Holiday Weekend Politics, Iran Mourns Supreme Leader, US Vs Belgium World Cup Drama

About this episode

America celebrated its 250th birthday against a backdrop of deep division, with white nationalists marching in Washington DC, counter protesters filling the Mall, and President Trump delivering a speech attacking Democrats as communists. <br>Huge crowds are marching through Tehran for the funeral of Iran's former supreme leader as U.S.-Iran talks sit frozen until the mourning ends, while Israel's prime minister heads to Washington to talk with President Trump about Iran and the shaky ceasefires in Lebanon and Gaza. <br>And the U.S. faces Belgium tonight in the World Cup, but the bigger story is off the field, after President Trump called FIFA's president about a red card and the American player's suspension was suddenly lifted.<br/><br/><em>Want more analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? </em><a href="https://www.npr.org/newsletter/news"target="_blank" >Subscribe</a><em> to the Up First newsletter.</em><br/><br/>Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Kelsey Snell, Tina Kraja, Russell Lewis, Mohamed ElBardicy and Lindsay Totty.<br/><br/>It was produced by Ziad Buchh and Ben Abrams.<br/><br/>Our director is Christopher Thomas.<br/><br/>We get engineering support from Stacey Abbott and Eowyn Fain. Our technical director is Damian Herring.<br/><br/>(0:00) Introduction<br>(01:55) Holiday Weekend Politics<br>(06:47) Iran Mourns Supreme Leader<br>(10:27) US Vs Belgium World Cup Drama <br/><br/>See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.<br/><br/><a href="https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy">NPR Privacy Policy</a>