Blinken In Israel, Truth Social Listing, Apple Antitrust Suit

American officials are putting pressure on Israelis as Gaza braces for famine.

We must not allow that to continue.

Donald Trump is ready to sell stock in Truth Social, a trader says Trump's diehard supporters

want to buy.

While fundamentally I don't get it, I'm going to trade it because it's going to move.

How much money could the former president raise to pay his legal costs?

smartphone market.

How might this affect smartphone users, both people who have iPhones and people who don't?

Stay with us.

We'll give you the news you need to start your day.

That's on the TED Radio Hour from NPR.

Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

is killing people, too.

The United Nations and independent experts say famine is imminent in Gaza, where people

have already starved to death.

Here's Blinken last night in Cairo.

Children should not be dying of malnutrition in Gaza or anywhere else for that matter.

A hundred percent of the population of Gaza is experiencing severe levels of acute food

Eya, good morning.

as we just said, doctors and aid workers say many already have.

Is that the focus of this trip?

And I want to mention that this is Mr. Blinken's sixth visit since the October 7th attacks

by Hamas that killed, you know, 1,200 people and where hostages were taken and so forth.

Is that the focus of this trip?

highlight this rift that's growing between the Biden administration and Israel's government,

which is led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Now, what the White House is doing is it's throwing its weight behind ceasefire talks

being mediated by Qatar and Egypt for Hamas to release some of the hostages taken on October

7th in exchange for the release of hundreds of Palestinian captives and to flood Gaza

with aid to stave off looming famine there.

Now, Biden says he hopes a six-week truce could then be extended to basically wind down

this war that's decimated Gaza and killed more than 32,000 people there, according to

the health ministry.

But Israel's government says Hamas operates in Rafah.

That's the southern town where most of Gaza's population have been displaced, and they've

planned a ground operation there.

So another point of Blinken's message is to say this would be a mistake, and he says this

is something the U.S. cannot support.

Where do they stand now?

on the terms of this truce, and the heads of the CIA, Egyptian, and Israeli intelligence

are supposed to be meeting again today in Qatar to talk about that.

Now, Israel says it launched a raid on a key hospital in Gaza City this week where Hamas

had regrouped to pressure those talks.

But regardless, Blinken says a ceasefire cannot be the only way to get aid in to people who

need it in Gaza, and he said, quote, Israel needs to do more.

What has Israel's response been to U.S. calls to do more?

to benefit from it.

Aid groups, though, say it is not nearly enough to feed the population, and now the White

House is urging Israel to loosen its border controls to get that aid that's sitting on

trucks and in warehouses to people starving to death just a few miles away across the

border.

on the ground now in Gaza?

bags of flour, and children just wasting away in hospitals, literally dying of hunger, especially

in the north of Gaza.

The U.N. is looking for better ways to distribute that aid with the help of local police in

Gaza and community leaders, or what they're known as clans or popular committees.

Now, these clans say they're willing to help, but they don't intend to replace Hamas on

the ground and have denounced Israel.

But this week we saw a string of Israeli attacks on these guys, from clan members to senior

police officers whose job it is to oversee the distribution in the north.

Israel says the police are an arm of Hamas, and they didn't respond to our request for

comment on those airstrikes.

Eya, thank you.

That company's shareholders are scheduled to vote on the merger later this morning,

and if it goes through, it sets the stage for stock sales, and Trump stands to make

a lot of money, just as he really needs it.

Good morning.

used yesterday.

Can you explain what's happening here?

It's a shell company.

It was specifically created to merge with Trump's company.

In markets, it's called a backdoor listing.

It's a way to go public in a different way from a traditional IPO.

And later this morning, shareholders need to actually approve the merger.

The big question is if we're going to see enough shareholders show up to vote.

If that goes through, though, that would be fantastic news for President Trump.

He would own over 50% of the new company.

That would be worth over $3 billion.

That's three with a B. A huge chunk of change.

Is Truth Social worth that much?

I mean, let's look at the numbers.

This is a company that only had over $3 million in sales for the first nine months of last year.

That's three with an M this time.

And he lost nearly $50 million.

Nonetheless, the value here is President Trump.

Without Trump, there is no Truth Social.

He has millions of supporters.

And right now, a lot of the shareholders in the deal are believed to be Trump supporters.

They are the true believers.

They are people who want to support Trump no matter what.

And they will happily buy the shares.

And then there are the professional investors like Matthew Tuttle, who runs his own investment firm.

I reached out to him yesterday to see why he's investing in the company.

And he was upfront about it.

He thinks he can make a quick buck.

It's going to have a rabid following.

And it's going to be a fun stock.

That's because under the merger, he has to hold on to his shares for another six months.

But this is Donald Trump.

So, I mean, who knows?

He could work out a side deal with the other shareholders.

Because the bottom line is that he needs to raise money immediately for all his legal cases.

He does have the clock ticking.

This Monday, he has to come up with over $400 million to post bond.

That's for New York's fraud case against him, his family, and the Trump organization.

by next week.

It could be very volatile, I'm told.

But hey, it would now be officially called Trump Media and Technology Group with a new

stock symbol, D-J-T, Donald J. Trump.

Rachel, thank you.

beloved product designs.

to limit competition.

Attorney General Merrick Garland says Apple profits not by making its own products better,

but by making other products worse.

us now from the San Francisco Bay Area to tell us more about it.

Good morning, Wendy.

companies.

But how big of a deal could this be for consumers?

the software behind it, and also all the apps on the iPhone have to go through the App Store,

which Apple controls.

So if the DOJ succeeds in this lawsuit, that could dramatically change how Apple does business,

which could theoretically cause prices to be less for consumers.

suffering from this alleged monopoly.

This is what he said.

discounts and even free phone upgrades with contracts.

I mean, any time you turn on the television, you see those.

So how does the DOJ argue that we're actually paying more money for their iPhones because

of Apple's business practices?

also sells all these accessories with the phone.

So if you're an Apple user and you're going to use a smartwatch, you probably are going

to buy an Apple Watch, and Apple Watches only work with iPhones.

So if one wanted to buy a Google phone, all of a sudden you have to buy a new smartwatch

because your Apple Watch won't work with the Google phone.

And so I think that's one way in which the DOJ is arguing that stifles competition.

The other way is in the App Store itself, that Apple takes a up to 30% cut of the App

Store subscriptions and in-app purchases, and many developers pass on that cost to consumers.

how Apple does business, and also says it could hinder its ability to create the type

of technology that people expect from Apple.

of how consumers might benefit?

on apps.

Also that some of the functionality between iPhone users and Android users, such as when

Apple users use iMessage to message Android users, that green message that you get on

your iMessage, that might change.

That functionality might improve.

And it's also possible that Apple might open up its App Store to other types of apps that

the DOJ is alleging that it hasn't really been open to.

And here's what I want to mention.

Apple is a financial supporter of NPR, but we very obviously cover them as we cover any

other company.

That is LA Times reporter Wendy Lee.

Wendy, thank you so much.

I'm Michelle Martin.

Today's Up First was edited by Mark Katkoff, Julia Redpath, Alice Wolfley, and Ben Adler.

It was produced by Ziad Butch, Ben Abrams, and Taylor Hayden.

We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott, and our technical director is Zach Colman.

Join Up First this weekend with Scott Simon and Ayesha Roscoe, and we'll see you back

here on Monday.

The U.S. currently makes zero of the world's leading-edge semiconductor chips.

By 2030, the Biden administration wants to make a fifth of them.

How will America get there?

Listen to Consider This.