse those decisions. Instead, it went to court and said please Supreme Court these judges have made their rulings apply nationwide and that exceeds their authority.
--:-- Nina Totenberg: We want you to bar these kinds of nationwide injunctions, which, if the court does that, would make litigating against Trump administration policies exponentially more difficult.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Given what you said, that the administration went to the Supreme Court on this narrower question, could the justices rule anyway on the question of birthright citizenship and what it means?
--:-- Nina Totenberg: Look, they're the Supreme Court of the United States. They can do what they want. But the question wasn't briefed or argued, and it wasn't discussed in the argument at all.
--:-- A. Martinez: What are some of the other cases you're watching for?
--:-- Nina Totenberg: There's a big case from Montgomery County, Maryland, that tests whether parents are entitled to opt their children out of classes when they object to the school district's curriculum on religious grounds.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: This was a case involving grade school children and books that had gay and lesbian characters. But you could imagine that it might be also about teaching Darwin's theory of evolution. So it has a lot of potential for punch, and school officials are pretty nervous about it.
--:-- Nina Totenberg: There's something about Obamacare before the court? Yeah, there's yet another challenge to the Affordable Care Act brought by conservative groups.
--:-- A. Martinez: This time, Obamacare's opponents are targeting a measure that requires most private insurance companies to provide free preventive care without co-pays or deductibles to both adults and children.
--:-- Nina Totenberg: And there are about 150 million people who benefit from this. And it'll be gone if the court rules with the challengers.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Finally, there's also a case challenging a Texas law that seeks to crack down on kids' access to pornography by requiring everyone, including adults, to provide proof of age on the website before they get access.
--:-- Nina Totenberg: So once the court rules on these cases, are you and they done for the summer?
--:-- A. Martinez: Not quite. There are several cases on the shadow docket, otherwise called the emergency docket. These are consequential cases involving layoffs of federal workers, shuttering various agencies, deporting people without due process.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: So they're going to have to work over the summer, but they'll probably work from very glitzy places.
--:-- Nina Totenberg: Got it.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Well, Nina, we'll be listening for your coverage later in the day. Thank you.
--:-- Nina Totenberg: NPR's Nina Totenberg.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The U.S. is stepping up its support for a food program in Gaza that the United Nations has described as a death trap. The Trump administration says it's allocating $30 million for that program. It comes at a moment when chaos is spreading in Gaza, where armed groups are now looting and attacking United Nations aid convoys.
--:-- A. Martinez: Here to tell us more about this is NPR international correspondent Ayah Batraoui in Dubai, and a warning that we will be talking about some graphic details of the violence in Gaza.
--:-- Ayah Batraoui: So I'll start off by just telling us about this plan and why the Trump administration is funding it.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Sure. So this is a plan that began in Gaza exactly a month ago. And it's a plan that Israel devised, and it works like this. A group calling itself the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation uses American contractors to distribute boxes of food in just four sites in Gaza.
--:-- A. Martinez: And these four sites are drawing thousands of hungry people every day desperate for food.
--:-- Ayah Batraoui: Now Gaza's health ministry says hundreds of them have been killed and thousands wounded trying to reach these GHF sites since they began operations.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: This group, GHF, insists these shootings are not happening near their sites.
--:-- Ayah Batraoui: But here's what State Department Tommy spokesman, Tommy Piggott, had to say yesterday.
--:-- A. Martinez: We see the $30 million approved. So that's what the story is here. Moving to implement, get those creative solutions in there to make sure that the aid being distributed is not being looted by Hamas.
--:-- Ayah Batraoui: And he called on other countries to join in funding GHF. But this week, a dozen human rights and legal groups warn that any countries or donors backing GHF are potentially liable for complicity in war crimes.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: But why is it so deadly right now to get food there?
--:-- Ayah Batraoui: You know, partly it's because these GHF sites were put in military zones where Israeli troops are positioned and where Palestinians are not supposed to be.
--:-- A. Martinez: And so people are being shot in these red zones.
--:-- Ayah Batraoui: And Israel's military says it's fired warning shots at crowds approaching troops, clearing them out.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: The military says it's reviewing and undergoing learning processes like building fences and expanding routes to these sites. But these daily shootings continue.
--:-- A. Martinez: I want you to have a listen to American physician Dr. Adnan Hossein from Dallas. He's been volunteering in Gaza for the past two weeks.
--:-- Ayah Batraoui: He tells me every day he's treating people shot near these GHF sites. He called it a horror movie on repeat.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I can't tell you how many boys, young boys and adults that get rushed into my resuscitation bay, bleeding out from their abdomen, bleeding out from their head.
--:-- A. Martinez: And when I'm exposing them, trying to look for their injuries, what I find is empty bags, empty bags that they had only hoped to fill with food just so that they could survive and for a few more days.
--:-- Ayah Batraoui: And, you know, he sent me photos this week of boys who've lost their eyes and boys who've been paralyzed being shot by Israeli forces near these GHF sites.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Well, that's difficult to hear.
--:-- A. Martinez: So this plan by Israel and the U.S. is supposed to keep aid from reaching Hamas, but we're seeing these incidents of looting still happening in Gaza. So who's behind that?
--:-- Ayah Batraoui: So there's hardly been a trickle of U.N. aid allowed into Gaza, and most of it's being looted by hungry people and armed clans.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Now, Palestinians say 120 aid trucks were stolen by armed clans in southern Gaza in just the past two days.
--:-- A. Martinez: Now, this comes as Israel has admitted to arming groups in Gaza to undermine Hamas, groups that are known for looting.
--:-- Ayah Batraoui: But what we're seeing now is even more clans clashing with Hamas security officials who are trying to crack down on this looting and the price gouging of these stolen goods in the markets.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Now, one of these clans actually raided Nasser Hospital, where Dr. Hussain and other American doctors volunteer and opened fire inside yesterday.
--:-- A. Martinez: But we also yesterday saw Hamas security forces being targeted by an Israeli airstrike. The Gaza Health Ministry says 19 people were killed trying to get flour that these security forces had confiscated from the looters and were distributing to a crowd of people.
--:-- Ayah Batraoui: Now, these security forces are under the Interior Ministry, which oversees the police. Israel's military has acknowledged throughout the war targeting police in Gaza, saying they're an arm of Hamas.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Hundreds have been killed. But Gaza's police say they're not part of any political or armed wing of Hamas.
--:-- A. Martinez: Ultimately, you know, this chaos and breakdown of order is happening after more than 20 months of war as Hamas is also losing its grip on the territory.
--:-- Ayah Batraoui: That's NPR correspondent Taya Batrawi in Dubai. Thank you.
--:-- A. Martinez: Thank you.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Okay, we're in the middle of the podcast that gives you the latest news. Three big stories of the day. But a big part of journalism, as we do it at NPR News, is to return to a story, to come back again and again. And we're going now to hear, in the next several minutes, in a special part of this episode, from a figure who is reinventing herself.
--:-- A. Martinez: Michelle Obama. The former first lady says she's staying away from politics and campaigning and trying to bring her civilian self into view. Specifically within view of our own Rachel Martin. She's our former co who now hosts NPR Wildcard where she asks guests big questions about their lives pulled from a deck of cards.
--:-- Rachel Martin: This is a person whose life has been examined from the inside out for so many years. Yeah. And now she very much wants to be in control of the narrative of her life. And that means getting to say no to things.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: I mean, you'll remember she did not go to President Trump's inauguration. This year. She did not go to President Jimmy Carter's funeral. She's saying what she wants to say, how she wants to say it, especially on this new podcast she's got with her brother.
--:-- A. Martinez: It's called IMO. She hosts it with Craig Robinson, where she wants to be, I mean, she wants to be able to be more casual. She wants to throw off all the limitations that were put on her as the first lady living in the White House.
--:-- Rachel Martin: Somehow she said yes to you while saying no to the current president. That's right. I feel very honored. Exactly. So what did you hear from her?
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Because she did not attend that funeral, the inauguration, all this kind of public chatter, even in the press, started picking up these rumors about her marriage.
--:-- Rachel Martin: Oh, are they separated? Exactly. Right. So I did not even bring this up to her. She brought it up, Steve. She very much wants to set the record straight. She's not letting stuff like that lie anymore.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And we've got some tape of that. Let's listen.
--:-- Michelle Obama: Even in this phase in our lives, when Barack and I say something right or wrong, it does get covered. The fact that people don't see me going out on a date with my husband sparks rumors of the end of our marriage.
--:-- Rachel Martin: I mean, it's sort of—
--:-- Michelle Obama: It's like the apocalypse. It's the apocalypse. It's like, okay, so we still—
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It's like, okay, so we don't Instagram every minute of our lives. We are 60. We're 60, y'all.
--:-- Rachel Martin: Speak for yourself. Still got a little ways to go. Right.
--:-- Michelle Obama: But anyway, let's listen to some more of this conversation. And for people who are new to Wild Card, Rachel does hold up three cards at a time, and the guest chooses a card with a question.
--:-- Rachel Martin: Here we go. One, two, or three. Let's do one. Yeah. Has ambition ever led you astray?
--:-- Michelle Obama: I don't know if my ambition has ever fully been able to actualize itself because of the nature of what me and my husband have done.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: It wasn't about your individual ambition. Was it? Right. It was the team ambition, and I went along arguably kicking and screaming, right?
--:-- Michelle Obama: And, you know, I think I'm now at a stage in my life where all my choices are mine. All my, you know, now I can say that whatever I'm doing from this point on is about my ambition.
--:-- Rachel Martin: You know, and that's fairly new, right? Because as a working mother, you know, I think all of that stuff, it kind of cut my ambitions short a little bit.
--:-- Michelle Obama: Because I had to make a set of decisions. Okay, my husband's over here. I've got these kids over here. I don't know if I can afford to be ambitious right now.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: So I have to take a step back. Even though ambition is there, I can see where I could make more money. I could do that. But, you know, I got these little kids that I love, and I do want to go to the Halloween parade, and I want to, you know.
--:-- Michelle Obama: So I think I kind of squelched my ambition. But now is a time for me to embrace my own ambition and to define it for me.
--:-- Rachel Martin: So maybe the answer is we'll see. Yeah. Because I think I'm just now stepping, fully stepping into my own ambition.
--:-- Michelle Obama: Yeah. And right now I have not regretted it.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Part of ambition in living your own life is saying yes to things you want to do. It's also saying no, I imagine, to things that you don't want to do.
--:-- Michelle Obama: For sure. And we experienced that. One of the major decisions I made this year to stay put and not attend funerals and inaugurations and all the things that I'm supposed to attend.
--:-- Rachel Martin: And that was a part of me, you know, using my ambition to say, let me define what I want to do apart from what I'm supposed to do, what the world expects of me.
--:-- Michelle Obama: And I have to own that. Those are my choices. Whatever the backlash was, I had to sit in it and own it. But I didn't regret it, you know.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Yeah, because it's your life. It's my life now. And I can say that now. But we'll see. There may be next year we sit down. I go, you know, Rachel. Went a little too far. We're going to rein it back in. We're going to rein it back in.
--:-- Rachel Martin: Three more. Three more. One, two, three. Two. Two. What's a piece of advice you were smart to ignore?
--:-- Michelle Obama: Oh, my gosh. You're not Princeton material. Who gave you that one?
--:-- Rachel Martin: My college counselor in high school.
--:-- Michelle Obama: Are you serious? I'm so serious. I've written about this. But yeah, I was a senior at Whitney Young Magnet High School.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And, you know, it's a big school, magnet program. I was a great student. I was an honor student. I was the treasurer of the senior class.
--:-- Michelle Obama: But when I sat down with her, the woman who was supposed to encourage me, she looked at my—
--:-- Rachel Martin: Dream big, watching big doors.
--:-- Michelle Obama: Yeah, yeah, yeah. She told me, I don't think you're Princeton material.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: So what was your in the moment?
--:-- Michelle Obama: I was furious. I was furious. But I was familiar with that bar lowering.
--:-- Rachel Martin: Yeah. Right. Because it happens to minority kids, poor kids, kids of color all the time.
--:-- Michelle Obama: People make snap judgments based on their biases and their limitations. They don't ask questions.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And it helped me because throughout my life when I would hit those roadblock or meet those people, I was lucky enough to be the child with the temperament that it didn't wound me.
--:-- Michelle Obama: It angered me, and it made me think, I'll show you. Oh, you don't think I can do this. I'll show you.
--:-- Rachel Martin: Do you remember getting, I mean, it was probably an envelope in the mail, right? You and I got envelopes in the mail.
--:-- Michelle Obama: You got your accepted letter. It wasn't an email. It wasn't an email. It wasn't a click on.
--:-- Rachel Martin: Do you remember, like, looking for a camera? The bigger envelope. It was the bigger one that was the good.
--:-- Michelle Obama: Which is kind of harsh. Yeah. No it was one of the proudest moments I had a lot of support. My parents loved me but once we started doing things like applying to Ivy League schools I mean, we were kind of out of their league, right?
--:-- Rachel Martin: I mean, my mom could read over my essay, but everything I did felt amazing to her. I don't know if she or my dad felt like, well, you could change this segment. I mean, they weren't editing us. They were encouraging us.
--:-- Michelle Obama: It looks good. Go for it. It looks great. They're like, go forward. You are fabulous.
--:-- Rachel Martin: Yeah. Right? So I was relieved to prove the doubters wrong. Right. It wasn't just your parents. Who knew?
--:-- Michelle Obama: It wasn't. Yeah. Nobody else sees this out here. Sometimes you need external validation.
--:-- Rachel Martin: One, two, or three. Let's go with two. Two. How often do you think about death?
--:-- Michelle Obama: Hmm. My husband thinks this is morbid, but at 61, you know, if I am lucky, if I am truly blessed, like 25 more summers.
--:-- Rachel Martin: Oh, yeah. I do that math all the time. Yeah. You know? And I measure out how old my kids are against that.
--:-- Michelle Obama: Yeah. Because if you're not mindful about time, you know, like 10 years, we've been out of office for 10 years. Right. What happened? What happened in those 10 years?
--:-- Rachel Martin: You know? I mean, it's like, I did a lot, right? I mean, two, three books, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
--:-- Michelle Obama: There's a lot that happened, but it went by fast. And I'm at the stage of life where I want the next 10 years to go by slowly.
--:-- Rachel Martin: Because guess what? I love life. I love my life.
--:-- Michelle Obama: I love life. But what I feel is that if I'm not mindful about it, the years slip away. And you wind up spending a year doing what? Did you do anything you wanted to? Did you spend time with the people that you wanted to spend time with, doing the things that you wanted to do?
--:-- Rachel Martin: And there's a time in life for all young people where you just don't have that luxury because you're grinding and growing and building. You haven't earned it yet, right?
--:-- Michelle Obama: And you should be out there doing and shaking and baking. But with 25 more summers, I want to know. I want to feel each one of them.
--:-- Rachel Martin: I know. I want to be like, ooh, this year, ooh, this was slow. I was like, I didn't do much of anything. Did I accomplish anything? I got bored and I was like, oh, I've read another book. Oh, it took forever.
--:-- Michelle Obama: Do you think you're comfortable with real slowness though? Like, do you think that's not?
--:-- Rachel Martin: Yes. Oh, you are. Oh, yes, I am.
--:-- Michelle Obama: And a day of nothing is one of those nice slow days where you look up and go, oh, man, it's only noon.
--:-- Rachel Martin: I want more of those because I want these last 25 summers to feel long and purposeful and mine. Not because I've given that time away and I looked up and it's all gone.
--:-- Michelle Obama: I've given it all away to everybody else and I don't even know what was left for me.
--:-- Rachel Martin: And so I think all of that is a part of thinking about death. Totally.
--:-- Michelle Obama: And when it comes, I'm not afraid of it. You're not?
--:-- Rachel Martin: No, I'm not. But let me tell you one thing that was interesting to me.
--:-- Michelle Obama: And I think you're the first person I share this with publicly. It's like the last year of my mom's life, she was sick. Her body was just shutting down for a number of various reasons.
--:-- Rachel Martin: And her last bout of illness, she was with me in Hawaii, in our home in Hawaii, which was a blessing, right? Because she was forced to let me take care of her.
--:-- Michelle Obama: She didn't want to be a burden. She didn't want to be a burden.
--:-- Rachel Martin: And, ooh, did I – I had doctors and nurses and everybody coming in, and we had her diet and this, and I was bossing her around, and she was mad, and she was like, I just want to go home.
--:-- Michelle Obama: And it's like, but you can't. You're stuck with me. You know, I could just take care of her.
--:-- Rachel Martin: And she got better and went back to Chicago. But we were sitting on the couch watching one of her court shows because she liked court shows.
--:-- Michelle Obama: And she was realizing that, you know, she might, she will not ever be the same old self that she was. She was starting to realize she's coming to the end.
--:-- Rachel Martin: And this woman that prepared me for death, right, and talked to me about all this stuff and was like, I'm ready to die. Who needs to be old people around too long? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
--:-- Michelle Obama: She leaned over to me and she said, wow, this went fast.
--:-- Rachel Martin: And I held her hand. I said, what are you talking about?
--:-- Michelle Obama: And she said, life. She said, this went fast.
--:-- Rachel Martin: And what that told me was that even when you tell yourself you're ready, if you're living a good life, you're never really ready for it to end, right?
--:-- Michelle Obama: So I hope I feel that way. Even though I will be ready for it, you know, because it's been good and purposeful, that I'll feel like, shh, I wish I had more time.
--:-- Rachel Martin: Yeah. So I'm trying to live my life like that, you know.
--:-- Michelle Obama: Dang it, Michelle. Darn you.
--:-- Rachel Martin: That's your stupid cards. Oh, God. I think she meant stupid as a compliment.
--:-- Michelle Obama: She did. For sure she did. I took it that way. Opened up. You got to open up.
--:-- Rachel Martin: And there's more of this conversation, I believe. Yeah. You can listen to a longer version of that conversation if you search for Wildcard with Rachel Martin in your podcast app.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: And you can even watch a video of that entire episode on YouTube or Spotify.
--:-- Rachel Martin: Rachel, thanks for coming by. It's always great to see you.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Thanks, Rachel.
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--:-- Steve Inskeep: On Fridays, the 1A podcast is all about helping you cut through the info fog and get to what's important in the news. Close out the week with us on our Friday News Roundup. Hear from reporters who've been embedded with the biggest news of the week. Join us every week for the Friday News Roundup.
--:-- A. Martinez: Listen to the 1A podcast from NPR and WAMU.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: On the TED Radio Hour podcast, Astro Teller leads Alphabet's secret lab behind successful projects like self-driving cars and high-profile flops like Google Glass.
--:-- A. Martinez: We were too, too early in that case. The CEO of Alphabet's moonshot factory on innovation and getting the timing right. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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