US/Iran Peace Talks, Hungary Election Preview, Congress Returns Monday

Iran's delegation is there, and so are negotiators for the US. Among them Vice President J. D. Vance, Envoy Steve Whitkoff, and Jared Kushner. I'm Scott Simon. I'm Aisha Roscoe and this is Up First from NPR News. Iran made new demands yesterday, including a ceasefire in Lebanon. We'll have more on the peace talks in just a minute. Yeah. In Hungary, what are voters there telling us about Prime Minister Victor Orban and his younger challenger, Peter Majar?

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Six weeks after the United States and Israel launched a war in Iran, delegations from Tehran and Washington DC are in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad to begin negotiations to end the war. The war has killed thousands of people, mostly in Iran and Lebanon. It sent the price of oil soaring and it's damaged the global economy. NPR's international correspondent Dea Hadid has been following developments from her base in Mumbai. Dea, thanks for being with us. Any developments overnight?

So far each delegation has met with the Pakistani Prime Minister, Shahbar Sharif. Local media reports that the Iranians, who are being led by the Iranian Parliament Speaker, Mohammad Bahir Rhaliba, met with Sharif to determine the timing and manner of negotiations, which suggests there's still no agreement on how the two sides will communicate. And an Iranian government spokeswoman just told State TV that they're negotiating, quote, with their finger on the trigger.

Now, analysts say this is a marathon. Here's Kathy Gannett. She's the former Islamabad bureau chief for the Associated Press. There's not gonna be a settlement today, but there might be an agreement to keep talking. to keep talking. But already, Scott, there's concern that Pakistan might be drawn into the fighting.

And that's because even as Pakistani leaders mediate between the Americans and Iran, the Defence Ministry of Saudi Arabia just announced that a contingent of Pakistani forces had arrived in the kingdom to beef up defences there. That's because the two countries have a defence pact, and it's one reason why Pakistan has been so keen to negotiate an end to this war.

I should add though, regardless of what happens today, this is already historic. It's the first face to face engagement since twenty fifteen. And that's when the Obama administration negotiated a nuclear deal with Iran. That deal was upended by Trump. Do we know at this point what either side is demanding or negotiating? There are various versions of a 10 point plan that is being distributed. Now, what the Iranians say they want.

some of their demands is the release of six billion dollars in frozen assets, an end to a tax. It wants guarantees surrounding its nuclear programme. And it's also demand changes to how shipping happens through the Strait of Ramuz. It appears they want to charge ships for passing through, which is new. And the US is demanding what, do we know? Well, President Trump's demands to end the war, just like his objectives in starting it, have shifted over time. But this is what he told media on Friday.

No nuclear weapon. That's ninety nine percent Ninety nine percent of it. He's also warned Iran that he can resume bombing at any time. But what's interesting here, Scott, is people I'm speaking to say the US really doesn't have a strong upper hand. Like Have a listen to the Islamabad based security analyst, Abd al Lakhan. We have never seen America so isolated in its military adventures. Diplomatically the Americans have lost their clout in the region and in the world. Obviously.

uh there is no match to American military power. But you cannot win the wars uh with just uh use of power. I may sound a bit rude, but Americans turn out to be the losers. Harsh words. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime has withstood for now the decapitation of much of its leadership, and if anything, analystates even more hard line now, and they've effectively seized up the global economy by blocking the Strait of Hormours.

And Scott, I would say you could get a sense of that equality and how the two sides even arrived to Islamabad. Well, dear tell us about that. So the Iranian delegation arrived last night. They were greeted warmly by Pakistan's most powerful man, the army chief, with kisses on the cheeks. The US delegation was given a similar red card but welcome. And it's important to note Pakistan can do this because it has good relations with Iran, the US and China are supporting their efforts.

But even with all these talks will be difficult. I mean, they nearly didn't happen at all. Well how Well, the ceasefire that was announced last Tuesday has been shaky from the get go, over disagreement about whether it includes Lebanon, where there's been fighting between the Iranian proxy, Hezbollah and Leb and Israel. Now what we're hearing today is that the Lebanese and the Israelis are going to speak directly, so potentially we have another historic outcome. From this forty three day war.

And Pierre's Dia Hadid in Islamabad, thank you so much for being with us, Dia. You're welcome, Scott. Thank you.

Polls leading up to Hungary's national election tomorrow signaled trouble for Prime Minister Victor Orban. They show the sixty two year old Orban trailing a younger challenger by double digits. President Trump, a big booster of Orbans, sent Vice President JD Vance to Budapest earlier this week to drum up support.

And I... I stand here today because President Trump and I stand with your We stand for sovereignty, we stand for Hungary, and we stand shoulder to shoulder with the man who has done more to defend those values than anyone else, Victor Oriban. NPR's Rob Schmitz was at the rally where Vice President Vance spoke. He joins us now from Budapest. Rob, thanks for being with us. Morning, Scott. How can you measure the uh effect that Pres Vice President Vance's appearance had on the Hungarian election?

It's hard to measure. You know, I've been speaking to voters in various parts of Hungary this week and for those who support Viktor Orban, they were thrilled that Vice President Vance made this visit to their country. But These are voters who were going to vote for Orban anyway. Uh I did manage to speak to voters who would be, I guess, in the swing voter category. I got the sense that they had already made up their minds and that someone like Vice President Vance was not going to sway them.

Can you tell us why you believe Victor Orban is so far behind in the polls at the moment? Well, in his nearly sixteen straight years in power, Orban has never had a challenger like he has now. And that challenger

is a man named Peter Majar. He's forty five years old and like Orban, he's a conservative. He actually comes from Orban's own party. But unlike Orban, he wants a closer relationship with the European Union and he's made a name for himself Került erről az aljas hatalomról, hogy nem a magyarok érdekeit képviseli, büszkén mondják.

And Scott, he's saying here to his supporters that the vile power of Viktor Orban does not represent the interests of Hungarians. They proudly say they represent Russian interests rather than Hungarian and European interests, he said. And Rob, how close is Viktor Orban to Russia and Vladimir Putin?

Victor Orban and his government are very close ally to the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In fact, in the days leading up to the election, recordings of Orban's foreign minister Petr Gyarto speaking to Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov. were released and they showed Syarto offering to hand over internal EU documents to Lavrov, as well as offering help to lift EU sanctions that are placed against family members of Russian oligarchs.

And that's something that Pedar Majar has called treasonous and it's worth pointing out here that That V Orban's campaign posters throughout Budapest have pictures of a smiling Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky with the words do not let him have the last laugh. Orban has made an enemy. out of Zelensky and blames him for starting the war even though Russia invaded Ukraine in the first place. And what else do uh Hungarians tell you about this election?

Well we've met a lot of voters this past week and I covered the last election here four years ago and I'd say anecdotally I'm finding more and more voters this time around who have who voted for Victor Orban in the past.

who are now changing their votes to Peter Majar because they are fed up with the inflation in this country, the state of the economy, and the politics of Orban. But Orban is a survivor and he's managed to stay in power this long. So it'll be interesting What happens tomorrow night when the votes are counted? NBS Rob Schmitzer will be hosting All Things Considered live from Budapest as votes come in on Sunday, so let's be sure to tune in. Rob, thanks so much for being with us.

Thanks for having me.

Washington DC has had a busy two weeks. But Congress was out of town. They return Monday and they have a short amount of time to get a long list of things done. MPR Congressional Reporter Eric McDaniel is here to talk about it. Hi, Eric. Hey there. So what is on this big to do list?

So President Trump, in addition to all the news he made on Iran last week, once the Department of Homeland Security reopened, I'm sure I don't have to tell anyone you've been hearing about this shutdown for so long, it's become the longest agency shutdown ever.

And there is a plan, first pass a short term bill to fund the whole agency minus immigration enforcement, then go through the longer process of funding all of DHS for the rest of Trump's time in office. Agencies, as you know, are typically just funded for a year at a time, so that's a big deal.

The issue is that this is a plan Republican leaders came up with, and there are a lot of rank and file House Republicans who aren't on board for the short term part of the deal. They're quick to point out that Speaker Mike Johnson himself called it a joke just before they left town. They gotta figure that out to make sure airport security agents and others in the agency get their regular pay, but they've also got another big deadline, right?

Right, and this is huge. They need to renew the government's big spying tool. It's called FISA seven oh two, that is Section seven oh two of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. It expires on April twentieth, that's in just a week or so, and seven oh two lets the government collect the communication of more than three hundred thousand foreign nationals located outside of the United States without a warrant.

those make up a huge part of the details that go into things like Trump's Daily Intelligence briefing. Remind me again why is this so controversial? So it's controversial because those foreign nationals occasionally talk to people here inside the US. And so those communications get scooped up as part of this too.

And usually to read your private communications or mine, law enforcement, in this case the FBI, has to convince a court that there's reason to believe that you may be doing something crooked. That's not so with Visa. There's administrative hurdles that are pretty stringent, but a court doesn't have to give any specific permission for agents to look through your stuff. Well talk to me more about the people who are opposed to that.

So what makes this fun to cover for me is it's not your usual partisan split. It's a different kind of ideological one, namely lawmakers who care a lot about privacy. And you get really weird combinations of folks calling for reform, right? You get the Democratic senator from Washington State working with the Republican Senator from Utah, the Ohio Republican representative working with the California Democrat.

And they actually might have enough support that Speaker Mike Johnson would have to let them propose some changes to the bill before it actually gets renewed. What kind of changes are they looking for? Well the Biggie's a warrant requirement before you can search for Americans information in this big trove of stuff.

The intelligence community and its allies, they hate that one. They say it's way too burdensome, that courts aren't set up for the thousands of asks that would be required, and it could preclude them from doing something like

search to see where an American kidnapping victim is mentioned in terrorist communications, or at the very least slow that process way down. Civil Liberties folks, though, they say that the bar should be high for a search of an American's communication per the Fourth Amendment. And I imagine that lawmakers will have something to say about the war on Iran as well.

They will indeed. Democrats in both chambers are gonna force votes attempting to constrain the president on the war. The constitution, of course, gives Congress the power to declare war, although it hasn't worked that way in practice in a while. Those votes are expected to fail, as have all the past go rounds at this.

But after the president's post about ending Iranian civilization before he announced the ceasefire last week, Democrats have a lot of appetite to put Republicans on the record for supporting the war, which remains really unpopular with the American public. And supporting that war it will likely eventually include voting on whether to approve one point five trillion dollars for the Department of Defense.

Right. The Trump administration recently asked for all that money as the annual appropriations for the Pentagon, and that's a record amount, way more than the government spends on non military discretionary spending. And the thing is we have no idea yet how much of that is aimed just at funding this conflict with Iran specifically. Sounds like you're saying this is gonna be a busy week. I think that's right. That's Congressional Reporter Eric McDaniel. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

And that's up first for Saturday, April eleventh, twenty twenty-six. I'm Scott Simon. And I'm Aisha Roscoe, the thrill seeking Dave Mr. From Fernando Naro, Andy Craig, and Danica Louise Pineda. Our exacting editors include Kate Bartlett, Nick Spicer, Kelsey Stock. Jacob Fenston and Melissa Gray. is our director, the unfaltering and and just smooth Michael Radcliffe. Our technical director is the equally flawless David Gregory. from a team of legends. Simon Laszlo Jansen and Valentina Rosen.

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