Haiti Instability, Fani Willis Stays on the Case, Israel Plans For Rafah Invasion

force from Kenya that has yet to arrive.

District Attorney Fawny Willis stays on the election interference case in Georgia against

former President Donald Trump.

relationship with needed to step aside.

We'll explain in a moment.

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the British, the French, to the Americans.

All of this has contributed to the problems we're seeing in Haiti now.

International discussions are focused on how to stabilize a nation that's effectively on

its knees.

Ader, thanks for being with us.

They must be getting very weary.

I was talking to Jasmeh Fafa, an employee of a bus company here, and the routes to Port-au-Prince

have been suspended because gangs have taken over the highway, but they're about to try

to send their first bus out tomorrow.

And the price has gone from about 300 Haitian gourds to 800.

And that's not because of inflation, but because of the many bribes that gangs are now demanding

along the route.

Let's listen.

We are now traveling because we are paying them, and so we are paying them another bus

to go through.

The fact that it's like that, we somewhat accept it, but we don't like it because we're

not really living.

I've heard that so much here, Scott, like we're not really living.

Fafa said they don't know when a gang can open fire on a bus, but it's so much more,

he said.

There's no water, no electricity, everything is more expensive.

This is not a life, he says.

Who or what kind of leadership might then try to preside over Haiti?

The international community presented a plan that forms a nine-person transitional council,

which would ultimately elect a transitional prime minister.

The political parties in the country have started naming members to that commission,

CARICOM, which is the organization of Caribbean states, said a majority of the nine parties

had presented nominations.

But at the same time, after what seemed like a lull in violence, the gangs have responded

by launching renewed attacks in Port-au-Prince.

Earlier this week, they attacked the airport again, they burnt down the house of the police

chief, and last night, local news in Haiti were reporting heavy fighting in Basse-Del-Masse.

This is an area completely controlled by a federation of gangs, including the gang of

Jimmy Charizé, who is known as Barbecue, and he is one of Haiti's most notorious gangsters.

Local news reports that they were trading fire with police throughout the night.

With no government in place, the UN approved a Kenyan peacekeeping force, but that has

been delayed over and over.

In fact, Kenya said they cannot send a force in right now, and that they won't do it until

the country has a new prime minister.

And yesterday, the president of Kenya, William Ruto, added yet one more hurdle to the deployment.

He said that the Kenyan peacekeepers will not deploy until the country has led a, quote,

reconnaissance mission so his police would be adequately informed and prepared for deployment.

So we don't know when that will happen.

Donald Trump, has stepped down.

to leave the case because of a perceived conflict of interest.

And Pierre, senior political editor and correspondent, Domenico Montanaro, joins us now.

Domenico, thanks so much for being with us.

Great to be with you.

2020 election results in Georgia.

Does the departure of the special prosecutor affect the underlying case?

That's the first and most important thing, I suppose.

But it's really been such a delay that really the DA, Fannie Willis, is really fighting

the clock here.

You know, they've spent two months on this side motion, this hearing about her ethics

in this case.

And, you know, Trump and his co-defendants may even appeal.

This is a really widespread RICO case.

It's a lot of defendants.

It's really hard to get it all done in time for the November election.

And Trump's team, as we've seen, has been very effective at drawing these trials out,

trying to push them over the edge for the November 5th election.

And it's really not clear at all that this case is even going to get to a trial before

November, and really not at all what, politically, Democrats thought that they would be seeing

when it came to these four criminal trials against former President Trump.

presidential nominees this week.

You've been looking at third-party candidates.

What do you see?

election because, you know, former President Trump didn't get above 47% in either 2016

or 2020.

He won winning in 2016 when the third-party vote was more than 6%.

He lost in 2020 when the third-party vote was less than 2%.

So, you know, it really opens up a path for Trump because he has such a strong base of

support, whereas President Biden is fighting on a couple of fronts here.

He's fighting his left flank, who is not happy with him, progressives on a lot of different

things, in particular younger voters when it comes to his handling of the war in Gaza.

And then you have these third-party candidates like, in particular, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,

who polls had shown it wasn't clear who he would pull from and still is sort of showing

some of that.

But when I talked to the campaign earlier this week, I was struck by the issue set that

they're running on.

And we're talking about, you know, being anti-corruption, anti-war, pro-environment.

Those are all very progressive policy sets.

And when one of his spokespeople talked to me about the kinds of people they're seeing

at these rallies, young people, they poll best with people under 35.

And they said they've been hearing from a lot of liberals who were Bobby Furious and

are now, quote, Bobby Curious.

And that's really interesting because he's not running on his false vaccine platform

where he believes that vaccines were, you know, our big problem.

He's running on these other things which really could pull from Biden.

Former Vice President Mike Pence said yesterday he can't endorse Trump.

How damaging might this be to Donald Trump?

I mean, you know, Pence represents sort of an old guard.

And, you know, the Never Trump movement sort of needs a dam in the river.

And this is more of a pebble.

And, you know, Pence didn't make any mention of January 6th, only that Trump is not conservative

enough, unlike the way that they had governed over four years, when really nothing's really

much changed with Trump.

and criticized Prime Minister Netanyahu as a roadblock for American politics.

Is there a calculation here?

essentially saying that this was a good speech.

And when you think about what Schumer might be doing here, you know, he is somebody who

has been an ally of Israel and of Netanyahu for a long time.

So for him to come out this way might be a little bit of cover for Biden, as with what

we were talking about, with Biden needing to shore up some of his left flank.

And because Biden hasn't been able to really change the calculation in Israel for them

to pull back with how they're approaching the war in Gaza.

saying it would create an even bigger humanitarian catastrophe.

Fatma, thanks so much for being with us.

Thank you for having me.

with an invasion of Rafah, where nearly 1.4 million Palestinians are crammed in after

being displaced from other areas.

Netanyahu said that the military was also preparing to evacuate most of that population

to what he called humanitarian islands in the middle of the Gaza Strip.

Now, there's been a lot of international pressure on Israel to refrain from invading

the south.

But Israel says Hamas is still active there.

And it's unclear when this invasion would happen and also the exact details of what

these humanitarian islands would look like.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said yesterday that the U.S.

wants to see a clear and implementable plan for a Rafah invasion that would get civilians

out of harm's way and also see that they have shelter, food and medicine, and that

the U.S.

has not seen such a plan yet.

Scott, this announcement was also seen by some as a bargaining chip for possible ceasefire

negotiations.

elections in Israel being received there?

Benny Gantz, Netanyahu's political rival, polls show him as winning if an early election

were to happen.

And he said that external intervention in Israel's domestic affairs was unacceptable.

Israel's ambassador to D.C., Michael Herzog, also called the comments counterproductive.

Of course, the U.S.

is still continuing its unconditional military aid to Israel.

One thing that's important to remember, Scott, is that even as there are many people in Israel

also calling for early elections to oust Netanyahu, the majority of Israeli public support some

of Israel's war policies, such as eliminating Hamas, and also don't want to see humanitarian

aid flowing into Gaza.

It's been shipped from Cyprus.

And Scott, you know, it's still a trickle compared to what's actually needed.

Yesterday, UNICEF came out with a report that said that the number of children with acute

malnutrition in Gaza had doubled in just one month, and that it's spreading fast and in

unprecedented levels across the Gaza Strip.

They're warning of severe wasting among older children as well, and highlighting the need

for immediate and consistent access to nutritious food.

And aid groups say that these sea routes and the airdrops, while helpful, just won't get

it done.

Here's Kieran Donnelly.

He's a head of crisis response for the International Rescue Committee.

to bringing aid in by road can be lifted, and if the fighting can stop.

And those two things are entirely within the power of decision makers in the Israeli authorities

and their international partners to bring about.

And so far, there's still only one Israeli border crossing with Gaza that's open.

Thanks so much for being with us.

I'm Aisha Roscoe.

And it's a fine finger at that because he's our director.

Our technical director is Hannah Glovna with engineering support from Carly Strange, Nisha

Hines, and Phil Edfors.

Their movements are balletic behind the control room glass.

Sarah Oliver is our executive producer.

And Jim Kane is our deputy managing editor.

We hear NPR's Leila Fadl reporting on a Palestinian college student who has been sending her voice

memos and a family who escaped the war only to find that it followed them home.

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